235 The Leopard

[Drucker]

Yeah I'll be buying tickets this weekend, and hoping (assuming) they don't sell-out before then.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

The Copenhagen cinematheque is showing an old Danish 35mm copy next month. I'll take note of the colours in the restoration and post a comment here. I'm a bit concerned, though, that the copy is very worn; it must surely have been shown many many times during the years. Unless it is a newer copy, of course. But it is 35mm, not a restored DCP, according to the webpage: http://www.dfi.dk/Filmhuset/Cinemateket ... lmID=f8048" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Drucker]

I just got back from this afternoon's screening at Lincoln Center. I enjoyed the film immensely, and a few quick notes that might be of interest:

It was definitely a blu ray, as there was an FBI warning and a screen saying the blu ray wasn't available anywhere. It was then followed by an Olive Films logo, interestingly enough.

Fantastic film and great viewing experience.

[manicsounds]

Pretty surprised to see on the Blu-ray, when playing the US version of the film, the older Criterion Collection logo with the line going across the screen preceding the movie. I guess this is because this is just an upscaled version from the old DVD, so the logo remains.

Anyway, even with the supposed "perfect" picture quality said by many online reviewers, there were still instances of dirt on the film (Lancaster getting out of the bath scene for example) or some weird green horizontal lines (during the opening battle scenes), and what looks like an insect crawling on the lens (which I'm sure doesn't have to be fixed, but I kept wondering about that shadow moving around slowly). Not to say it's all bad, it looks great, but not perfect.

[TMDaines]

This sounds a bit like the Algiers set where all/nearly all of the extras are upscaled and the two Blu-rays are therefore a complete waste of time. The content might be worth the premium, but the package being spread over two Blu-rays is a complete red herring. I wish Criterion would stop upscaling their extras, as it does nothing but mislead people and adds little benefit at the expense of greatly bloated encodes. It's bad practice.

[manicsounds]

Well, considering that the movie itself takes up 47GB of space on disc 1, that would leave too little space to cram the 2 DVDs of extras on disc 1, so it would have to be relegated to a second disc anyway.

[Fred Holywell]

what looks like an insect crawling on the lens (which I'm sure doesn't have to be fixed, but I kept wondering about that shadow moving around slowly).

Actually, the insect on the lens was 'fixed' on the newer Scorsese/Film Foundation restoration. I realize it's part of the image as it's always existed on film, but I'm glad they decided to remove it. I find it really distracting -- especially the first time I saw "The Leopard" (projected on a big screen). At least one other bug can be found crawling on the lens - during the church service. It's nowhere near as noticeable as the other one, and I don't remember now whether it was removed, as well.

[matrixschmatrix]

Wow, I just saw a print derived from the Film Foundation restoration in the theater a couple of days ago, and now I'm watching the commentary on the Criterion blu at home- and the difference in the colors between the two really is striking. The Film Foundation resto pops, with a full Technicolor brightness that looks like the new restoration of Black Narcissus or something- not overly candy-colored, but beautifully striking in a way that enhances the beauty of the beautiful scenes and the desolation of the scenes depicting the squalor and dirt that Sicily contains. On my own system, even with the brightness and color artificially enhanced, I can't match that effect- and putting it on neutral settings, which generally reproduce colors fairly faithfully, it looks shockingly duller. Still beautiful, and still well worth owning, but even to my untrained eye the difference between the two is pretty spectacular.

[Altair]

Apologies if this has been brought up elsewhere or this is in an inappropriate thread, but with those caveats, I ask out of curiosity: having recently watched the Medusa BD of Il Gattopardo (which is 185 min) and then the trailer, a short scene occurs in the latter that shows Lancaster's character embracing his mistress/prostitute that isn't in the final film. Presumably this is a remnant from the 205 min premiere cut that Visconti edited down himself to 185 min. My question is, is there a list of some kind that details what was cut? Did anything survive (or were the cut scenes junked)?

[Fred Holywell]

My question is, is there a list of some kind that details what was cut? Did anything survive (or were the cut scenes junked)?

There's no list of the scenes cut from "The Leopard" that I'm aware of, and finding info on them can be hard to come by. Even Peter Cowie's extensive commentary on the Criterion disc barely mentions them, as I recall.

It does seem that images from many of these scenes have survived in publicity shots and other promotional material, though. In fact, the scene between the Prince and his his prostitute mistress, reportedly cut early on, was widely used in advertising for the film.

But, most fortunately, three of the scenes deleted from the Italian version of the movie were retained in the French release, and those have survived. They can be viewed on YouTube -- with English subtitles:

Deleted Scenes: 1 - 2 - 3

[Altair]

Thanks - I expect one needs to be fluent in Italian to be find out the more obscure aspects of a movie like Il Gattopardo (which despite its fame, doesn't even seem to be getting a BD release in the USA or the UK of the new 4K restoration, which I guess shows its popularity in the English-speaking world is fairly limited outside of cineastes).

