Novecento [1900] (1976)

It's a challenge to review this film without mentioning its dubbing.  Shot with an international cast to help guarantee financing,  Bernardo Bertolucci allows the actors to speak their native language, then dubs over them so he can have three soundtracks: English, French and Italian.  Yet I hate dubbing so much that the technique distracts from what is a very impressive if unnecessary long film.  The story told is about two men who have known each other since childhood.  Robert De Niro plays Alfredo Berlinghieri, the son of a landowner.  He represents the upper class.   Gérard Depardieu  plays Olmo Dalcò, a bastard farmer's child who represents the lower class.   What Bertolucci does is to show a slice of Italian history through these two men's class.   Olmo becomes a communist and Alfredo continues a passive upper-class life trying to live in the shadow of his family's legacy.  Films with two complex heroes are hard to pull off (especially ones so hard to root for) but you have to give Bertolucci a lot of credit for taking on such an ambitious project.  There are many memorable scenes that will forever stand the test of time.  Even just the shot of a young Olmo with living frogs tucked in his hat is an image I will never forget.  There's the scene of the evil Donald Sutherland as Attila Mellanchini, who represents the future tyranny of fascism, killing a cat.  There's the threesome between De Niro, Depardieu and Stefania Sandrelli that I'm sure many will remember.  And let's not forget Burt Lancaster's shocking scene where he makes a young girl touch him before killing himself.   There are many versions of this film, and the one I saw was the director's cut which is 317 minutes long.  If only Bertolucci could have shot this film with an all Italian cast and not dubbed it, I think I might have been able to get swept away but instead this was an endurance exercise, where I spent half the time switching the audio from English to French to Italian depending on the main actor in the scene.   If you can ignore a dubbed soundtrack then certainly check this one out, but be warned it's long and none of the characters are really that likable.  Grade: B+