Rating: 
Summary: DVD Masterpiece
Review: Unbelievable DVD transfer!
Back in the sixties I saw this film on theaters, and as I remember, the overall visual impression was darkness. To my surprise this DVD brings a new light to the film with bright and wonderfully saturated colours on exteriors, and deep colours with very good detail rendition on interiors. It is as seeing this film for the first time.
Rating:
Summary: Epic filmmaking at its finest
Review: Adapted from a novella by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard paints a vivid picture of the Italian aristocracy falling from grace and the middle class revolting to form a more democratic Italy on an epic canvas. Caught up in this class revolution is an affluent family led by the Prince of Salina, Don Fabrizio Corbera (Burt Lancaster). He recognizes that he is part of an obsolete generation and that his young nephew, Tancredi Falconeri (Alain Delon), and his beautiful fiancée, Angelica Sedara (Claudia Cardinale), represent the new order.The first DVD features an audio commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie. He provides the backstory to Visconti's career leading up to The Leopard. Cowie talks at length about the film in relation to its source material. This is a strong, informative track that is an excellent introduction to the cinema of Visconti. The second DVD starts off with a fantastic, hour-long documentary, entitled "A Dying Breed: The Making of the Leopard," that was created especially for the DVD. There are interviews with most of the surviving cast and crew, including Claudia Cardinale and the film's screenwriters. This is an excellent look at The Leopard from the origins of the novel to the film's botched U.S. version that truncated Visconti's vision and was re-dubbed with English-speaking actors. There is also a "Goffredo Lombardo Interview" with the producer of The Leopard. "The History of Risorgimento" examines the real historical figures and the times they lived in with the professor of Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Millicent Marcus. This is a really good primer for anyone who is unfamiliar with this particular period of Italian history. Finally, there is a "Promotional Materials" section with an extensive stills gallery, a vintage Italian newsreel of the film's premiere and its success at that year's Cannes Film Festival, and three trailers-one Italian and two American. The third and final DVD features a remastered copy of the truncated U.S. version that was dubbed in English and included Lancaster's actual voice. Criterion has pulled off quite a coup with this DVD set. This is the first time that The Leopard has ever appeared on DVD. Criterion has painstakingly restored the film to its original glory, with a flawless transfer and included both the Italian and U.S. versions. It is a fitting package for this cinematic masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: History as told by an Arsitocrat
Review: This is a film about the end of an age -- the age of the aristocrat. It also happens to be a film made by a member of the aristocracy. Luchino Visconti, the director, comes from a long line of Italian aristocrats. Visconti's films are all in one way or another about men who are incompatible with the age in which they live. In The Leopard Lancaster plays a refined Prince who has outlived his time. In his prime the Prince was the very model of health and vitality and he was the uncontested authority to all who lived in his province but now he is starting to show his age and his own decline coincides with the decline of his class and an entire way of life. Being such a refined figure the Prince records his decline in minute detail -- he seems to age right before our very eyes. It is obvious to the filmgoer that Visconti has no real love for democracy nor the way of life that comes with it. Elections are seen as crass popularity contests and the parvenus who seek office are seen as dim and uncultivated and lacking in that fineness of spirit that was the defining trait of the aristocracy. It is the Princes misfortune to live to see all that he values vanishing minute by minute before his very eyes and that is what happens in the famous hour-long ballroom scene. The new class rising to power has no time to cultivate that fineness of spirit and range of interest required to understand men and their needs and so govern them well. Instead the class now rising to power is largely self-serving and small-minded. Though they call themselves democrats they are preoccupied with material gain and status and the kind of civilization they are making is no longer capable of producing a man like the Prince. However Visconti himself is proof that the aristocratic spirit lives on even though the aristocracy does not. It is more than a bit likely that this portrait of an ideal aristocat is just that, an ideal. I've heard this film described as Proustian. That is true only in so much as the film is obsessed with the passage of time. Proust, unlike Visconti, is interested in a multi-faceted psychological expose of the leisurely class. Proust loves his aristocrats but he shows them for the vain creatures that they are. Proust may have had something of the romantic in him but that was balanced by a keen social awareness (ie Dreyfus affair) that is nowhere to be found in Visconti's single-minded meditation on one man's point of view. Proust can speak of highly subjective states of mind and points of view but each point of view is balanced by other points of view. This pluralism and balance is simply not to be found in the Leopard nor in any of Visconti's other works. The Leopard is Visconti's best film but it is a myopic world view we are getting - we feel trapped in the Princes(and by extension the aristocratic) point of view. This is at times a strength and at times a weakness of the film.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent re-release of a classic film
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
"The Leopard" known as "Il Gattopardo" in Italy was orignally released in two versions. The uncut Italian language version and the abridged English language dubbed version. This 3 disc set has both versions.