EDIT: Having watched them (it's good that there are English subs!), while interesting and would make a nice extra of a future release, they're hardly essential, and one can see why Visconti cut them. The best one is perhaps the first, which shows an added political dimension to the plebiscite ("The ass is the one who votes!") and allows the workers a scene that Visconti, Marxist that he was, would've empathised with and dismayed by the hypocrisy.

[rrenault]

So you wouldn't suspect that CC may at some point re-release The Leopard with the 4K restoration, springing it upon us unexpectedly, doing with The Leopard what they did with Playtime?

[Altair]

It's possible (wouldn't it be great?), but then again, there haven't been any indications that they are going to (and the 4K resto has been around for a number of years now).

[rrenault]

Well nobody knew My Darling Clementine or Trafic was coming, so...

[tenia]

The Tati case is specific since it's due to the release of new movies through the boxset, springing the opportunistic use of new elements for already-released titles.
For The Leopard, I don't see which excuses they could get to re-release this title already upgraded. Furthermore, they ardently defended the use of the old restoration at the time, when comparisons between the Criterion and the Pathe started to flourished (and it was tremendously hilarious to see them defending the undefendable).

[Fred Holywell]

It's possible (wouldn't it be great?), but then again, there haven't been any indications that they are going to (and the 4K resto has been around for a number of years now).

The main stumbling block to getting the 4k restoration released in the U.S. and U.K. may be a distribution rights issue. That restore was commissioned by Pathe, and they don't have the rights to those two areas, they're handled by Fox... and Fox was involved with the Criterion job. At this point, they may not be interested in putting out money to distribute Pathe's version when they have one of their own, as inadequate as it may now be.

Regarding the deleted footage, here's some German artwork of Alain Delon in a cut Palermo church scene, where nuns tend to his injured eye:

[FrauBlucher]

I would also think that CC gambled on releasing titles in the early days of blu ray not knowing what may or may not be getting full blown restorations. As one example, they probably would have waited on M if they knew what was going to be the eventual final product that Universum released.

[Altair]

Regarding the deleted footage, here's some German artwork of Alain Delon in a cut Palermo church scene, where nuns tend to his injured eye:

Nice - in watching the rather excellent documentary The Last Leopard: A Portrait of Goffredo Lombardo, it mentioned that they filmed battle scenes for over a month, and seeing as this image perhaps fit into the anecdote Tancredi relates to Angelica, perhaps it was shot then.

[Fred Holywell]

The incident that Tancredi relates to Angelica -- how Garibaldi's soldiers commandeered the church, scaring the nuns, etc. -- would have preceded the battle scene that is in the movie. And as far as I know, that episode was never meant to be filmed; it exists solely as a story told by Tancredi.

What was filmed, though, was a scene inside that church during the Battle of Palermo. The battle sequence, as it exists now, ends with an injured Tancredi rushing toward the church where the Red Shirts have holed up, then dissolves to the caravan of the Prince's carriages on the road to Donnafugata.

What seems to have been cut is Tancredi entering the church, discovering fellow wounded soldiers, getting his injured eye dressed by some nuns, and then vowing to fight on. I seem to remember reading that there was also an exchange between Tancredi and Cavriaghi, the Mario Girotti character who plays a bigger part later in the film.

Here's some more detail of that scene from a Japanese advertisement:

[Ashirg]

A new blu-ray edition is up for pre-order at Amazon with November 4 release date. Most likely, a simple re-package.

[Fred Holywell]

My question is, is there a list of some kind that details what was cut? Did anything survive (or were the cut scenes junked)?

For those who are interested, I've come across some images from another scene that was cut from "The Leopard", which I was unaware of. It would have occurred during the attic sequence, when Tancredi (Alain Delon) and Angelica (Claudia Cardinale) become separated. She's alone with Cavriaghi (Mario Girotti), and they talk about her upcoming marriage to Tancredi. Apparently, the scene is lost now, and all that remains are a few stills taken during filming.

[ellipsis7]

On the eve of the 68th edition of the Cannes film festival, a flashback to 1963 on the beach (with Claudia Cardinale, Burt Lancaster & Luchino Visconti)...

[StevenJ0001]

Isn't that a cheetah?

[ellipsis7]

Isn't that a cheetah?

That could be Cannes for you, cinematic class but a little cheap on the publicity stunts!...

[StevenJ0001]

Isn't that a cheetah?

That could be Cannes for you, cinematic class but a little cheap on the publicity stunts!...

Great photo, though!