1900 (film)

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Movie
German title 1900
Original title Novecento
Country of production Italy , France , Germany
original language Italian
Publishing year 1976
length 316 (PAL 302) minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Bernardo Bertolucci
script Franco Arcalli
Bernardo Bertolucci
Giuseppe Bertolucci
production Alberto Grimaldi
music Ennio Morricone
Giuseppe Verdi
camera Vittorio Storaro
cut Franco Arcalli
occupation

1900 is an Italian drama movie from 1976 . The original name of the film is Novecento (Italian: 20th century ).

The five-hour monumental film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci tells the story of the ambivalent friendship of a farm laborer's son and the son of the landowner, who was born on the same day, against the background of Italian history in the first half of the 20th century. In particular, the development towards and in Italian fascism is described from two different perspectives.

The film was published in Germany as a two-parter, which is also known under the alternative titles 1900 - 1st part: violence, power, passion and 1900 - 2nd part: fight, love, hope .

action

overview

The story of two boys born on the same day - January 27, 1901, the anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi's death - in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna is told: Alfredo Berlinghieri, the son of a wealthy landowner, and Olmo Dalcò, the son of a farm laborer. At birth, both life goals are given: Alfredo should become a lawyer and landlord, Olmo should serve him like his father and grandfather. The First World War , Italy's first agricultural workers' strike and the global economic crisis soon lead to major changes. Olmo becomes politically active as a socialist , while the landowner Alfredo becomes a bohemian who despises the fascism of Mussolini in the form of the landlord Attila and his lover Regina, but lets them go.

The enigmatic Ada acts between the two men, who eventually marries Alfredo but sympathizes with Olmo's political goals. Ada and Olmo have to flee while the fascists set up a concentration camp-like regime on the estate. After the liberation in 1945, the returned Olmo saves Alfredo from being sentenced by the agricultural labor tribunal. The rivalry between the two antipodes continues anyway.

narrative

The story takes place on the Berlinghieri estate in Emilia. It starts at the beginning of the 20th century. The town's hunchback, named “Rigoletto” after a character from a Verdi opera, because of his passion for singing, runs through the fields and shouts “Verdi is dead!”, Thus establishing the beginning date of the filmic narrative: Giuseppe Verdi died on January 27, 1901. Two children are born on the same day: Olmo, the illegitimate son of the farm worker Rosina Dalcò, and Alfredo, the son of the landlord Giuseppe Berlinghieri. While Olmo is the first to be born, Giuseppe's father, the old landlord Alfredo Berlinghieri, impatiently awaits the birth of his hoped-for ancestor. He finally celebrates this by bringing sparkling wine to the farm workers in the fields and asking them to drink with him. The celebratory mood of their landlord is coolly received by the men harvesting grain.

Her foreman is Olmo's uncle Leo. There is a certain human intimacy between him and old Alfredo, although they - one of the landlords, the other leader of the farm laborers - quarrel. Old Alfredo is frustrated by his impotence, he orders a working girl to masturbate him in the cowshed - unsuccessfully - by hand and hangs himself in the stable. His son Giuseppe appears authoritarian as a landlord towards his employees. The young Alfredo and Olmo grow up on the estate in separate circles, one lives as a spoiled future landlord in fine clothes in the villa, the other hangs around in the stables and in the fields of the estate, fatherless, but under his care Uncle Leo. Nevertheless, a tense friendship develops between Olmo and Alfredo, which consists of fights and mutual adventures in which the courageous Olmo Alfredo impresses.

Alfredo imitates Olmo's test of courage to let a train pass over him while lying between the tracks. But despite all the chum, like comparing penises, there is always the certainty that Alfredo will one day be Olmo's boss. Olmo moved into the First World War in 1917 and returned from the fight, Alfredo served as an officer in a relatively safe manner. The situation on the Berlinghieri estate is now unsettled: Giuseppe rejects wage claims and introduces agricultural machinery, which the workers see as a threat. A strike during harvest time demonstrates to the landlord that he is still completely dependent on his employees in the early stages of agricultural mechanization. The workforce is now increasingly politicized by the "Lega", the organization of the workers' movement, for which Olmo's wife Anita works as a teacher. Red flags and hammer-and-sickle symbols indicate communist orientation. Giuseppe calls the police against the strikers. But the mounted troop breaks off an attack on the house of one of the strike leaders when women and children get in the way. The landlords therefore abuse the police officers as cowards. They gather to find remedial action against the unruly workers on their own - without the state. Giuseppe's foreman Attila offers to put together a group of people to put pressure on the workers. The landlords give him money for it. Those who do not participate are excluded. This scene is the key scene in Bertolucci's portrayal of the rise of fascism: the landlords buy the fascist thugs to fight workers' socialism. Attila becomes the leader of the Black Shirts.

