Roger Albert said that "Leopard" is a film directed by the only person who can direct it. This sounded like nonsense at first, but it made sense after careful consideration. It is rare for film directors to be born of nobles, and there are almost no such pure nobles born as Visconti. The Visconti family has a prominent position in Italian history, and you can see this family activity in Machiavelli's "History of Florence". Therefore, Visconti, like Prince Salina in "Leopard", belongs to "a member of the old ruling class", making this movie is like taking pictures of his family affairs. Visconti is not only an aristocrat, but also a Marxist. He is deeply influenced by the Marxist view of history, which is reflected in "Leopard", which represents the modern revolution in Europe as a shift and change between classes. The great aristocrat and Marxist, this wonderful combination determines the relationship between Visconti and "Leopard", and also establishes the emotional tone of the film's sense of history.
"Leopard" is an epic dedicated to the nobility, but it is an elegy epic. It does not show the great achievements of this period of class rise, but its inevitable decline and demise! In history, whenever the aristocracy fell and was replaced by a new class, someone would sing an elegy. 2500 years ago, the Greek aristocracy in the imperial era was replaced by the civilian class representing democracy, and Pindar sang an elegy for them. In modern movies, the decline of aristocratic spirit and the rise of new classes, as far as I know, is Renoir's "The Great Disillusionment." Unlike Renoir’s wise and sober bystanders, Visconti could not cut off his blood connection with this class. For him, expressing the decline and death of aristocratic spirit is like expressing his own death. In "Leopard" With the protagonist, Prince Salina, we heard Visconti’s inner monologue.
However, we have to start with a "creature" such as aristocrats that existed in history. Whether it is the West, which has been generally democratized and emphasizes equal rights of individuals, or China is full of upstarts and privileged classes, nobility is a very unfamiliar term. It is said that this "creature" has been extinct for a long time. Even in the era when nobles still existed, ordinary people did not understand them. The priest of Prince Salina described the nobles to the commoners in the tavern: "The nobles you are talking about are hard to figure out. The world they live in is created by the trouble and joy that they have experienced for centuries. Those things that you and I think are trivial are important to them. I am not saying that they are bad people. They are not at all. They are different. They don't care about the important things. They worry about the things that we don't care. For example. Said that in the eyes of Prince Salina, it would be a tragedy if he did not rush to Duna Focate for a holiday, but if he asked him what he thought of the revolution, he would say that there was no revolution and everything was the same." When dealing with nobles, his understanding of this class is quite superficial. He only knows that they are "different", but he doesn't understand the difference. In the eyes of outsiders, nobles must first possess a large amount of property, but everyone knows that property and nobles cannot be equated. Some people may say that the reason for the wealth does not mean that he is a nobleman, because the nobleman must first have aristocratic temperament. There is a passage in "Leopard" that illustrates the relationship between the cultivation of aristocratic temperament and property. Prince Salina described his future son-in-law, Prince Taclodi, to businessman and councillor Carlo Giro, "Maybe no one can be as noble, sensitive and charming as Taclodi, unless his ancestors splurge, at least This is true in Sicily." The cultivation of aristocratic temperament not only requires a lot of money, but also improper money. This may be the original sin of the aristocracy and the source of their inevitable decline.
A class is the same as a person. The best expression of his qualities and spiritual qualities is not when he is proud of the spring breeze, but when he is in hardship and is dying. Visconti also chose such a moment to "make a statement" for his class. Prince Salina in the movie is the spokesperson of the aristocratic class. He opened his mouth to "we" and "this class", but this character did not lose his own personality and charm. On the contrary, Visconti did not let this character say much. Regarding the positive remarks of the aristocratic class, he only expresses the aristocratic spirit by shaping this image and letting the audience feel this image. Prince Salina is first of all a guilty nobleman. He knows that the noble class has an unredeemable original sin: "For 25 centuries, the great civilization we have been shouldered by has come from outside, not created by us, and cannot be called Our civilization. Since 2500 years, we have been nothing but colonists." For some people, the aristocracy as a class collapsed because of the degeneration of their own lives; for the real aristocracy, it was simply because of their burdens. A certain sense of guilt is simply because this sense of guilt suppresses their will to life. The Prince Salina in the movie initially maintained a vigorous erotic life. While maintaining a cunning respect for religion, he went to Palermo to find prostitutes for pleasure; later, as the revolution and political situation changed As he retreated to the bourgeoisie represented by Carlo Giro step by step, his will to life also weakened step by step, so he refused to invite him to participate in the new government official Shivli: “Sicilian’s Desire is to sleep in a dream... All the shouts, even the most violent, are longing for forgetting, pleasure-seeking is for forgetting, gunfire is longing for death, sipping sweet drinks, all for the ultimate peace, that is Death." The ancient land of Sicily has become the incarnation of the nobles as old as it. With the marriage between Prince Taclodi and Carlo Giro’s daughter Angelica, Prince Salina knew that the newcomers of the future had already appeared, and after blessing them ("Today, there is nothing more Beauty"), he came to the study alone, looked at the portrait of "Dying San Diego" on the wall, and began to think about death. The aristocracy’s strong will is gradually shrinking and has reached the end. In Freud’s terminology, the drive of death prevails. However, for a nobleman who does not lack faith, his life is not just a natural life. The death of life is not disappearance and perish, but a kind of return, which is combined with eternal life and absolute ideals. After the party, Prince Salina alone
Visconti did not deliberately beautify the nobles. He knew well that in addition to being spiritual nobles, they were also just "mortals in troubled times." In the cruel historical changes and class changes, they had to adopt very practical measures to survive. In the face of realistic political struggles, they are not a group of fantasy creatures. Although knowing that they, as the ruling class, "now everything is over", every action taken by Prince Salina in the movie is an act of self-protection of this class. The most important action is to support the marriage of his nephew Takrodi. Angelica, the daughter of the bourgeois, knew that this was one of the ways history left for the nobility. In this typical marriage of a son of an elegant nobleman and a daughter of a wealthy bourgeoisie, a part of the aristocracy (a young, visionary and realistic person like Takrodi) transforms into a new one through union with the bourgeoisie. Ruler. And Prince Salina himself, due to the heavy historical burden and the constant spiritual connection, resolutely endured the fate that came to this class.
