1900 (1991)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A Major Disappointment

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

OK first of all this movie is like three f###ing hours long. I've read stuff on the internet, and I know that there are different cuts of this movie and some are longer and some are shorter. But just know that this movie is like three f###ing hours long. That's like, almost more like a mini-series. Which, cool, or whatever, but just, like know that that's what you're f###ing committing to. Pretty much right away this movie reveals to you that it's going to be one of those edgy Italian movies that is gonna show you some f###ed up s##t but then be serious enough that you feel like it's a means of artistic expression, and not, you know, spectacle. Right away there's a scene with kids making fun of some woman giving birth. Whatever. It's a costume drama, you're trying to tell me that things used to be grittier and more real and s##t. Cool, I get it. But then there's like, a kid that lays under a train, and you can tell from the shot that they really got someone to lay under a train. Great, awesome. And then these kids show each other their dicks, and suddenly you're watching a movie where kids are showing each other their dicks. Great. Awesome. Thank you so much, movie. Why did I torrent this again?There are boobs, eventually. So it's this long drawn out thing. It's two dudes, and one is a peasant and one is an aristocrat, and it's their biography, with the politics and class struggle of Italy writ large as the backdrop to their relationship over the course of like five decades. That's pretty cool. This movie also likes to show lots of old people with weathered faces and dying animals and meat. Again, great and awesome. And also there's this scene where some old man massages a horse's b###hole and you watch the poop coming out of it's butt. But, I mean you're the one who wanted to watch a f###ing 70s Italian movie, I'm not sure what you were expecting. I saw online someone said that this was like the Gone With the Wind of Italy.

It is gratifying to see that this film is finally receiving the recognition it deserves. The United States market never understood this film. First put off on the length distributors cut and slashed the film to a length they thought movie-goers would tolerate and produced an inferior product that made no sense. The movie-goers themselves were not of a mind-set to appreciate the themes and content of the film. It was released during the height of the disco period when the movie-going public wanted to see Saturday Night Fever and not a politically charged film. There would have been a different result if the film had been released ten years earlier, but even that possibility is doubtful. The film is unabashedly leftist and proudly exposes the virtues of Marxism, so much so it has been called the Marxist Gone With the Wind. Finally, the historical issues portrayed in the film, while familiar to European watchers, are totally unknown to American movie-goers, who never had much interest in history anyway. Still, with all of these drawbacks, its was on its release and remains widely popular in just about every other country in the world and a film of incredible beauty. I watched the 2-DVD release years after first viewing this movie in Europe when it was first released. Little did I know I was watching the European uncut, five hour plus, version, which was not available in the United States. The 2-dvd version loses little of the effect and Bertolucci does not hide his political sympathies. Some may believe that the political message detracts from the film. Far from it. Its message is more relevant today than when it was first released. Burt Lancaster and Robert de Niro took reduced fees for acting in the movie, they believed in the vision so much. De Niro made this movie immediately following Godfather II and could have demanded a higher fee, but didn't.Other reviews have taken exception to the candid depictions to the coming of age scenes, and the scenes depicting the killing of animals. While this may offend PETA sensibilities, and as difficult it is to see the slaughtering of the pig --- or any animal --- there was a point to this part of the movie. One of the purposes of this movie, Bertolucci says in the bonus features, is to remind modern day Italians where they came from. He states that the Italian viewer watching this film in the 70's was only one or two generations away from the lifestyle reflected in the movie. It is faithfully recording everyday life of Italian peasantry, a practice which lives on today in villages in Southern Europe. Nothing was wasted because they could not afford to waste anything.Folks, this is not post-modern urban life in America. American viewers in the early stages of the 21st Century may be farther removed from the practice of slaughtering livestock and scrounging for a meager existence, but as the day laborers in 1990 lived, but I can assure you that there was a day when that was precisely how Americans lived. It is how people lived their lives, until very recently, for hundreds and hundreds of years.American viewers should be more disturbed on seeing how fascism took hold in pre-WWII Italy. It is a reminder how it can happen, here or anywhere, but, ... "It Can't Happen Here" ....As difficult as these scenes are to watch, Bertolucci's 1900 is actually a rather accurate reflection of political trends in Southern Europe in general, and Pre- and Mid-WWII Italy and Greece in particular, and an accurate depiction of post WWI Italy.A particularly accurate account is the scene late in the movie, when, after the war and after the trial of Berlingheri, partisans come moving in, notifying the mob that a new government was installed, and requested everyone turn in their firearms, which they did. Roughly the same post-WWII events occurred in Greece.Whatever one may be the political predispositions of anyone viewing 1900, Bertolucci has created a film of great and exquisite beauty, with a powerful message as relevant today as when it was released. Every frame is suitable for framing, and matches the magnificent the oil painting which opens the film.

This is one of my favorite movie is very long about 6 hours but its so good that you don't care i saw this movie the first time in in a revival movie house in New York City i love the movie from beginning to end is a masterpiece ,plus is the wonderful Dominique Sanda one of the most beautiful and talented actress in the world , plus Laura Betti a great actress she play the fascist wife of Donald Sutherland both are evil and perfect in their part plus Burt Lancaster never been better than here evil rich old man , Robert de Niro and Gerad Depardieu i am not a fan of either one are good here, Stephanie Sandrelli a great Italian movie star is good too , don't miss the movie i know is very long but you will not mine just go with the emotion and the time in history plus remember is Dominique Sanda in this movie

1900 (Novecento) 1977 NR 315 minutes. Since I am bored with most USA English movies lately I have been catching up on some of the movies by the "great directors" which I missed in the movie theater. 1977 I was not watching many movies (University) I watched recently (not reviewed) The Conformist. I have yet to see Last Tango. (I own a VHS copy) I loved the Last Emperor. It was a Multi Award Winner (now in new release 219 min version-not available on net/ flix) I did not particularly care for the Dreamers –the political plot did not interest me-the sex and nudity was HOT. When I saw Emperor on the Big screen I thought it one of the greatest epics I had ever seen (besides Lawrence of Arabia). So now I decided to view his epic (much disliked) masterpiece 1900. Novecento. I was reading about the shortened release versions which got bad reviews. Even Ebert really hated the long version 2 stars on its release at Cannes. This is one movie where I greatly disagree with his review. I challenge Ebert to run the full length film at his Theater, view it there and not call it an epic masterpiece. Bernardo Bertolucci's massive epic, a history of Italy from 1900 to 1945 as reflected through the friendship of two men across class lines, is one of the most fascinating, if little seen, of his films. After beginning with Robert DeNiro as wealthy landowner Alfredo, and Gerard Depardieu as labor leader Olmo, the film returns to 1900 with the death of composer Giuseppi Verdi and the birth of the two friends. The opposing class interests of their grandfathers, padrone Burt Lancaster, and laborer Sterling Hayden, is quickly established in the enmity between the characters. As they grow, the boys become friends, mystified by the tensions that separate their families. But as time passes and Alfredo assumes the role of padrone, while Olmo works the land, their relationship becomes strained. With the rise of fascism, the director spells out its complicity with business interests, as the diffident Alfredo falls under the spell of a vicious and degraded fascist farm manager played by Donald Sutherland. Most will not like or understand this view of political Italy pre WW1 through Fascism & Nazi. It somewhat rewrites history. Fascinating 5 star epic movie. The last neo-realist epic ever filmed. It contains some of the most stunning cinematography I have ever seen.