Alfredo has little interest in business or politics and is disgusted by his father. He is fascinated by the world of his uncle Ottavio, a dandy esthete who lives from the money he has been given from his brother Giuseppe. Giuseppe had forged old Alfredo's will in his own favor in order to exclude Ottavio from managing the estate. Ottavio lives in an Art Nouveau villa, surrounded by works of art in an atmosphere of aestheticism and free spirit. There Alfredo meets the mysterious Ada. Upon the death of his father, Alfredo becomes a landlord, and on the same day he announces his intention to marry Ada. He lets Attila and his black shirts do theirs. On Alfredo and Ada's wedding day, Regina, who feels neglected towards Ada, gets involved with Attila. Attila rapes Patrizio, the son of a landowner, forces him to witness their sexual intercourse and then kills him in a sadistic attack. Patrizio's father, of all people, had supported the establishment of the black shirts as a measure against the farm workers. This makes it clear that the old guard of landowners cannot control the brutality of the fascists they have called and is ultimately powerless against it. When Patrizio is found murdered, Attila accuses Olmo of murder. Even when Olmo is brutally beaten up by the Black Shirts, Alfredo does not intervene. He saw Ada and Olmo come out of the forest together and disapproves of Olmo's proximity to his wife. Olmo is only saved when a prowling homeless man suddenly shows up and declares, for no apparent reason, that he murdered the boy. The homeless person is sent to prison. It is later suggested that he observed Attila laying down the corpse.

Ada becomes estranged from Alfredo, succumbs to alcohol and sympathizes with Olmo and his daughter. Thereupon Alfredo confronts Olmo, while Olmo holds him responsible for the crimes of the black shirts. Attila expands his power as an estate manager and rises up in society: Before the Christmas service, he murders the widow Pioppi and appropriates her villa. He wants to sell Olmo as a groom to another landlord, whereupon the farm workers pelt Attila with horse manure. Olmo flees from the manor; Attila takes revenge for the humiliation by ravaging Olmo's apartment with his black shirts. Alfredo becomes a witness, finally pulls himself up from his passivity towards the black shirts and dismisses Attila. When he tries to tell Ada this, in the hope of regaining her respect, he comes too late: she has left, left him and does not appear again in the film. The balance of power between Alfredo and Attila is unclear: Attila sets up a fenced-in prison in the manor where he pens, tortures and shoots farm workers.

With a rainbow over a spring landscape, the "day of liberation" from fascism is staged on a large scale. The farm workers drive away the black shirts. Attila and Regina are imprisoned and mistreated, Attila is shot. Olmo returns and gathers the farm workers around him. In a central scene, the only one in which Olmo speaks directly into the camera, i.e. to the cinema audience as well as to the farm workers, the historical context is once again clearly emphasized: Fascism was 'bought in' by the landlords in order to to oppress the farm workers. A teenage boy with a rifle, emulating the partisans, discovers Alfredo in the stable; The lord of the manor is brought to trial on the farm under the direction of Olmos. The execution of the death sentence is averted by Olmo by saying: "the padrone is dead", the character of the landlord has died. Representatives of the new government coming from outside induce the reluctant farm workers to surrender their weapons. The power of the farm workers over the manor is thus ended. Alfredo, who has just escaped execution, replies to Olmo: “the padrone is alive” and thus makes it clear that social conditions will not really change in 1945. The last scene shows the frail old men Olmo and Alfredo fighting on a walk. While Olmo is watching, Alfredo now lies down on the tracks instead of between them, remembering the child's test of courage . The train, decorated with red flags, rolls unchecked through the picture, and you can see Alfredo lying between the tracks as a boy, just as he was back then.

music

Ennio Morricone used some well-known melodies from Verdi operas for the soundtrack . A cantata composed by himself became the hymn of the Spanish socialists .

