Taglines: From the cradle to the grave – victims of history and change!
1900 movie storyline. Rural Italy, early 1900s. Two boys, Alfredo and Olmo, are born on the same day – one to the owner of a large estate, the other to one of his labourers. There is a massive divide between the classes in Italy, to the point of antagonism. Despite this, and despite some disagreements along the way, Alfredo and Olmo become best friends. We see them grow up, go to WW1 and their adult lives. Eventually their different upbringings and social standings come back to haunt them, as Italy is plunged into class war – the Socialists (workers) vs the Fascists (supported by the middle- and upper-class). Alfredo and Olmo find themselves on opposite sides.
1900 (Italian: Novecento, “Twentieth Century”) is a 1976 epic historical drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and featuring an international ensemble cast including Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Francesca Bertini, Laura Betti, Stefania Casini, Ellen Schwiers, Sterling Hayden, Alida Valli, Romolo Valli, Stefania Sandrelli, Donald Sutherland, and Burt Lancaster.
Set in Bertolucci’s ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives and friendship of two men – the landowning Alfredo Berlinghieri (De Niro) and the peasant Olmo Dalcò (Depardieu) – as they witness and participate in the political conflicts between fascism and communism that took place in Italy in the first half of the 20th century. The film premiered out of competition at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.
With a runtime of 317 minutes in its original version, 1900 is known for being one of the longest commercially released films ever made. Due to its length, the film was presented in two parts when originally released in many countries, including Italy, East and West Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Colombia, Pakistan and Japan.
In other countries, such as the United States, a single edited-down version of the film was released. 1900 has become widely regarded as a cult classic, and the film received special edition home video releases from Paramount, Fox and other distributors worldwide. The film’s restored version premiered out of competition at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in 2017.
About the Story
Born on the day of the death of renowned composer Giuseppe Verdi (January 27, 1901) two best friends, Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert De Niro as an adult) and Olmo Dalcò (Gérard Depardieu as an adult) come from opposite ends of the social spectrum. Alfredo is from a family of wealthy landowners led by his abusive but populist grandfather Alfredo the Elder (Burt Lancaster).
While Olmo is an illegitimate peasant son of an unmarried teenage peasant girl living off the estate whose grandfather Leo Dalcò (Sterling Hayden) is the foreman and peasant strong man who verbally and spiritually carries a duel of wits with both the peasants as well as his employer, but without ever reaching violence with Elder Alfredo’s bidding. While growing up, the young Alfredo is somewhat rebellious and despises the falseness of his family, in particular his weak but cynical father Ottavio (Werner Bruhns), he befriends Olmo, who was raised as a socialist.
The two become friends throughout their childhood, despite the social differences of their families. When Alfredo is around age 10, his grandfather, suffering from gout, dementia, and other ailments, commits suicide by hanging himself in the dairy barn. As a result, Alfredo the Younger’s father, Ottavio, inherits the plantation.
In 1917, the teenage Olmo enlists with the Italian army during World War I and goes off to fight on the front lines in northern Italy while Alfredo stays behind to learn how to run his family’s large plantation. Olmo returns from the war over a year later and his friendship with Alfredo continues. However during Olmo’s time away, Alfredo’s father has hired Attila Mellanchini (Donald Sutherland) as his new foreman following the death of Olmo’s own grandfather, Leo. Attila is sadistic man who becomes taken with fascism, especially after the fascists come to power in the early 1920s, Italy.
Attila eventually incorporates his new belief system in his dealings with the Berlinghieri workers; he treats them cruelly and later cages them in the Berlinghieri compound and accuses them of treason against Fascist Italy. Several are killed by Attila himself. Alfredo’s father, Ottavio, eventually dies from an illness and Alfredo inherits the vast estate as its sole heir. As the new padrone (master) of the plantation, Alfredo does little to challenge or halt Attila’s evil actions.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the intimacy and lack thereof in their respective relationships with others is highlighted in their love lives as both Alfredo and Olmo cannot seem to hook up with the right woman to be with. In one encounter, Alfredo and Olmo attempt to have a threesome with a local prostitute only to have her go into an epileptic fit which stops the threesome sexual encounter before it begins.
Alfredo marries a gorgeous, demure woman, named Ada (Dominique Sanda), while Olmo marries Anita (Stefania Sandrelli), a fellow left-wing idealist who, like him, shares in the enthusiasm of the cause of workers’ rights in the vein of socialism. Ada, however, sinks into alcoholism when confronted with the reality of the emptiness of her relationship with Alfredo.
1900 (1977)
Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Alida Valli, Ellen Schwiers, Anna Henkel-Grönemeyer, Sterling Hayden, Stefania Casini, Francesca Bertini, Laura Betti
Screenplay by: Franco Arcalli, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Bernardo Bertolucci
Production Design by: Maria Paola Maino, Gianni Quaranta
Cinematography by: Vittorio Storaro
Film Editing by: Franco Arcalli
Costume Design by: Gitt Magrini
Set Decoration by: Maria Paola Maino
Art Direction by: Ezio Frigerio
Music by: Ennio Morricone
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox (Italy and UK), Paramount Pictures (United States)
Release Date: November 4, 1977 (United States)
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