I decided to see "1900", an Italian historical epic directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, after reading Pauline Kael's review of the movie. Though I don't think I would agree with everything she wrote about it, I think she was right on the mark when she began by talking about it as a "grand folly," one of those movies in which the director aims to transcend movies with a world-changing epic. They rarely succeed, but even just their ambition to make a masterpiece can make the movie worth seeing. There were plenty of sequences in 1900 that felt like they were in a great movie, and throughout almost the entire film I could feel just how high Bertolucci's ambitions were, which made it all the more disappointing when the film, over the course of its more-than-four-hour running time, failed to deliver on all it had promised.
The story revolves two men who were both born on the same day in 1900 on the same rural Italian estate. One is the grandson of the estate's owner, the other of the patriarch of the peasant clan that lives and works on the estate. The movie proceeds to show their ambivalent friendship over the years against the backdrop of the rise of fascism and socialism. The aristocrat is played by Robert De Niro; the peasant is played by the French star Gerard Depardieu. The landowning grandfather is played by Burt Lancaster, the peasant grandfather by Sterling Hayden.
The early scenes showing the main characters' childhoods are the best in the movie. They have a bucolic, lyrical quality, and the beautiful cinematography drenches the screen in golden light. Ennio Morricone's score complements the images beautifully. Maybe the peasants are supposed to be oppressed, but the whole section is filled with nostalgia. Though his accent is jarringly American, Burt Lancaster seemed at home here- maybe because he played an Italian aristocrat in an earlier period epic, The Leopard. However, the depiction of the two boys promises more than the movie is able to fulfill.
In the later adult sections, the De Niro and the Depardieu characters never really seem to take center stage as the childhood scenes seem to promise they will. The movie is somewhat similar to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. The difference is that in Leone's film showing the protagonists adult rise in the mob fulfilled the promise of the childhood sequences. Kael suggests- and this seems pretty likely to me- that Bertolucci deliberately goes against the viewer's expectations by deemphasizing the role of the two main characters in order to show that it is "the people" who are the heroes of history. Cute, but if you make a movie that's over four hours long- and in the original version it's closer to six-, the main characters should be as compelling as possible. De Niro is shown throughout as being passive and weak, I guess to show the greater "vitality" of peasants, but Depardieu doesn't seem to do a whole lot either. The supposed friendship between them is never especially convincing, probably because Bertolucci has them representing so much that they never really come alive as characters.
The movie's historical and political content is pretty simplistic. In Bertolucci's defense, he seems to have intended this to a certain degree, as a way of creating a truly "popular" epic in the mold of Gone With the Wind. This can be seen particularly in the depiction of the film's villain, Attila, the estate's sadistic foreman, who is used to represent fascism. As played by Donald Sutherland, Attila is a cartoon-like villain, who, at various points, demonstrates how to deal with Communists by smashing a kitten with his head, murders a little boy, and impales an old lady on spikes. Though this character is one of the movie's most criticized aspect, I don't think the character himself is the problem- Attila certainly makes a memorable villain- so much as the fact that there's simply not much conflict between Sutherland and the two main characters. Of course, it's the movie's point that De Niro, and by extension all "bourgeois", is too weak to act against the vicious Fascists, but Depardieu as the supposedly more robust working class-socialist never does much against Attila either.Therefore, 1900 doesn't fully succeed as a popular historical epic or as an analysis of Italian history. Where Bertolucci went wrong was probably where directors trying to make masterpieces often go wrong- trying to do too many things at once.
For one thing, the socialist message that Bertolucci obviously intended this film to convey seemed strangely half-hearted; he seems more genuinely interested in showing aristocratic decadence. And by the end of the movie, the story had pretty much lost all of its momentum. The scene of the partisans overcoming the Fascists was rushed through, without Depardieu without even being present. And the ending is extremely disappointing; after De Niro's show trial has been put to an end by government troops, he and Depardieu start fighting with each other, and then the movie jumps forward in time to show them as old men, still fighting with each other. Yes, I know it's supposed to be symbolic and all, but it just doesn't work. When a movie's over four hours long, it's more than a little disappointing when it turns into the longest Grumpy Old Men film in history. The dubbing is another major problem. The cast is very international, and the voices coming out of the actors never quite seem to match. This is especially a problem with De Niro; his performance may have originally been quite good, but his dubbed voice sounds hollow and out of place.