The film is a depiction of mid 19th Century Sicily and is based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa. It is about a aristocrat in Sicily and his loss of rule during the unification of Italy.
Burt Lancaster does an excellent job in the lead role. Though his lines were dubbed in the Italian version, his did his own lines for the English version. The movie has some excellent scenes of Sicily and a very fine dance scene toward the end of the film.
The Criterion Collection has done an excellent job with the release of this set and includes some fine special features also.
Disc 1 contains the Italian language uncut version of the film with optional audio commentary by Peter Cowie.
Disc 2 contains an interview with the film's producer, Goffredo Lombardo (who died just last week,) an interview with UPenn professor, Millicent Marcus, who describes the historical events protrayed in the film, an hour long documentary on the film's production titled, "A Dying Breed: The Making of The Leopard," a series of news footage on the film's release, and theatrical trailers.
Disc 3 contains the abridged English-dubbed American version of the film with Burt lancaster doing his own lines.
This film is not to be missed!
Rating: 
Summary: THREE HOURS I WILL NEVER GET BACK
Review: No intelligent human being on this planet should find any redeeming value whatsoever in this complete waste of celluloid. I spent three precious hours of my life watching the equivalent of paint drying on the wall. Three hours I'll never get back.
This is the dreck Truffaut railed against when he wrote "A Certain Tendency..." for Cahiers du Cinema in the early fifties. This is the dreck that people with absolutely no taste find artful.
House painting is more artful than this.
Burt Lancaster was once in a much better film called CRIMSON PIRATE.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappointed by this movie
Review: I really, REALLY wanted to like Luchino Visconti's THE LEOPARD. No less a film authority than Pauline Kael wrote a glowing review of it in 1983, when it was released in Visconti's original Italian-language cut. "Magnificent" was one of the adjectives she used, and nearly everyone who has written a review for this Criterion DVD release has agreed.
I really wish I could agree, too. Believe me, I love foreign films as much as any film enthusiast out there. But I'll just come right out and say it: I found this movie BORING. I don't often say that about a lot of movies (not even about LOST IN TRANSLATION, which I hear a LOT of other people are calling boring, an assessment with which I passionately disagree), but there is no other adjective to describe my reaction to this film. Its 185 minutes move at a torpid pace, nothing of any great consequence happens (historically, of course, revolutionary changes were occurring in Italy, but Visconti can hardly be bothered to show much of it onscreen). But, most damagingly, none of the characters---not even the main character, Prince Don Fabrizio (Burt Lancaster)---are all that interesting, nor do they do or feel anything all that interesting either. By the time Don Fabrizio is kneeling down and looking at a star in the film's last moments, I wasn't moved (as beautiful as the imagery undoubtedly was); I was just glad that the picture was finally approaching its end.
Maybe I just missed those little subtleties that would have helped draw me into the characters and situations of this film. Or maybe this is the kind of movie that plays infinitely better on a big screen than on my much-smaller TV set. Perhaps one of these days, in the future, I will watch this movie again and appreciate it a lot more. For now, though, I am willing to give THE LEOPARD two stars for its visual beauty (Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography, with bright colors that truly pop out at you, is often breathtaking) and beautifully lush score (by Nino Rota). Otherwise, THE LEOPARD just didn't dazzle me like I was hoping it would. It did worse; it bored me like almost no other movie I've yet seen (the lone exceptions being, maybe, one or two really bad slasher movies).
