The Leopard (1963)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The leopard |
| Original title | Il Gattopardo |
| Country of production | Italy , France |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 183 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Luchino Visconti |
| script |
Suso Cecchi D'Amico Pasquale Campanile Enrico Medioli Massimo Franciosa Luchino Visconti |
| production | Goffredo Lombardo |
| music | Nino Rota |
| camera | Giuseppe Rotunno |
| cut | Mario Serandrei |
| occupation | |
| |
The Leopard (original title: Il Gattopardo ) is an Italian - French feature film from 1963 by Luchino Visconti , based on the novel of the same name by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa . The material, realized with great effort, is considered a masterpiece of film history.
plot
Sicily in 1860: The loss of influence of the Sicilian nobility and the rise of the bourgeoisie during the Risorgimentos , the unification movement of Italy, is presented from the point of view of the Salina family. Don Fabrizio, the respected Prince of Salina, leads a comfortable life with his large family on several country estates. This calm is disturbed when Giuseppe Garibaldi and his followers land in Sicily to end the unpopular foreign rule of the Bourbons in southern Italy. In contrast to many other aristocrats of his time, Don Fabrizio suspects that this will result in an unstoppable development - sooner or later the bourgeoisie will replace the aristocracy, while not much will change on the surface of society. His favorite nephew Tancredi, of old nobility but impoverished, joins the rebels. His motto is that everything has to change if everything is to stay the way it is. Fabrizio tolerates Tancredi's behavior and even gives him some money for the fight when he leaves. Slightly injured in skirmishes in Palermo , Tancredi is promoted to captain in Garibaldi's army.
While the revolutionaries were victorious, Don Fabrizio and his family moved into his summer home in the village of Donnafugata. Don Calogero Sedara, the most important citizen of the village and a busy businessman, profited particularly from the revolution and snatches property and land in the area under the nail. He introduces his exceptionally beautiful daughter Angelica to the Salina family. Tancredi immediately falls in love with her and even the prince is completely taken by her charm. Don Calogero seizes the chance to let his daughter rise to the aristocracy and Tancredi soon proposes marriage to Angelica. Don Fabrizio agrees to the engagement because he knows the high ambitions of his nephew and knows that as an impoverished nobleman, he could never achieve his high goals in life without his father-in-law's money. The victim of this connection is Fabrizio's daughter Concetta, of all people, who had hoped for an engagement to Tancredi. Fabrizio's strict Catholic wife Maria Stella, who has been estranged from him, is also appalled by her nephew's engagement to Angelica, who is descended from farmers. Meanwhile, Calogero claims that, according to the latest research, he can now prove his family's aristocratic origins, but this makes himself more of a mockery of Fabrizio.
In a referendum it is decided that the Kingdom of Sicily should be dissolved and attached to the newly founded Kingdom of Italy as a constitutional monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont. In Donnafugata, the vote led by Don Calogero was unanimous with 512: 0. The fear of anarchy or the establishment of a republic, as well as the inevitability of history, also prompt the prince to vote for the constitutional monarchy. However, the prince later learns from Ciccio Tumeo, his monarchist-minded hunting partner, that he had voted no - so Calogero and other revolutionaries had manipulated the election result.
Tancredi promptly becomes an officer in the royal army and distances himself from Garibaldi and the revolutionaries who remained with him. Fabrizio realizes that with this opportunism his nephew could have great success in the new Italy. Meanwhile, the prince received an offer from the government through the envoy Chevally to become a member of the Italian Senate and to help renew the society. With a mixture of melancholy and lack of illusion, Fabrizio explains that the lions and leopards are leaving and the hyenas and sheep will come after them. The aristocrat, now aged, rules out the possibility of progress for Sicily and refuses political cooperation. Chevally objects that with his retreat, shady and selfish forces would become all the stronger in the new parliament.
Angelica is finally introduced to noble society at a great ball held by the Prince of Ponteleone in Palermo . The ball was a success for Angelica, while her father was largely ignored by the other guests. Melancholy and alienated from developments in society, Fabrizio wanders alone through the splendid rooms of the palace, thinking about transience. The dustiness of the aristocrats and the opportunistic demeanor of the nouveau riche make him bitter, although he himself represents this elite in a leading role. A vain colonel, who recently arrested General Garibaldi and some revolutionaries, is celebrated by those present for his performance. Angelica pulls him out of his thoughts for a moment when she asks him to do a waltz dance, which he masters with his old elegance and youthfulness. Fabrizio leaves the ball at dawn, wanders the streets of Palermo alone and gazes longingly into space, while the shots of the shooting of some deserters from the royal army can be heard.
background
Template and script
Luchino Visconti read the novel Il Gattopardo shortly after its publication in 1958. He was enthusiastic about the novel and especially touched by the main character of the prince, although he was a communist and many other Italian communists like Mario Alicata behind the novel of the Sicilian prince and Literary scholar Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa suspected a reactionary ideology and therefore rejected it. Visconti took “passionate interest” in the polemics against the novel and felt even more encouraged by them to make the novel into a film. Tomasi di Lampedusa, who had died before the novel was published, had taken many of the novel's characters from his own family history - his great-grandfather Giulio Fabrizio Tomasi (1813–1885), an aristocrat with a passion for astronomy, served as a model for the main character of the prince. Many critics and film scholars later saw similarities between Visconti - who was himself of aristocratic origin - and the main character of the leopard, for example "because of the fine manners, the art of living and the sensitivity of this figure".