The epic of "Leopard" is inseparable from its heavy sense of history, and the sense of history is first expressed as a distinct class consciousness. It represents an era of change, in which the decline of the nobility is inseparable from the appearance of the bourgeoisie. The theme of the changing times is highlighted in the first scene of "Leopard". The first thing in the screen is the exterior scene of a manor. As the camera moves slowly and the lens advances, the audience finds that Prince Salina’s family is gathering together. There was a family prayer meeting in the living room. After this scene lasted for a few seconds, the pious prayers were gradually replaced by the noise from outside the house. A servant came to announce that the body of a soldier had been found in the garden. After understanding the truth of the matter, the family priest painted a cross and said, "This is a revolution."
Before the positive appearance of the bourgeoisie, "Leopard" first showed the collapse of the internal union of the old ruling class, that is, the separation between the Catholic Church and the aristocracy. The family priest in the movie is a shy and cowardly person besides the dogma full of brains. He foresaw the crisis that the changes of the times would bring to the church, but he was completely at a loss. He only hoped that through the use of dogma Restrain the nobles and make them take full responsibility. The decline of the religious spirit can also be seen in the pious lady of Prince Salina. She used her sensitive, fragile nerves and crying style to confirm Nietzsche's assertion that Christianity has degenerated into a sentimental religion. Both the church and the nobles are susceptible to each other, worrying that the other party will betray themselves first, and the priest is worried that the noble class will "reach an agreement with the liberals and even the Freemasonry" at the expense of religion to divide the church's property. Prince Salina also knew, “If religion can save itself by sacrificing us, do you think it won’t do it?”
The first to respond under this crisis of governance was the tower of Prince Salina’s nephew. Crody, he knew that "everything must be changed if it is to remain eternal", so when the revolution broke out, he was the first to participate as a nobleman. Visconti used a symbolic vision to show Taclodi's family seeing off when he left home to join Garibaldi's army. A large road stretches from the manor of Prince Salina to the horizon. Taclodi, riding a horse, drifts away on this road. Closer, the family watched him with sadness and uncertain future. . The people here are still very unfamiliar with what is at the end of the horizon, but everything indicates that actions over there will change the face of the world, and one of the best members of them has already taken the initiative to find out, and he will be because of it. Become a newcomer in the new era.
"Leopard" not only shaped the image of aristocrats like Prince Salina, but also shaped the bourgeoisie like Carlo Giro. It is not difficult to see that Visconti wears tinted glasses when it comes to bourgeois. In his films, Carlo Giro looks somewhat like a clown in front of the noble Prince Salina. He lacks the tenacious spirit of being a pioneer of the new era like Robinson, but there is no lack of those characters in Balzac's works. Greed and speculation. The film borrowed the words of the poor painter Hisio Domey to express the image of the bourgeois in the eyes of the common people: "His Royal Highness,'The truth is,' he is rich and influential. He is a miser but devilishly clever, you It’s time to see what he looked like in April and May last year. He shuttled back and forth like a bat, rode horses and mules in a carriage, and walked rain or shine. The places he passed would form secret organizations to pave the way for those who would come. He was a disaster. This is a disaster. It's just the beginning of his career. In a few months, he will become a member of the Turin Parliament. In a few years, when the church property is auctioned off, he will be able to take possession of Mara and Von Dashiro's property without any cost, and finally He will become the largest rich man in the province, and this is Carlo Giro, the future ruler." In "Leopard", Visconti absorbed Marx’s class theory, but he did not think that the change of class contained some kind of In the process of progress, in his eyes, history is full of strong will and the so-called "naked truth." The Prince Salina in the movie said, "We are a leopard or a lion, and we are replaced by a jackal and a coyote. Everyone—leopards, lions, jackals, and coyotes, feel that they are noble.” Those who have the ability to rule, All are pragmatic people, idealists like Garibaldi are doomed to fail. And although people like Carlo Giro "have no illusions" like Prince Salina, "he can create illusions when needed", that is, through slogans such as justice and progress, they provide proof of the legitimacy of their actions.
The prince of Salina no longer has the ability to create fantasy. "He has crossed two worlds and felt uneasy in both worlds." Now he just wants to sleep and find peace in the eternal world. So, in the last scene Here, we see his figure gradually disappearing into the darkness of the square lens. This is the curtain call and farewell, not only for Prince Salina himself, but also for the ancient class.
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