short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Leopard (1963, Italian)

There’s nothing quite like a 3-hour Italian period drama to entertain you when you’re home sick from work. Yesterday, I watched The Leopard, Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film about the decline of the Italian aristocracy in the latter half of the 19th century. Not knowing much (if anything) about this period in Italian history, a lot of the background was lost on me, but the film was still well worth watching for its amazing period style, characters, and family drama.

However, I always find it strange when directors cast non-language-speaking actors in prominent roles, and then have them dubbed over. It doesn’t seem to happen that often anymore, but I have seen easily a half-dozen European films from the 60’s and 70’s that were cast this way. I’ve always wondered how this works for a director. For example, Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon are the primary characters in The Leopard, and neither speaks a bit of Italian. The dubbing is quite obvious, and also rather discombobulating at first. What was the reasoning behind casting these particular actors? Did Lancaster and Delon have a certain look that made their lack of Italian language skills a secondary consideration? It’s true that both men fit their roles perfectly, but as with foreign films that have been dubbed for the international market, I always feel that there is something particular missing when the actor’s physical presence doesn’t match his dialog. When films are subtitled, it may be difficult at times to take in both the translated dialog and the visual components, but at least the originality of the actor’s delivery and individual voice is retained. In this case, watching Lancaster was a bizarre transaction – an actor speaking in English, then dubbed over in Italian, and then subtitled again in English.

Overall, this language matter doesn’t detract too much from the impact of what is generally an extremely good film. The cinematography is especially lovely, filled with many long, wide shots of the Sicilian countryside, a locale that is drawn into the narrative in a surprisingly negative way. For all of its great beauty, Visconti tells us, there is something feral in the landscape that has existed for ages, and shows no sign of abatement in the modern age.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's not forget that lavish ball scene which set the stage for Scorsese's mannerism in Age of Innocence. I consider this sequence in The Leopard, from it camera work to its authenticity, be a benchmark for period pieces to come to strive for. Also, I suspect Bergman took an extended look at this film in planning some of the scenes in Fanny and Alexander.

12:54 PM

 

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