Remarks

1900 aroused excitement, among other things, with its sexually explicit scenes. The scene in which Stefania Casini masturbates the erect penises of the leading actors Robert De Niro and Gérard Depardieu at the same time caused a stir . The unfiltered sight of masturbation infuriated an Italian librarian so much that seeing the movie before the premiere allegations of pornography on the index was put whatever after one of Benito Mussolini adopted law that allowed even a single citizen, a movie forbid was allowed. The law was then changed. The corresponding scene cannot be seen in full length in all versions of the film.

The film was also accused of child pornography. Roberto Maccanti, who plays the young Olmo, can be seen in a short scene with an erect penis. In another, less explicit scene, the old - and impotent - landowner played by Burt Lancaster lets himself be touched by a pubescent girl in his open trousers in the cattle shed.

One of the main characters, the noble Regina played by Laura Betti , who bears the Italian name for Queen, enters into an alliance with the sadistic fascist Attila ( Donald Sutherland ) in the epic . The heroine of the film, Ada ( Dominique Sanda ), reacts to Regina's humiliation by showering Regina with wine and christening her with the name “Fettsau”. At the end of the film, Regina is - stung by pitchforks - in a pig pit (where she will be tried) and begging to be killed. Old Padrone Burt Lancaster hangs himself in a cattle stall; this is an example of the metaphor of film. Another hidden metaphor is the temporal link between the chapters of the story and the four seasons: summer for the youth of the two main characters, autumn for the creeping fall of feudal rule, winter for fascism and spring for the new beginning.

"For Bertolucci, these two figures, Olmo and Alfredo, whom he portrays with the same concern, are 'a bit the two faces of one and the same person', symbolic figures of 'a social dialectic, characters through which one can look into the interior of the century '. The utopian message of' 1900 'is supposed to be that the 20th century is' the century in which the figure of the owner dies, as a social individual and as a social fact'. [...] Bertolucci [trusts] optimistic, and that is what his film should speak for, on the 'indispensable conquests of the working and peasant class, which will forever prevent the return of fascism in Italy'. "

The film, which lasts five and a half hours, was split into two parts by the distributor. The first part is called Violence, Power, Passion and was released in October 1976. The second part followed in December and was titled Struggle, Love, Hope .

The first part of the film received an FSK 18 rating, the second an FSK 16. In 2013, the first part was re-examined and is now also released uncut from 16 years of age.

The film was shot in Emilia (in Roncole Verdi near Busseto , Province of Parma and in Guastalla , Province of Reggio Emilia ). The song La Lega can be heard at the beginning of the film .

criticism

“First part of a monumental interpretation of Italian history since the turn of the century. In fascinating, often lyrically inspired images, the film describes the life stories of two friends who grew up on the same estate from a class-struggle perspective, one as the son of the rulership, the other as the child of farm workers. In a somewhat schematic way, the main characters are made into exponents of social and political conflicts, in which the roles are allocated in advance and the sympathies are clearly assigned. "

“The second part of Bertolucci's historical painting describes the 1930s and the emerging barbarism of the fascists, the liberation celebrations in 1945 and the reorganization of farm workers as a political force. The decadence of the haves and the blatantly played out nefariousness of the black shirts ostensibly dominate the description, which is no longer quite as balanced and composed as in the first part. Politically, Bertolucci relativizes his interpretation of the development in an ironic conclusion. "

- Lexicon of International Films, Part Two

Awards

The film 1900 received the Danish Bodil Award for best European film in 1977 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate for 1900 . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry, January 2013 (PDF; 1900 - part 1).
  2. Release certificate for 1900 . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry, March 2013 (PDF; 1900 - part 2).
  3. Probably a historical inaccuracy, since the 1901 vintage was not drafted in Italy during the First World War
  4. Musica da vedere La Repubblica, July 23, 2009.
  5. ^ Siegfried Schober in "Der Spiegel", No. 43/1974 (October 21, 1974)
  6. 1900 - Part 1: Violence, Power, Passion in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  7. 1900 - Part 2: Struggle, Love, Hope in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used