The Leopard

Benvenuto, amici! This month we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the resurgence, the historic process which forged the modern country of Italy from a collection of individual sovereign states linked only by geography. Luchino Visconti’s stunningly restored 1963 epic is based on Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s fine novel, visually charting the mood of change that the cascade of social revolution brought to one aristocratic family as seen through the eyes and heart of its patriarch.

In one of the cinema’s great screen performances, Burt Lancaster, as Prince of Salina, reluctantly watches his beloved nephew (60’s heartthrob Alain Delon) leave to join the rebels, then makes his peace with the changing times by marrying him off to a beautiful bourgeois, played by a smoldering Claudia Cardinale. The climatic 45-minute ball scene, created with astonishing attention to detail -- down to changing real candles in the chandeliers every hour during filming-is an emotional tour-de-force, described as “one of the most moving meditations on individual mortality in the history of the cinema". Caryn James, writing for indieWIRE, declares The Leopard “ever-enthralling… at once a magnificent escape into the past and a warning about clinging to it".

We’re proud to showcase this sublime restoration, blessed by the film’s original cinematographer, the great Giuseppe Rotunno, and funded by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and Gucci. With music by Nino Rota, this is a sensual feast you’ll never forget. It’s our great pleasure to have the participation at this event of the Italian Consul General, the Honorable Giuseppe Pastorelli, and members of the Dante Alighieri Society. Please join us in this wonderful celebration of Italian history and culture.
 

Presented by Boston Private Bank & Trust, in association with Trader Joe's. We would also like to thank Joseph Giangregorio and Hanover Wine & Spirits