The Leopard (1963)
"Il gattopardo" (original title)

The Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860's Sicily.

Director:

Luchino Visconti

Writers:

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (novel), Suso Cecchi D'Amico (screenplay),

Stars:

Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 8 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Burt Lancaster	...	Prince Don Fabrizio Salina
Claudia Cardinale	...	Angelica Sedara / Bertiana
Alain Delon	...	Tancredi Falconeri
Paolo Stoppa	...	Don Calogero Sedara
Rina Morelli	...	Princess Maria Stella Salina
Romolo Valli	...	Father Pirrone
Terence Hill	...	Count Cavriaghi (as Mario Girotti)
Pierre Clémenti	...	Francesco Paolo
Lucilla Morlacchi	...	Concetta
Giuliano Gemma	...	Garibaldi's General
Ida Galli	...	Carolina
Ottavia Piccolo	...	Caterina
Carlo Valenzano	...	Paolo
Brook Fuller	...	Little Prince
Anna Maria Bottini	...	Mademoiselle Dombreuil, the Governess

Storyline

In the 1860s, a dying aristocracy struggles to maintain itself against a harsh Sicilian landscape. The film traces with a slow and deliberate rhythm the waning of the noble home of Fabrizio Corbero, Prince of Salina (the Leopard) and the corresponding rise to eminence of the enormously wealthy ex-peasant Don Calogero Sedara. The prince himself refuses to take active steps to halt the decline of his personal fortunes or to help build a new Sicily but his nephew Tancredi, Prince of Falconeri swims with the tide and assures his own position by marrying Don Calogero's beautiful daughter Angelica. The climatic scene is the sumptuous forty-minute ball, where Tancredi introduces Angelica to society.

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Plot Keywords:

prince | 1860s | noble | sicily | ball | 

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Taglines:

Luchino Visconti's Enduring Romantic Adventure

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Genres:

Drama | History

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian Latin French

Release Date:

15 July 1963 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Leopard

Filming Locations:

Ariccia, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

ITL 2,900,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£39,102 (UK) (2 May 2003)

Gross:

£112,329 (UK) (9 May 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Titanus, Société Nouvelle Pathé Cinéma, Société Générale de Cinématographie (S.G.C.)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

187 min 151 min (cut) 161 min (cut) 165 min (cut) 195 min 205 min (premiere) 161 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

While the film was photographed in Technicolor's large format Technirama wide screen system, 20th Century-Fox changed the credit on their prints to reflect it was in CinemaScope and Color by DeLuxe.

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Goofs

During one of the long shots of the journey to Donnafugata, a blur crosses the screen near the center, apparently caused by a fly crawling over the lens.

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Quotes

Tancredi Falconeri: If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.

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Connections

Edited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: Le contrôle de l'univers (1998)

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Soundtracks

"Polka"
Composed by Nino Rota

User Reviews

The lost world

Could it be that Visconti's 1963 epic--long lying in ruins until its 1983 partial restoration--is the greatest movie ever made? The real subject of this movie, surely the wisest and most beautiful of all "period pictures," is the twentieth century--what has been gained and above all what is lost. Only a Marxist duke like Visconti could have had the split sensibility, and the anecdotal knowhow, to render Sicily just before its entry to modernity with the splendor and the caginess that radiates through every frame of this masterpiece. As the prince making final compromises before leaving the faded world he has inherited, Burt Lancaster gives one of the greatest performances in movies. Possessed of both an elegiac melancholy and a shrewd, dry-eyed appraisal of the failures and the glorious extroversion of its aristocratic world, THE LEOPARD is like a dream you can't bear to let go of. Contemporary viewers will see echoes of THE DEER HUNTER, 1900 and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE--and will see those films shrivel to the size of cocktail franks.