DVDs in Review

The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)

Title: The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963)

Release date: June 12 2010

Certificate: PG

Format: Blu-ray

RRP: £19.99

Rating: 5/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

‘The Leopard’ takes its time. It’s a hesitant movie about a hesitant man. Set in the 1860s amid a crumbling Sicilian landscape, Luchino Visconti’s sumptuous take on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's classic novel runs around the three hour mark and contains one ballroom scene over half an hour long. Like its lead character, you’ll need patience.

Burt Lancaster is bizarrely (yet very effectively) cast as an ageing Italian aristocrat Prince Don Fabrizio Salina – a man who is well aware that the need for noblemen such as himself is rapidly dwindling thanks to Garibaldi's upheaval of society and radical Italian Nationalism. The balance of power is shifting but can an ageing, traditionalist leopard change its spots? 

The prince notes: ”We were the leopards, the lions, those who take our place will be jackals and sheep, and the whole lot of us - leopards, lions, jackals and sheep - will continue to think ourselves the salt of the earth.” He speaks eloquently, his graciousness is never in question, he exudes class but he’s being thwarted by history. Times are changing and he’s being left behind. He must either give up on the tradition that built his heritage or steps down.

Meanwhile the Prince’s nephew, Tancredi Falconeri (Alain Delon) is also in the same position, but being younger and more engaging attempts to bring his family’s name back to greatness by marrying the wealthy Angelica Sedara (Claudia Cardinale) who happens to be the daughter of Don Calogero Sedara who made a fortune from capitalising on the violent change being swept in by Garibaldi’s Redshirts.

Tancredi also has a way with words, although he uses fewer: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” He, and his stunningly beautiful new wife, are set to become the succeeding generation leaving the Prince misplaced, but no members of this family trio are heroes or villains – they’re all just surviving one way or another.

Visconti knows that this is a story that simmers under the radar, getting by on abstract ponderings rather than full blown battle sequences. Similarly his actors act with their eyes and slights of expression, in keeping with their buttoned down tradition. It makes for a beautiful, almost dreamlike film to watch especially on the wonderfully restored BFI Blu-ray packed with a surprising amount of detail for a film pushing 50.