Chichester Cinema at New Park
The Leopard
- Il Gatopardo
Visconti’s sumptuous 1963 three hour epic masterpiece re-released, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinal, with a beautiful score by Nino Rota.
Winner of the Palme D’Or in 1963, ‘The Leopard’ must surely rate as one of the most sumptuously beautiful epics ever made. Set in 1860-62, during the turbulent period of Italian unification, it tells the story of an aristocratic Sicilian family threatened by political upheaval. Adapted from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s only novel ‘Il Gattopardo’, The Leopard has been described by critic Philip French as “that rare thing – a great film based on a great book”.
Burt Lancaster excels as the ageing Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, whose beloved nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) joins up with Garibaldi's revolutionary 'Thousand' force. On his return, Tancredi falls in love with Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), the beautiful daughter of an up-and-coming merchant. This gorgeous recreation of an era, filmed on location in Sicily, is brilliantly photographed by the great Giuseppe Rotunno, while Nino Rota’s score, in the words of critic Richard Dyer, ‘sounds like a nineteenth-century symphony you happen never to have heard’.
‘The Leopard’ was photographed in a process called Technirama, in which images were captured on 35mm film horizontally rather than vertically. The resulting anamorphic image, twice the size of a standard 35mm frame, is remarkably sharp and full of detail. (Subtitles)
Italy · 1963 · Luchino Visconti · 185min
