The Leopard
Director: Luchino Visconti
Year Released: 1963
Rating: 2.0
Finding this to be a 'masterpiece' is contingent primarily on how you view the Burt Lancaster character - a Nietzchesque manipulator obsessed with tradition - and identify/sympathize with his plight. I did not, and found this to be relatively rough-going cinema, visually resplendent but with a strong tendency towards preachy discourse and tired political debate - if 'mature' means 'dull' then this certainly fits. I was never entirely convinced that any of these people mattered - especially not on-edge, power-mad Alain Delon or his cackling mistress Claudia Cardinale; the costumes are more compelling and more 'human' than the living matter inhabiting them.
