The Leopard (1963)

1963, 20th Century Fox. Directed by Luchino Visconti. Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli, Romolo Valli.

Decent Films Ratings

Overall Recommendability	?B+
Artistic/ Entertainment Value	?
Moral/Spiritual Value (+4/-4)	? +0
Age Appropriateness	?Adults

External Ratings

MPAA	?NR	USCCB	?A-III

Content advisory: Mature themes including unchastity and romantic complications; a scene of urban revolutionary violence. Subtitles.

A National Catholic Register "Video/DVD Picks" film.

By Steven D. Greydanus

Based on the acclaimed Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece The Leopard is a lavish epic elegy of the decline of the Italian aristocracy in the final stages of the nineteenth-century Italian unification during Garibaldi’s Sicilian campaign.

For Yank audiences who may be unfamiliar with the historical context, Jeff Shannon of Amazon.com calls the film "an Italian equivalent to Gone With the Wind," a rough-and-ready in-a-nutshell classification that is not without merit. Both films are elegiac wartime epics lamenting the passing of an elegant and aristocratic way of life; both are based on popular novels; both deal with elevated soap-opera-like goings-on.

Also, with both films there was scandal over the unconventional casting of the leading man, who was reluctant to accept the iconic role. In The Leopard, this was Burt Lancaster as the aging Sicilian prince Don Fabrizio. Visconti was obligated to cast a Hollywood star in order to secure needed financial backing, but Lancaster came through majestically, bringing formidable presence and melancholy to the role of a still-virile great man who sees the writing on the wall.

The film’s spectacular final act, a nearly hour-long ballroom extravaganza, ranks among the grandest cinematic set pieces of all time.