In his staging, Visconti has referred to the fifth chapter (with Father Pirrone's visit to his home village, where the story of the money marriage is repeated at the lowest social level) and the last two chapters of the novel (with the death of the prince and the epilogue at the unmarried daughters of the Prince in May 1910). Instead, the civil war situation in Palermo and Tancredi's injury are described in a different way than in the book, and the scene of having fun with the ball is contrasted with the shooting of defected soldiers who had joined Garibaldi's troops.
occupation
Visconti's preferred cast for the main role of the prince was actually Marlon Brando . In the end, Burt Lancaster was hired by the producers, which many contemporaries considered an eccentric cast and also made Visconti suspicious. Lancaster was at the zenith of its fame as a great Hollywood star, but otherwise had usually not played any Italian aristocrats, but typically American characters in westerns or crime films. According to the memories of Claudia Cardinale, Lancaster complained of pain in his knee while shooting his first scene, whereupon Visconti put him in his place with sharp words in front of the entire film crew. Apparently, the Italian director wanted to show the Hollywood star that he was the leading person on the film set. In the further course of the shooting, the collaboration between Lancaster and Visconti was harmonious, as Lancaster valued the director, followed his instructions and put himself convincingly into the role. The two became friends and worked together again eleven years later on violence and passion , in which Lancaster again embodied a melancholy and lonely figure.
After Rocco and his brothers , Visconti worked again with the two younger leading actresses Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale .
Filming locations, equipment and music
The main locations of the plot are the palace of the Prince of Salina in San Lorenzo near Palermo , Palermo itself, the princely summer residence in Donnafugata and the palace of the Prince of Ponteleone in Palermo. On the other hand, the shooting locations were the Villa Boscogrande near Palermo, streets and squares in Palermo, the place Ciminna with an additional facade of the summer residence, interior shots in the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia near Rome and the Palazzo Gangi-Valguarnera in Palermo. The ball scene in Palazzo Gangi-Valguarnera became famous for its duration and opulence.
Vera Marzot was responsible for the equipment of the film , who with this film also began her collaboration with Piero Tosi , who was responsible for the costumes. Mario Garbuglia was responsible for the production design . Nino Rota's film music was created using themes by Giuseppe Verdi and was recorded under the direction of the conductor Franco Ferrara .
reception
When it premiered, The Leopard was very successful in Italy and large parts of Europe, but in the USA it fell far short of commercial expectations. The film is now widely regarded as a masterpiece in film history and one of Visconti's best films. In 2012 , the Leopard was voted one of the 100 best films of all time in a survey by the British film magazine Sight & Sound . Director Martin Scorsese counts it among his favorite films. All 45 reviews of The Leopard on the US critic portal Rotten Tomatoes are positive, which gives it the rare rating of 100%. The critical consensus at Rotten Tomatoes is: "Lush and wistful, The Leopard contains epic battles, lavish costumes and a ballroom waltz that competes in the competition for the most beautiful film sequences of all time."
"A moving historical and social panorama picture of fascinating beauty."
"Luchino Visconti's masterpiece 'The Leopard' is a very special delicacy: The brilliant decor, the excellent cast and the impressive staging ensure excellent historical entertainment with a seemingly endless ball sequence as the highlight."
The leopard also received the rating of Particularly Valuable from the Wiesbaden film evaluation agency. The reasoning stated in the opinion of the film evaluation body as follows:
“The direction unfolds a significant mastery here. She succeeds in integrating the sheen of the decorative into a realistic context. Its haunting effect consists in the fact that a historical situation is presented in an epic manner and at the same time its core is revealed. The economy of the direction is admirable. The breadth and expanse also has dramaturgically justified form. In this way, the formal aesthetic, even the ceremonial of the scene, is convincingly combined with the real. "
Awards
Visconti's film won at the Film Festival in Cannes 1963 the Palme d'Or as best film in competition, the David di Donatello for Best Production Design and the prices of Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani in the categories of Best Cinematography (Color), costumes and scenery. The film received a nomination at the Oscars in 1964, where designer Piero Tosi was nominated for the best costumes (color). Leading actor Burt Lancaster won the French Étoile de Cristal for Best Foreign Actor in 1964 , while Alain Delon was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actor in the same year .
