The Leopard - Criterion Collection |  | Actors: Luchino Visconti, Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon
Studio: Criterion
Category: DVD
List Price: $49.95
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Rating:  107 reviews
Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Italian (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Discs: 3
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 3
Running Time: 187 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.1
MPN: 715515015226
ISBN: 1559409509
UPC: 715515015226
EAN: 9781559409506
Theatrical Release Date: July 15, 1963
Release Date: June 8, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
After the reunification of Italy, an aging Sicilian prince sees his influence slipping away, the growth of national movements and his nephew's attempt
Amazon.com
With this magnificent Criterion DVD release, Luchino Visconti's 1963 historical drama The Leopard will finally earn widespread recognition as one of the most beautiful epics ever produced. In adapting the popular novel by Giuseppe Tomassi di Lampedusa (an Italian equivalent to Gone with the Wind, set during the tumultuous Garibaldi revolution of 1860-62), Visconti was initially reluctant to cast Burt Lancaster as the melancholy Prince of Salina--the aging aristocrat "leopard" of the title--who accepts change as inevitable during the struggle for a unified Italy. But Lancaster (even with his voice dubbed in the fully restored Italian release) delivered one of his finest performances, modeled after Visconti himself, and reacting to political and familial upheavals with the wisdom and whimsy of a man who knows that his way of life--and all he holds dear--must change with the times. You won't find a more intimate epic, and Giusseppe Rotunno's masterful cinematography represents the pinnacle of painterly beauty, matched only by the authentic splendor of the film's impeccable production design. The climactic hourlong ballroom scene--which even the hard-to-please Pauline Kael called "one of the greatest of all passages in movies"--is utterly breathtaking. Anchored by Lancaster's performance and the romantic pairing of Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, The Leopard is sheer perfection, fully restored to its 185-minute glory. --Jeff Shannon
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 100
 Sumptuous Rendering August 16, 2010
T. Casey
Excellent film capturing the days before unification of Italy. Such a beautiful epic sprawling with sumptuous scenery, costumes and witty dialogue, but it also was very intimate and immediate, drawing the viewers in as one of the extended family members. Burt Lancaster did an excellent job of capturing the melancholic inevitability of the oncoming sea-change. Do not be put off by the subtitles (one should always watch foreign films with subtitles, not dubbed) or the length - you will be absolutely enthralled with the film and you will hardly notice anything else except the spectacle unfolding on the screen.
 Boring and repetitive August 7, 2010
Sheila Kwartler (MA USA)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
While this movie may be considered a work of art by some, for the most part I found it boring and unecessarily repetitive. The message of the movie is "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." The more things change, the more they remain the same. That message is relayed in one scene. The rest of the movie can go into the dumper.
The Leopart (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] July 31, 2010
Norbie (Oz)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very beautiful release. The transfer of the original release is one of the finest restorations to be seen. The special features are already mentioned on this page so there is no need to repeat. As with all film, each to their own. Me? I loved it. Going into watching it for the first time i was preparing myself for a long and slow hog, but that never happend. Despite the 3 hour running time you never feel that this is going on for too long. I never looked at a clock to see how much longer the movie had to go.
The production was beautiful. With Burt Lancaster in the film, the producers had Americal money. You see where every cent went. The costumes looked real, if a dress looked like it was made of leather, than it was. Silk was silk and not some cheap imitation. Being filmed in Italy, there was plenty of real life mensions to shoot in, no need to once again with cheap imitations. This film looks beautiful because everything that was shot was beautiful. (sorry about the pretensiousness)
Italy is renouned for great directiors, but when it comes to actors, that's a different story. However, for this film we are assured that the actors included are more than excellent, and so is their performances. The only thing that lets it down is the dubbing. Any fans of Italian cinema knows what a mean. An example is Lancesters dubbing. He speaks in English but his voiced is dubbed in Italian (I'm talking about he unedited version) so all the mouth flaps feels fake. But after a while you get over it.
If you have an opportunity please check out the film. If you decide to purchse the movie do not go past The Criterion Collection version, especially the Blu-ray, if you have the hardware.
Enjoy
Beautifully Magnificent July 9, 2010
Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"The Leopard"
Beautifully Magnificent
Amos Lassen
I just finished watching the Criterion Bluray release of Luchino Visconti's "The Leopard" and it is even more magnificent than when I first saw it.
Prince Salina is tired and waiting for the day when he'll be t destroyed. Where once his farms and orchards drew out the boundaries of his kingdom, now rebellion changes the rules of order and nobility no longer has a place. He is a fixture in a dying dwelling that no one wants. In Luchino Visconti's operatic masterpiece, The Leopard, Prince Salina is the title titan, once he had been a beast of a man and now he is about to be reduced by fate to a member of the disappearing ruling class.
"The Leopard", Luchino Visconti's epic masterwork of the upper class in decay and a country in conflict, is a movie so rich, so dense with detail and social significance that it cannot be absorbed all at once. At first, the viewer is captivated by the opulent splendor of the sets and locations (the mountains and vistas of Sicily have never looked this beautiful). The story is intricate as told by Visconti and his screenwriters, as they match history with myth and real life with fantasy to create a tale of change that is epic in scope and seems to suggest more than a mere motion picture. The performances of Burt Lancaster (as the Prince), Alain Delon (as his conniving nephew Tancredi), and Claudia Cardinale (easy on the eyes as well as the acting aesthetics), managed and manipulated by Visconti's masterful hand are stunning.
