Here's a film that illustrates better than nearly any other the importance of a strong script to the success of a film (or, more precisely, the ability of a weak script to sink a cinematic endeavor no matter how substantial the film's other resources). Director Bernardo Bertulucci was fresh off three major successes with The Spider's Stratagem (1970), The Conformist (1970), and Last Tango in Paris (1973) and was being hailed as potentially the greatest Italian director since Fellini. When he proposed an epic to recount Italian history in the first half of the twentieth century, film producer Alberto Grimaldi agreed to back the enormously expensive endeavor. Bertolucci's greatest strengths as a director were a gliding, space-exploring camera style and beautiful composition, which would be ideal for a lavish period piece. The glamour of the enterprise attracted an international all-star cast. There was the great Burt Lancaster, already popular with Italian movie-goers for his magnificent performance in Visconti's highly successful The Leopard (1963). There was the lovely homegrown Dominique Sanda, who had already starred in such films as A Gentle Woman (1969), The Conformist (1970), and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971). Then there were the two handsome young studs in the lead roles – two actors who would go on to be among the greatest of their generation: the American Robert De Niro (who later that same year would star in his breakout film Mean Streets) and the Frenchman Gérard Depardieu, fresh off success in Going Places. There was Donald Sutherland, who had starred in the highly successful M*A*S*H (1970), as Hawkeye, who would play the bad guy. There was Sterling Hayden to provide a link to the greatest of all Italian-American epics, The Godfather (1972). The highly-regarded film composer, Ennio Morricone, had been enlisted to provide the soundtrack and Vittorio Storaro the Technicolor cinematography. How could such a project go wrong? The anticipation was palpable when the film opened at the Cannes Film Festival, where tickets were scalped feverishly.

How could such an enterprise go wrong? Put simply, a feeble script! Bertolucci, who was an active Communist at the time, had chosen a topic about which he was overly invested on a personal level. As a result, the script lacked subtlety and nuance. The characters are almost all painfully black (the landowners and Fascists) or white (the peasants and Communists) and the political message so heavy-handed that it smacked of propaganda. I say that speaking as a person on the political left, so one can only imagine how the film must grate on those with right-leaning proclivities. The dialog is so trite in its simplistic representation of the purity of the peasants and Communists and the ignominy of the landowners and Fascists as to make viewers cringe. I actually felt embarrassed, at time, for the great performers who had to utter such silly material. One gets the impression that there were times in the film that the actors were unable to believe enough in their lines to deliver them credibly. There are times when the film is downright exciting or gently intriguing, but other times Bertolucci takes the story down too many dead-ended subplots. The script is just a terrible mess and unsalvagable even by the superlative cinematography and cast.

Historical Background: The Italian government had little popular support even prior to World War I, but after large loses during the War and little to show for it in the settlement (they acquired Trentino and Trieste as reward for joining the Allied effort), dissatisfaction among the Italian populace was rampant. Many workers had no jobs and there was deep bitterness among the veterans. In the election of 1919 (the first in Italy with universal male suffrage), two new parties came to the fore: the Socialists and the Popular Party (backed by the Roman Catholic Church). These parties opposed both one another and the existing government leaders. The Italian Parliament was so fractured that progress in dealing with the economic and social problems was impossible. The threat of revolution grew. Strikes were organized among workers and peasants demanded land of their own.

As backlash against the rising chaos, a new movement called Fascism arose among the established interest groups, under the leadership of a former socialist, Benito Mussolini. The Fascists promised to restore order by clamping down on the workers and peasants. The Fascists marched on Rome in 1922, prompting King Victor Emmanuel III to name Mussolini as premier. By 1925, Mussolini was ruling Italy as a dictator. Young people, businessmen, and landowners were organized into squads of "brownshirts," pledged to support Il Duce ("the leader") by terror and intimidation. The Fascists took control of the media and schools and used propaganda and censorship to further their cause. Similar Fascist movements arose in other European countries, such as Spain, and in Latin America. Mussolini sent 70,000 troops to Spain to help Franco win the Spanish Civil War. Even before World War II broke out in 1939, Italy had been at war for three years, in Ethiopia and Albania. Italy allied itself with Germany, though it stayed out of World War II for eight months until June 1940.

World War II very quickly revealed how poorly the Italian troops were prepared for modern warfare. The Italians suffered a progression of defeats in North Africa, Ethiopia, and Greece, followed by the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and mainland Italy in September. King Victor Emmanuel III surrendered to the Allies immediately and had Mussolini deposed and imprisoned, but Nazi paratroopers rescued Il Duce and placed him in charge of a puppet government in Northern Italy. Civil War broke out between partisan Italians (many of whom belonged to the Communist Party) and the remaining Fascists. After World War II, three main political parties emerged out of free elections: the Christian Democrats, the Socialists, and the Communists.

