1900

Two children born on the same day: Alfredo, grandson of the great landowner, and Olmo, son of a landless peasant. Across the first half of the twentieth century, as Italy swings from fascism to communism, their friendship is pulled in the same directions. Bernardo Bertolucci directed. Robert De Niro plays Alfredo and Gérard Depardieu plays Olmo, with Dominique Sanda, Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland in the cast. Vittorio Storaro shot it; Ennio Morricone wrote the score, carrying melodies from Verdi. The director's cut runs 317 minutes, one of the longest films ever released commercially. When producer Alberto Grimaldi needed a shorter version for distributors, the fight began. It eventually circulated in three cuts: the original 317 minutes, a 247-minute version Bertolucci accepted as a compromise, and a 180-minute edit. It premiered at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival and was released theatrically in two parts in several countries. Reviews were mixed. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 52 percent and Metacritic at 70. Roger Ebert wrote that it does not seem to go anywhere and is an epic only by virtue of its length. It won the 1977 Bodil Award for Best Non-American Film and is now regarded as a cult film. Who it is for: viewers with stamina for long epics and seventies European cinema. Who it is not for: anyone testing the limits of violence and sex. Some scenes are deliberately extreme.