The story revolves two men who were both born on the same day in 1900 on the same rural Italian estate. One is the grandson of the estate's owner, the other of the patriarch of the peasant clan that lives and works on the estate. The movie proceeds to show their ambivalent friendship over the years against the backdrop of the rise of fascism and socialism. The aristocrat is played by Robert De Niro; the peasant is played by the French star Gerard Depardieu. The landowning grandfather is played by Burt Lancaster, the peasant grandfather by Sterling Hayden.
The early scenes showing the main characters' childhoods are the best in the movie. They have a bucolic, lyrical quality, and the beautiful cinematography drenches the screen in golden light. Ennio Morricone's score complements the images beautifully. Maybe the peasants are supposed to be oppressed, but the whole section is filled with nostalgia. Though his accent is jarringly American, Burt Lancaster seemed at home here- maybe because he played an Italian aristocrat in an earlier period epic, The Leopard. However, the depiction of the two boys promises more than the movie is able to fulfill.
In the later adult sections, the De Niro and the Depardieu characters never really seem to take center stage as the childhood scenes seem to promise they will. The movie is somewhat similar to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. The difference is that in Leone's film showing the protagonists adult rise in the mob fulfilled the promise of the childhood sequences. Kael suggests- and this seems pretty likely to me- that Bertolucci deliberately goes against the viewer's expectations by deemphasizing the role of the two main characters in order to show that it is "the people" who are the heroes of history. Cute, but if you make a movie that's over four hours long- and in the original version it's closer to six-, the main characters should be as compelling as possible. De Niro is shown throughout as being passive and weak, I guess to show the greater "vitality" of peasants, but Depardieu doesn't seem to do a whole lot either. The supposed friendship between them is never especially convincing, probably because Bertolucci has them representing so much that they never really come alive as characters.
The movie's historical and political content is pretty simplistic. In Bertolucci's defense, he seems to have intended this to a certain degree, as a way of creating a truly "popular" epic in the mold of Gone With the Wind. This can be seen particularly in the depiction of the film's villain, Attila, the estate's sadistic foreman, who is used to represent fascism. As played by Donald Sutherland, Attila is a cartoon-like villain, who, at various points, demonstrates how to deal with Communists by smashing a kitten with his head, murders a little boy, and impales an old lady on spikes. Though this character is one of the movie's most criticized aspect, I don't think the character himself is the problem- Attila certainly makes a memorable villain- so much as the fact that there's simply not much conflict between Sutherland and the two main characters. Of course, it's the movie's point that De Niro, and by extension all "bourgeois", is too weak to act against the vicious Fascists, but Depardieu as the supposedly more robust working class-socialist never does much against Attila either.Therefore, 1900 doesn't fully succeed as a popular historical epic or as an analysis of Italian history. Where Bertolucci went wrong was probably where directors trying to make masterpieces often go wrong- trying to do too many things at once.
For one thing, the socialist message that Bertolucci obviously intended this film to convey seemed strangely half-hearted; he seems more genuinely interested in showing aristocratic decadence. And by the end of the movie, the story had pretty much lost all of its momentum. The scene of the partisans overcoming the Fascists was rushed through, without Depardieu without even being present. And the ending is extremely disappointing; after De Niro's show trial has been put to an end by government troops, he and Depardieu start fighting with each other, and then the movie jumps forward in time to show them as old men, still fighting with each other. Yes, I know it's supposed to be symbolic and all, but it just doesn't work. When a movie's over four hours long, it's more than a little disappointing when it turns into the longest Grumpy Old Men film in history. The dubbing is another major problem. The cast is very international, and the voices coming out of the actors never quite seem to match. This is especially a problem with De Niro; his performance may have originally been quite good, but his dubbed voice sounds hollow and out of place.