So here's my advice: unless you are a huge film buff and simply can't wait to see what the hype is about regarding this film, I would suggest either waiting for it to pop up on a big screen somewhere or just skipping it altogether. Personally, I'm glad I was finally able to see it, but I won't be singing high praises for it anytime soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Yes, it's cropped...
Review: Hmmm...Criterion has done a wonderful job bringing both the original Italian theatrical release and the original cut U.S. release together, along with numerous bonus features, on three discs.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the longer, original, Italian version is cropped on the left side of the film. It should be 2.35:1 like the U.S. version is, but it is closer to 2.20:1. Apparently the left side of the Italian version has been cropped, resulting in a small loss of content on the left side of the film. No one is really sure why Criterion did this, but they did, and it's unfortunate to say the least, especially for such an expensive DVD.
Fans waiting for this FIRST U.S. home release of The Leopard on any format, won't mind too much I guess.
Criterion has been pretty good when it comes to 'double dipping.' After re-releasing Lang's "M" I know more than a few Criterion customers were upset( both releases say original aspect ratio, one is 1.33:1 the newer is 1.19:1, hmm...), and now this cropped version of The Leopard.
If Criterion does re-release The Leopard uncropped, I would hope the original buyers of this version would get a huge discount on the newer release.
Rating:
Summary: Slow, yet haunting
Review: During a time of social upheaval in 19th century Sicily, aristocratic patriarch Don Fabrizio (Burt Lancaster) contemplates the impending changes in the social order. A proud and honorable man, he is, as he says, "utterly without illusions"; he knows that men such as himself, who are accustomed to being the center of their universe, have no place in the world that is to come. Director Luchino Visconti presents the Don's dilemma in a very subtle, intimate, closely observed film.
Perhaps too subtle for me. This is clearly a film of great mastery with a magnificent performance by Lancaster at its center. Although his voice is dubbed by an Italian-speaking actor, he uses his eyes, face, and posture to communicate tremendous dignity and melancholy. I simply found the film to be too slow and, early on, I was confused about the nature of the political crisis. I blame myself for being inattentive, perhaps not in the right frame of mind for this film. I find myself still thinking about Don Fabrizio several days after viewing the film. I need to see it again someday.
Rating:
Summary: A fine presentation of the Leopard
Review: The Leopard is one of the most sublime films ever made and it is to Criterion's credit that they have given it a treatment that it deserves.
The film is in many ways a happy accident. The surprising choice of Burt Lancaster for the role of the Prince seems to be perfect now, yet he was chosen after Laurence Olivier by director Visconti. It was very much an international production designed to appeal to audiences across the world hence it also stars Alain Delon from France.
In either version - the extended or the edited ones are both in this set - the film is a swirl of brilliant performances and directorial finesse. To my mind, the extended version does not add a great deal to the overall impact of the film, but it interesting to see it.
The only lapse in the translation from Lampedusa's novel, is that you cannot grasp the internal monologues of the Prince as he ruminates on death and the changing situation of the times. Occasionally, Visconti allows the Prince to state these thoughts, but he never delivers the full weight of them. This probably says more about the limits of cinema as an artform. On the other hand, the book does not convey the beauty of the palaces or the visual splendor of Sicily.
In some scenes such as the arrival of Claudia Cardinale, the battle of Palermo, and the final ball, Visconti seems to reach a different level in film making. While some find Visconti slow, I find the detail of each scene so interesting that I actually want more time.
The disc set also has an outstanding commentary by film historian Peter Cowie who completes an excellent presentation of the film. The attached documentary is of minor interest. Overall, a beautiful set in homage to one of the finest films ever made - certainly Visconti's masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Picture is cropped?
Review: I am not so sure whether this is the "definitive" version of "The Leopard". According to the comparioson on www.dvdbeaver.com the picture of the Criterion release is cropped a lot on the left side. Its not yet sure what went wrong there but it might be best to wait for a corrected version. Maybe Criterion releases a better version some day(There's an Italian region 2 DVD available with no cropping on the left side)
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