by Kaleem Hasan
It is not easy to nominate a film to equal let alone surpass the Leopard in the much attempted though rarely successfully realized art of translating literary writing to cinema. To remain true to two art forms at one and the same time is always a tall order and yet Visconti accomplishes this miracle in a work which is easily the director’s greatest and also one that was in some measure autobiographical for him. One of course thinks of Kurosawa’s supreme Shakespeare versions in Throne of Blood and Ran but these films are complex transpositions doing double duty in equal measure to Kurosawa’s vision as well as Shakespeare’s and therefore harder to pin down as ‘adaptations’ in the usual sense. Visconti seems a bit more modest in comparison aiming only to arrive at the best cinematic equivalent for Lampedusa’s sublime work and yet in doing so he opens up a rather intimate chamber drama into a sprawling large scale epic that captures the tones and notes of the novel to sheer perfection. The Leopard ought to stand as the very model of what a cinematic reworking of lierature ought to look like.
One has to go against entire schools of at least Anglo-American film criticism to suggest that for the most part very mediocre or at best servicable adaptations have rather triumphantly been celebrated as great successes. One cannot quarrel with David Lean’s Dickens adaptations as pure films but one ought to be able to find them enormously wanting as interpretations of those novels. These examples could be multiplied. The point of doing literature in film cannot just be to present a well-shot ‘intelligent’ entertainer. Much as it cannot be the purpose of an Ibsen stage production to have impressive sets and characters finely attired in period costume or otherwise! A powerful performance of the Eroica symphony would presumably not simply be ‘about’ the expert musicians but would have to include a notion of ‘interpretation’ which is what we associate with the Karajans of the field. Rather mysteriously and unfortunately though when it comes to cinema these critical antennae appear madly malformed. The overwhelming majority of cinematic adaptation and certainly within the Anglo-American tradition features literary work represented as film yarns. If one is very lucky one gets top notch cinematography. These films can certainly be enjoyed but serious interpretations they are not. There is a responsibility raised with the work of ‘adaptation’ — the director must be able to serve two masters rather well. Or else one is left with an impostor work that lives off the prestige of the original without enriching the inheritance in any way.
The Leopard too is concerned with questions of legacy. A modernity which threatens not just Don Fabrizio but an entire order of being he associates himself with. An entire waning of a world and not just the changing of the guard on a historical epoch. One could write endlessly on Visconti’s extraordinary formal choices in his film and the parade of interesting scenes and segments to go along with these but there is also here the director’s brilliant exploration of space as a metaphor for the concerns of the novel. The film’s outdoors usually seem chaotic and anarchic. There are the grand revolutionary moments in the early part of the narrative but also the ill-portending body in the garden and then later as the film progresses the ‘outdoors’ are where things remain unsettled or in tumult. From border checkpoints to those great symptoms of political modernity in elections the world on the outside always seems a bit less stable. As opposed to this the interior world of Don Fabrizio’s household and retinue and so forth is always one circumscribed by rules and order. The rooms of his grand residences or his hallways or his balconies usually feature characters arranged almost in geometric fashion. Affixed to their places. The only ‘freedom’ in the first half of the film is provided by Tancredo who is always a bit boisterously animated in these interior spaces. Not surprisingly he is the first member of his illustrious family who has made the move to modernity. In the second half of the narrative in what is one of the film’s supreme moments the lovers explore the uninhabited ‘ruined’ spaces of Donnafugata in a near-choreographed ludic display that is at once erotic and charged with political subversion. Finally the waltz sequence where a sort of mock-revolution is staged. Initially the couples dance in assigned areas in the ballroom but by the end they form a chain and wander all through their host’s residence. A kind of anarchy is unlosed in the midst of order as the dancers even charge through the dining area with the representatives of the old order relegated to being observers. No one sees this more clearly than Don Fabrizio and fittingly at the end of the film he goes out and wanders off into a dark ‘antique’ alley. His legacy and that of his world now has no legatees.
As the film opens Nino Rota’s grandly romantic score wafts over the palace gates and eventually one notices a grand curtain guarding the entrance to a very luxuriant balcony being blown by the wind and no longer being able to neatly segregate the inside from the outside. The rest of the film is about the gradual encroachment on the former by the latter. The wind blows in rumor of course and finally change.
Note: Kaleem Hasan is the founder and host of the blogsite “Satyamshot,” where he covers the full scope of Indian culture and politics. He saw The Leopard two weeks ago during it’s run at the Film Forum.
