1900
1976
***
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Cast: Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancaster
Two Italian baby boys are born on the same day in 1901, one to the landowners and the other to the peasants who work their fields. This sweeping but deeply flawed epic charts Italy's political history and tells the story of these two men from 1901 to 1945. The film is more than 5 hours long but it doesn't offer a dull moment. On the contrary, there are several memorable scenes, some of which would not pass the censors today. Politically, however, this is black-and-white communist propaganda; you have the honest, hardworking communists and the sadistic, sexually perverse fascists.