synchronization
The German dubbed version of Der Leopard was created in 1963 in the studio of Elite Film Franz Schroeder GmbH . The missing (and lost) sequences in this version were dubbed in 1993 by ZDF in a Hamburg dubbing studio (director: Gerhard Graf). As early as 1966, an unabridged, own version was shown in the GDR, created by the DEFA-Studio for Synchronization, Berlin - dialogue: Annette dich, director: Johannes Knittel
| role | actor | German Dubbing voice 1963 | ZDF reconstruction 1993 | DEFA 1965 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina | Burt Lancaster | Carl Raddatz | Klaus Dittmann | Robert Trosch |
| Angelica Sedara / Bertiana | Claudia Cardinale | Dagmar Altrichter | Dagmar Altrichter | Karin Ugowski |
| Tancredi Falconeri | Alain Delon | Christian Wolff | Christian Wolff | Winfried Wagner |
| Don Calogero Sedara | Paolo Stoppa | Hans Hessling | Hans Hessling | Willi Narloch |
| Maria Stella Salina, wife of the prince | Rina Morelli | Tilly Lauenstein | Maria Rouvel | |
| Father Pirrone | Romolo Valli | Arnold Marquis | Gerhard Lippert | Ivan Malré |
| Concetta | Lucilla Morlacchi | Uta Hallant | Barbara Adolph | |
| Count Cavriaghi | Terence Hill (as Mario Girotti ) | Jörg Cossardt | Michael Harck | Karl Sturm |
| Cavaliere Chevally, envoy | Leslie French | Ernst Fritz Fürbringer | Walter Lendrich | |
| Colonel Pallavicino | Ivo Garrani | Curt Ackermann | ||
| Don Ciccio Tumeo | Serge Reggiani | Gert Günther Hoffmann | Gert Günther Hoffmann | Edwin Marian |
| Don Diego, Prince of Pontelone | Howard N. Rubien | Paul Wagner |
Publications
- The leopard . Special edition (2 DVDs and CD). Koch Media 2004 - in addition to the restored 180-minute long version, it also contains Reclam's electronic film lexicon, the original film music by Nino Rota on a separate CD, as well as a documentation about Rota and a 16-page booklet
- The leopard . Blu-ray, Koch Media 2010.
- The leopard . Blu-ray, Koch Media 2018. (New edition with significantly improved 4K master.)
literature
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: The leopard (original title: Il Gattopardo ). German by Charlotte Birnbaum. Piper , Munich and Zurich 1959.
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: The Gattopardo . Roman (original title: Il gattopardo ). Newly translated and with a glossary by Giò Waeckerlin Induni. Edited and with an afterword by Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi. Piper, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-492-04584-7 .
- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: The leopard . Novel. (Original title: Il gattopardo ). German by Burkhart Kroeber . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05984-8 .
Original title: Il Gattopardo
The original film title Il Gattopardo - like that of the novel of the same name - was translated into several languages with The Leopard for decades . In the 1990s there was a debate in which it was claimed that the Italian word gattopardo stood - in contrast to leopardo - for the serval , a much smaller, African big cat, and that the author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa may have an ironic allusion want to express the fall of power of the prince. In the meantime, however, this claim has been largely rejected due to the lack of concrete evidence in the text of the novel, more details here .
Web links
- The leopard in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Olivier Bombarda: “The Leopard” by Luchino Visconti. ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) ARTE , December 28, 2006
- The leopard atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Laurence Schifano: Luchino Visconti. Prince of the film. Gernsbach, Katz 1988, p. 378.
- ↑ Laurence Schifano: Luchino Visconti. Prince of the film. Gernsbach, Katz 1988, p. 378.
- ↑ Laurence Schifano: Luchino Visconti. Prince of the film. Gernsbach, Katz 1988, pp. 384-385.
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↑ villaboscogrande.com ;
Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; palazzochigiariccia.it
- ↑ Laurence Schifano: Luchino Visconti. Prince of the film. Gernsbach, Katz 1988, p. 385.
- ↑ Critics' top 100 | BFI. Retrieved October 22, 2017 (English).
- ↑ Martin Scorsese's Top 10. In: The Criterion Collection. Retrieved October 22, 2017 .
- ↑ The Leopard. Retrieved October 22, 2017 (English).
- ↑ The Leopard. Retrieved October 22, 2017 (English).
- ↑ The leopard. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ The Leopard - Trailer, review, pictures and information about the film. Retrieved October 22, 2017 .
- ↑ Gereon Stein: The leopard. synchrondatenbank.de, accessed on October 22, 2017 .
- ↑ literaturkritik.de