The Story: This grand epic follows the history of Italy between 1900 and 1945 from the vantage point of two boys born within hours of one another on the same day as the death of the great Italian composer, Guiseppe Verdi, January 27th, 1901. One, Alfredo (Robert De Niro), is born the grandson of a wealthy landowner and padrone (master), Alfredo Berlinghierei (Burt Lancaster), and the other, Olmo (Gérard Depardieu), the illegitimate grandson of the peasant, Leo Darco (Sterling Hayden). The two play together as children and become good friends, despite the difference in their social circumstances. Alfredo is influenced, a bit, by his socialist pal and is intent on being a better padrone than his grandfather and, especially, his father had been. Nevertheless, when Alfredo becomes padrone, he feels compelled to retain his father's vicious manager, Atilla (Donald Sutherland), a Fascist and all-around sinister guy, to protect his interests. Alfredo falls for and marries the lovely Ada (Dominique Sanda), who despises the brownshirted Fascists and ultimately rejects Alfredo for his inability to stand up against injustice. Despite being cast on opposite sides of the social upheaval, Alfredo and Olmo retain their friendship and save each other's bacon at key moments.

Themes: There is no mistaking Bertolucci's theme: Fascists and landowners are bad; Communists and peasants are good. Bertolucci has ignored the real lesson of history. Oppression is bad. The tendency to oppress others is, however, sadly inherent in human nature and is not meaningfully precluded by any political system. When oppressed people overthrow their oppressors, some of the formerly oppressed rise into positions of power and become oppressors. Examples of oppression are rampant under Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Democracy, and Monarchy – under virtually every political and economic system that has existed. People who acquire power and wealth inevitably turn their attention to preserving their power and wealth by oppressing those who have none and would rise up and seize it. The irony in 1900 is that the peasants are depicted as happy, well-adjusted, caring people despite their poverty while the landowners and their families are mostly unhappy and psychologically maladjusted. Nevertheless, the happy peasants want to rise up and seize the wealth and property of the landowners so that they, too, can become miserable!

Production Values: The cinematography is very effective, from the rich color to the period detail and scenic vistas. The patented Bertolucci camera movements are everywhere in evidence, exploring the architectural spaces via graceful tracking shots. There is a rich variety of high angle shots, pans, and zooms. It's all very lovely to look at – when one is not squirming at the awful dialog and simplistic propaganda.

It's very hard to evaluate the performances in this film – given the problems with the script. Lancaster is outstanding and carries the first hour of the film. Hayden, whose character provides Lancaster's foil, is also quite effective in a more limited role. Dominique Sanda's part is hard to take, but my impression is that the fault lies with the script rather than her performance. Depardieu does a commendable job with his part as Olmo. De Niro's character, Alfredo, was the only character, really, with any moral complexity and De Niro gives a nice performance when the dialog permits him to do so. There are times, however, that he has to utter lines that are so trite that it reflects badly on the actor as well. I found myself feeling embarrassed for him. Some reviewers find Donald Sutherland over-the-top in his role, along with Laura Betti as his villainous partner, cousin Regina. Since the script was failing miserably anyway, I personally found Sutherland and Betti's performances a welcome bit of almost comic relief. They were deliciously over-the-top, somewhat alleviating the pretentiousness of the propaganda effort.

The soundtrack of the film is also deficient – in two respects. Though I've sometimes admired the work of Ennio Morricone as a film composer, here he provides that blatant kind of musical accompaniment that seems designed to tell viewers what emotions they're supposed to be feeling in each scene. The evil landowners perform to heavy, ponderous, grating music while the peasants live their lives to the accompaniment of blithe melodies. More propaganda! Then, the dubbing is obscenely bad. I imagine that I'd greatly prefer this film in Italian with subtitles, but no such version exists.

Bottom-Line: This monstrous epic, 1900, is one of those "events" in film history that was such a grand failure that movie-lovers ought to see it just for the experience of seeing how a film can go wrong. There are some memorable scenes between the grotesque ones. There are a variety of scenes involving sex and nudity that only the Europeans could come up with, some of which are refreshingly realistic and others of which seem contrived. I don't regret watching the film, despite its obvious flaws.

This film exists in several different cuts. The original version was 320 minutes, but it was soon obvious that it was unmarketable at that length. After a greatly shorted version was released in America, Bertolucci finally relented and provided his own edited version of intermediate duration, at around 247 minutes. That is the version that I have reviewed. It is in dubbed English, except for the American actors who speak their own lines in English.

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age