Posted on 01/13/2024 12:02:17 PM PST by Twotone
Nobody does political cynicism like the Italians. As a country it hasn't been crucial since the fifth century AD, but it knows more about how politics works – and more importantly how it doesn't work – than any other nation on the planet.
After refining Greek democracy into a workable system for a growing empire, Rome set about discovering all the ways government could corrupt itself, then descended into over a millennia of decline and division. The moment – brief, hopeful and doomed – when Italy struggled to reemerge as a national entity again is the setting for this week's movie, a remarkably intimate historical epic that flopped when it was released in North America.
Italians are both blessed and cursed with the certain knowledge that every law, proclamation, edict or speech issued by government is designed to obscure what government actually does from the citizen. As Luigi Barzini, author of The Italians said:
"Foreign diplomats in Rome disconsolately say, Italy is the opposite of Russia. In Moscow nothing is known, yet everything is clear. In Rome everything is public, there are no secrets, everybody talks, things are at times flamboyantly enacted, yet one understands nothing."
In 1954 a Sicilian aristocrat named Guiseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa (11th Prince of Lampedusa, 12th Duke of Palma) attempted to save himself from penury by writing a novel that would become a massive bestseller – though sadly not until a year after Lampedusa died. It wasn't long before another Italian aristocrat, Luchino Visconti de Modrone (Count of Lonate Pozzolo), took on the job of turning Lampedusa's book, The Leopard, into a movie, with backing from Titanus, an Italian studio, and an American one – 20th Century Fox.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Against my better judgement, I read through the whole article.
Where was the witty words I hoped to hear from Steyn? Instead, I should have started a nap...
I liked the sequel where Nastassja Kinski turns into a (black) leopard every time she’s with a dude.
Il Gattopardo ping!
A gifted critic unpacks an important film, and you’re disappointed because you wanted political zingers.
Of course, if you’d looked closely you would’ve realized the author was Rick McGinnis who writes these reviews for Steynonline. :-)
You can still take that nap.
Marking.
Brando is of course iconic as Don Corleone but I think Burt Lancaster would have knocked it out of the park too.
Lancaster was a big-time Commie.
Loved this book (one of a very few I’ve read more than once) and loved the movie too! Think I’ve only seen the subtitled version, but there is a dubbed version too.
The Train is a fantastic movie, if I recall Lancaster did all his own stunts which is pretty amazing considering it was messing around with moving box cars and engines.
Freegards
Please list a source which verifies that. Thank you.
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