This stunning but demanding Marxist epic ran to almost five and a half hours in director Bernardo Bertolucci’s original cut and spans 45 years of Italian political history.
Tracing the rise and fall of Fascism, it uses characters to symbolise entire social groups.
Olmo (Gérard Depardieu) and Alfredo Jr (Robert De Niro) are born on the same day in the year 1901, in the same rural region, one to poor sharecroppers, the other to landowners.
As they grow from childhood friends to antagonistic adults, Olmo becomes an inspirational Communist leader, Alfredo a diffident patron.
The two leads are outstanding, while Donald Sutherland really gets his teeth into the role of Attila – Depardieu’s nemesis, the local blackshirt and De Niro’s foreman, whose cruelty extends to crushing a kitten with his head.
Operatically staged and swollen with symbolism – be it a boy wiping his tears on a red flag or Fascists pelted with apparently real excrement – 1900 is Bertolucci’s flawed masterpiece, best viewed in two sittings and enjoyed as polemic as much as history.
A viewer ignorant of Italian social history may hold on and hope to see if, by chance, things get better by the end. They don’t.
Alfredo Sr
Burt Lancaster Alfredo Jr
Robert De Niro Olmo
Gérard Depardieu Attila
Donald Sutherland Ada
Dominique Sanda Leo Dalco
Sterling Hayden Anita
Stefania Sandrelli Signora Pioppi
Alida Valli Regina
Laura Betti
Director
Bernardo Bertolucci
You May Also Like
High Rolling (1977) Fun-loving sideshow worker Tex (Joseph Bottoms) - a womanising American "cat" who speaks in 1960s hip…
Zorba the Greek (1964) A timid English writer named Basil (Alan Bates) arrives in Crete to open a mine for…
Yanks (1979) While stationed in a small Lancashire town as they await D-Day, three American soldiers become involved…
Nosferatu (1978) Sent to the Carpathian mountains to secure a real estate deal, Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) persuades…
Equus (1977) Judge Hesther Saloman (Eileen Atkins) approaches morose psychiatrist Dr Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) with a request…
Goodbye Girl, The (1977) Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason), a twice-deserted single mother and ex-dancer with a 10-year-old daughter (Quinn Cummings),…
Eraserhead (1977) This classic from David Lynch blends paranoia, claustrophobia, and the ultra macabre into a truly unique…
Promise at Dawn (1970) This epic biographical drama is based on author Romain Gary's memoir Promise at Dawn and Samuel Taylor's…
