Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)

This 1963 epic and classic, based on the Lampedusa novel and directed by Luchino Visconti, is indeed a fine piece of work, showing excellent control of material, visual interest, and moments of flair throughout.
From the wonderful first scene we have our stall laid out. We have the camera almost acting as a voyeur, as an evesdropper on the family. We also have another motif; how a huge amount of the action actually takes place off stage, and how what we are to focus on is rather the assimilation and re-action to the actions that the aristocratic family are no longer a master of. We also have the firt glance on the characters, we are drawn to Visconti's visual style which allows them to act. A nice reticence on the actors part is made throughout. The panning camera also helps this, giving a literal sweep and a slowness that speaks of us as universal, as the God, now looking on these monuments of humanity with an eye that is able to make their once great statures rather small. Everything crumbles. Special attention should be made to the pan across the family with dust on their faces in church, audacious, beautiful, nearly humourous in its panache.
The way this film looks is riveting. Not only the large Italian landscapes, so beautifully given, but the framing techniques. It is very reminiscent of Fellini, almost like a Renaissance painter, the camera moving (generally not cutting) to reframe well choreographed and spacial tableaus. This gives the feel of a dusty classicism to the family, and the lingering nature also allows us to understand them better- when we stick to an image, see what happens when the family leaves, we have a notion of how this family's comfort does indeed depend on a machine of other actual humans behind them (note especially the picnic scene, where we stay to watch the retainers clear up).
Burt Lancaster in the lead is terrific, a great screen portrayal (also of special note are his wife and the priest). At first Lancaster seems rather unsympathetic; literally running away from the camera. But his character comes to develop, and we come to develop, an understanding and a sympathy for his situation. This film actually contains very little peril, perhaps even one could say little great drama, but it remains intense and fascinating as we see a man come to an understanding of his place in the world. For perhaps an hour he has his days of summer, and then, near the end, when the autumn comes we are fully on his side. He is too tired to change, of course he should, but it is understandable.
The last scene, in the ballroom, is extremely famous. It has its moments, some wondeful pathos of a tiring Lancaster having last glories and quiet epiphanies, before stepping away. In a film (this version) that generally more than justifies its three hour plus runtime, perhaps more of a mxing up of pace would have helped at the end, it becomes rather monotomous structurally (though each moment remains wonderful, perhaps indispensable) in this last ballroom sequence. An extra ten minutes, somehow breaking up our time in the ballroom, could even have helped.
This is obviously a film of a novel, the story seems like one and dictates that it is a certan type of film. As far as this constrain goes, Visconti succeeded in still rendering a piece of art that is at times wonderous. Highly, highly reccommended.