+++Visconti seems a bit more modest in comparison aiming only to arrive at the best cinematic equivalent for Lampedusa’s sublime work and yet in doing so he opens up a rather intimate chamber drama into a sprawling large scale epic that captures the tones and notes of the novel to sheer perfection. The Leopard ought to stand as the very model of what a cinematic reworking of literature ought to look like.+++
I know this film well, and consider it one of the classics of world cinema. I am assuming that Mr. Hasan saw the film with Sam, since I know he was over there a few weeks ago too. It seems that the widescreen canvas was made for such a film. But Mr. Hasan talks about the most crucial aspect of this film, which is literary interpretation. Is this a model? May well be. But I haven’t read the book, but see it as you apply it. I have no problem with film yarns, as you call them, but this successful adaptation would go the distance to bring a novel to cinematic perfection. Brilliant review.
Thanks for the comment Frank. I don’t have a problem with film yarns either. I enjoy many of the adaptations I would otherwise not rate highly. It’s just that I find it hard to take them very seriously ‘as’ adaptations.
Yep Frank, Kaleem met up with me a few weeks to see it. I see you have been active this afternoon. You see how addicting this whole thing is? Great comment too on the most vital aspect of Visconti’s film.
I recall William Golding saying that ‘The Leopard’ is the best novel of the century. So, Mr. Hasan’s treatment has a special kind of relevence.
In the last part of the film there is the magnificent ballroom sequence where we truly get the changing of the guard. The Prince is a pale shadow of his former self, shown to be a marginal figure. He rises to his former majesty one last time, in a waltz with Angelica, a concession of defeat. He then walks home alone instead of getting a carriage.What is noticeable in a film in which nothing much seems to happen is revised with further viewings knowing the historical background and political changes. Lancaster,is the fulcrum of power and dignity that controls and unites the film, suggesting physical presence and animal grace; also a sense of melancholy, mortality and resigned nobility with the passing of his feudal class. There is an opulent splendour in the sets and locations, an eye for painstaking detail. The cinematography is a vivid mixture of bright, dusty exteriors and chiaroscuro interiors, combined with Rota’s lush music and Visconti’s painterly compositions and theatrical framing. The film,preferably the Italian version with subtitles, is a master class in turning great novels into great films. I think you’ve done exceptional work in posing your argument. I wish I could have attended during that run, but I live a long distance away.
Your own comment is extraordinary Bill. Agreed with everything here. The novel is one of my very favorite works as is another one very allied to it in spirit, Joseph Roth’s Radetzky March. I often wish Visconti had attempted this as well!
I know Allan’s getting his machete ready after reading this!
Sadly, Kaleem, Allan is on sabatical from the site as far as comments are concerned anyway. However, I could never see him coming with anything but a blunt instrument as your work here is truly magnificent. Your descriptive language is only bettered by the persuasiveness of your argument of THE LEOPARD as the definitive book-to-film adaptation. I am a bit more enamored of the Dickens stuff, and I can certainly bring a host of others to the table as candidates, but THE LEOPARD has always been widely regarded as a model. I say this within even having read it.
Sam you are far too kind as always!
Kaleem has presented his case eloquently and with clarity, and having read the novel and seen Visconti’s masterpiece in a cinema, I share his admiration for the film.
But I prefer the novel to the film. There is harsh reality to the novel that is suffused in the elegance of the film. Sicily is a starkly primitive landscape, softened by the Greeks and their monuments, and by the opulence of the later aristocracy, and tamed by the Sicilian peasant. Beneath the surface there is the reality of heat and dust.
The dust evoked in Lampedusa’s final unsentimental paragraph:
“As the carcass was dragged off, the glass eyes stared at her with the humble reproach of things that are thrown away, that are being annulled. A few minutes later what remained of Bendico was flung into a corner of the courtyard visited every day by the dustman. During the flight down from the window his form recomposed itself for an instant; in the air one could have seen dancing a quadruped with long whiskers, and its right foreleg seemed to be raised in imprecation. Then all found peace in a heap
of livid dust.”
Thanks Tony..
This is one film I really would have loved to make. The widescreen compositions in a restored and remastered pint, no less, would have made for an optimum viewing. Mr. Hasan’s review is tremendous, and it’s great you guys were able to get it posted.
Thanks so much Frederick…
The Leopard is one of the gaps in my film education, but your elegant discussion, Kaleem, makes me want to tackle the thing.
Thanks much Pierre.. you should check this out when you get the chance..