1900
Fighting and loving between peasants and landowners, but the latter eventually give birth to the fascists. Because it’s Italian, because it’s political, because it’s Bertolucci, critics want to explain its flaws in complex ways, but the unfortunate truth is that the actors are very badly directed, the dialogue is often atrocious, many scenes are just plain terrible, the political content is laughably propagandistic, and Ennio Morricone’s score, alternating between syrupy and overwrought, does not help at all – all of this unfolding over the course of more than five hours. I don’t think it would even be possible to describe it as well-intentioned. But for those with a hankering to see the penises of Robert De Niro and Gérard Depardieu hanging out together, this film does have something to offer (also features numerous animals being treated badly).
If we see this as part of a set of mid-to-late-1070s cinematic works on the fate of the Italian peasantry, this counts as the revolutionary account, followed a year later by the liberal account (asserting that individual progress is possible via education), in PADRE PADRONE (1977), and a year after that by the allegedly “conservative” account, in THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS (1978) – the last of these being by far the best, and in truth more “cosmic” than conservative. To my mind, it also seems that 1900 could be the start of another, more haphazard trilogy of lengthy, poorly-made but sometimes-highly-praised movies, the second being another look at the rise of fascism, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), and the third being another film that both misuses Robert De Niro and features a decidedly lesser Morricone score, Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984).
If we see this as part of a set of mid-to-late-1070s cinematic works on the fate of the Italian peasantry, this counts as the revolutionary account, followed a year later by the liberal account (asserting that individual progress is possible via education), in PADRE PADRONE (1977), and a year after that by the allegedly “conservative” account, in THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS (1978) – the last of these being by far the best, and in truth more “cosmic” than conservative. To my mind, it also seems that 1900 could be the start of another, more haphazard trilogy of lengthy, poorly-made but sometimes-highly-praised movies, the second being another look at the rise of fascism, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), and the third being another film that both misuses Robert De Niro and features a decidedly lesser Morricone score, Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984).
Mini Review: Fighting and loving between peasants and landowners, but the latter eventually give birth to the fascists. Because it’s Italian, because it’s political, because it’s Bertolucci, critics want to explain its flaws in complex ways, but the unfortunate truth is that the actors are very badly directed, the dialogue is often atrocious, many scenes are just terrible, the political content is laughably propagandistic, and Morricone’s score, alternating between syrupy and overwrought, is no help at all.