Shown: January 6, 2011 at 6pm
Director : Luchino Visconti
Country : Italy
Release Date : 1963
Duration : 187 mins
Language : Italian
Subtitles : Yes
WINNER : PALME D’OR AT 1963 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
Arguably Luchino Visconti’s best film and certainly the most personal of his historical epics, The Leopard chronicles the fortunes of Prince Fabrizio Salina and his family during the unification of Italy in the 1860s. Based on the acclaimed novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the picture opens as Salina (Burt Lancaster) learns that Garibaldi’s troops have embarked in Sicily. While the Prince sees the event as an obvious threat to his current social status, his opportunistic nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) becomes an officer in Garibaldi’s army and returns home a war hero and begins courting the beautiful Angelica (Claudia Cardinale).
“Burt Lancaster is magnificent in the first of his patriarchal roles, and the rest of the cast, especially Delon and Cardinale, become almost perfect incarnations of the novel’s characters.” (Rotten Tomatoes website)