Italian Movie Night at Gallery 40

Il Gattopardo (1963)

In the 1860s, a dying aristocracy struggles to maintain itself against a harsh Sicilian landscape. The film traces with a slow and deliberate rhythm the waning of the noble home of Fabrizio Corbero, Prince of Salina (the Leopard) and the corresponding rise to eminence of the enormously wealthy ex-peasant Don Calogero Sedara. The prince himself refuses to take active steps to halt the decline of his personal fortunes or help build a new Sicily, but his nephew Tancredi, Prince of Falconeri, swims with the tide and assures his own position by marrying Don Calogero’s beautiful daughter Angelica. The climatic scene is the sumptuous 40-minute ball in which Tancredi introduces Angelica to society. It is an iconic movie by Luchino Visconti, one of the most famous filmmaker in Italy.

With English subtitles
$5 suggested donation

Curiosity:
This movie was a launch pad for Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon careers. Today showing is a celebration of the life and career of Alain Delon, the actor often credited with starring in some of the greatest European films of the 1960s and ’70s who just passed away a couple of week ago.