The story is told in three distinct segments. First, the director lays the foundation for the story -we feel as if a blanket of rights and duties has been thrown over us and within the first twenty minutes, we are introduced to the Salina family, learn of Garibaldi's landing in Sicily, see the young Tancredi join the rebellion, witness the bloodshed over Palermo, and learn of the family's traditional trip to Donnafugata, a hastily arranged holiday. Mixed in are the Prince's love of prostitutes, his fascination with science, and his sly, almost sinister efforts behind the scenes. We get a bedrock of narrative tension and a stream of stories that will eventually swallow those who participate. Act two takes us on the trip to Donnafugata, a small village high in the hills and we meet the remainder of the cast, the nuevo riche Mayor, Don Calogero Sedara, his fetching daughter Angelica, and the rest of the locals who are eager to help the Salina family as the rebellion moves across the country. It is here that connections are created -- the lovers and the outcasts and the dutiful and the dilettante. When Tancredi rejects the Prince's daughter, Conchetta, for the far more exciting and fertile Angelica, a regular story would set off a string of misunderstandings and violations of the honor code that would require the saving of face and the demanding of retaliation. But that is not what happens here. Instead, the impending marriage is embraced, Prince Salina sees a chance for his favored family member (even over his own sons) to escape the kind of loveless, sexless marriage in which he himself has resorted to infidelity over the many years.
But the real thrill of "The Leopard" is a 55-minute dress ball where the layers of lies, deceptions, promises, payoffs, tributes, temptations, politics, personalities, philosophies, and traditions come crashing down around the Prince and his insular world.
Prince Don Fabrizio Salina, aging ruler on the tiny island of Sicily. Among the landed gentry, of which he is a high-ranking member, Prince Salina's cunning and craft are legendary. He is known for decisive yet deceptive strategies, using all information and elements at his disposal to plot his actions. He is filled with temper and passion, but his demeanor is captivating and suave. He holds true to the old traditions while dabbling in new studies like astronomy. He wants to feel connected to both the superstitions of religious tradition while embracing the realms of science. He is the guardian of Italian history and culture, a ferocious protector of the values in the past.
But inside the civil unrest of 1860s Italy, Prince Salina is a dying breed, a marked man whose power and position are blamed, as with all other royalty and nobility, of keeping the country away from its people. Lead by the charismatic revolutionary Garibaldi, civilians are rebelling against a class-based system, one filled with feudal lords (of which Prince Salina is one) and divergent national interests (at this time, three conflicting parties rule the country: the Royalists, the Republicans, and the Nationalists). The people dream of a unified Italy -- a land where all citizens are equal.
It's the final class struggle between the privileged and the impoverished that makes up the majority of the thematic resonance in "The Leopard". What "The Leopard" demonstrates is that, once autonomy and self-rule are tasted by the oppressed masses, it is a hard habit for them to forgo.
Visconti is a master of imagery, using the power in iconography and the emotion in artistry. His cinematic canvas is filled with outrageous riches, frescoes, and friezes marking time, place, and person perfectly. His camera glides effortlessly around and in between scenes, playing spectator to the situations occurring. Occasionally his lens is the eye of God, looking down and judging his flock. At other times, it's an intimate, a confidant given snatches of information or the ability to eavesdrop on essential elements of the plot.
"The Leopard" is a time capsule to an era that no one thought would ever end. However, change was going to happen whether they liked it or wanted it. The seeds of distress were planted, and the the disenfranchised had been abused long enough. The people who made it possible for the rich to wallow in their decadent lifestyles were fed up and fighting. Even as they attended to their protocol and refined their manners, doom seeped into the soil and spoiled the country for anyone of noble birth. To say anymore does not do justice to this gorgeous film. This is something you must see for yourself.
 The leopard or the tortoise? June 15, 2010
Odo of Venafro (Minneapolis)
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
You are not going to believe this folks, out there in Amazon land. But I had a little problem with this film. It certainly does not have the intensity of say: Kurosawa's "Ran". Although it does have a brief battle sequence. And I would like to refer to other reviews on Amazon. By the way, by the number of reviews, it seems people have been waiting a long time to see this film. I gather it was never available on VHS? One reviewer on Amazon, "Amazonian", says: if you are looking for "plot driven" films. And another, "Thomas Plotkin", calls it: "nuanced". But moreover, I had a problem with another legendary, and long film, none other than-"La Dolce Vita". Am I the type of person who prefers films like: "Il Bidone" (The Swindle) or "Nights of Cabiria" to "La Dolce Vita"? So is my problem with "The Leopard" analogous to my problem with "La Dolce Vita"? Do I prefer the eroticism of "Senso" to the plodding of "The Leopard"? Although, this is funny because I enjoy reading long books, and enjoy other long films. Furthermore, to address some concrete issues. I felt Burt Lancaster looked too old at times. And I also had a problem with the ending. Prince Salina literally is becoming ill at the end? So he is not only the emblem of a dying era, he is dying himself? And Cowie's commentary does not help here. So get back to me. Share your thoughts. Thank You
Showing reviews 1-5 of 100
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