Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.
Evidently, I’m on something of a Visconti kick at the moment, having watched two of his films in less than a week. Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) is one that I’ve put off for a while; finding it in a local library this time marks the second or third time I’ve had the film in my possession. I determined to watch it this time, and did. It’s longer than other Visconti films I’ve seen, but doesn’t specifically feel longer. It’s a good 40 minutes longer than Ossessione but feels about the same length. This is probably more because I knew where Ossessione was going from the start, and had no such prior knowledge of Il Gattopardo.
It feels very different from other Visconti films. For one thing, it’s in luxurious color instead of the stark black-and-white I’m used to from him. Second, and more significantly, we are no longer enmeshed in the plots and desires of the common people. It’s almost as if Visconti decided to walk away from neo-realism not at a saunter but at a full gallop, running so far away from the common man that he ended up mired in the Italian aristocracy of 100 years previous. There are no sparse meals or hungry children here; instead, it’s all sumptuous banquets, balls, and a heaping dose of war and political intrigue.
