Oscar Wilde once said, “The greatest men fail, or seem to have failed.”  Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film The Leopard shows us such a man in a film so extravagantly shot that the profound sadness buried beneath the haughty exterior of aging aristocrat Prince Don Fabrizio (Burt Lancaster) can easily be overlooked.  However, the film itself cannot and its onslaught of dazzling images, running the gamut from astonishingly elegant balls to bloody battles amidst the backdrop of war-torn Sicily, begs to be seen in a theatre. (Davis Rivera)

ABOUT THIS SERIES

Born into a prominent family of Milanese aristocrats, Luchino Visconti had a rare perspective on social class and familial tradition that informs his work. His films, small at first, grew to operatic proportions as his career went on, with a thematic grandeur to equal their visual opulence. We are honored to present several new restorations of his films as part of this touring series.