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Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster, Sterling Hayden, Donald Sutherland ... see more see more... , Dominique Sanda , Stefania Sandrelli , Laura Betti , Alida Valli , Francesca Bertini , Werner Bruhns , Stefania Casini , Clara Colosimo , Anna-Maria Gherardi , Lisa Harrow , Anna Henkel , Roberto Maccanti , Allen Midgette , Maria Monti , Paolo Pavesi , José Quaglio , Ellen Schwiers , Romolo Valli , Piero Vida , Antonio Piovanelli , Giacomo Rizzo , Patrizia de Clara , Edda Ferronao , Vittorio Fanfoni , Mario Meniconi

Bernardo Bertolucci's 255-minute 1900 was a gargantuan undertaking, requiring the resources of three European countries and a trio of American movie studios. Set in the Italian town of Parma, the film... read more read more...'s continuity backtracks from Liberation Day in 1945 to the occasion of composer/patriot Giuseppe Verdi's death in 1901. We follow the lives of two men born on that day in 1901, who grow up to be Alfredo Berlinghieti (Robert De Niro) and Olmo Dalco (Gérard Depardieu). Wealthy Alfredo sinks into dissipation, while poverty-stricken Olmo becomes a firebrand labor leader and communist. After WWI, Alfredo is allowed to peacefully retain his land holdings by playing nice with the burgeoning fascists; Olmo, on the other hand, engages in a long-standing battle against the minions of Mussolini. The two protagonists are reunited when Alfredo returns to Parma to preside over Olmo's trial for "political crimes." Co-star Burt Lancaster is cast as Alfredo's wealthy grandfather, who hates to see the old values buried beneath the social travails of the 20th century. Many American prints of 1900 were shortened to 243 minutes, rendering the story hard to follow at times. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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R, 5 hr. 15 min.

Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci

Release Date: August 15, 1976

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DVD Release Date: December 5, 2006

Stats: 433 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (433)

  • dunmyer
    December 26, 2011
    dunmyer
    '1900' is a gargantuan, multi-lingual, five-hour epic that has some inspired moments but for the most part spins its wheels. Very often it is laughably bad.

    Writer/director Bernardo Bertolucci seems to have been inspired by the 'Godfather' epic, even to the point where he hir... read moreed Robert De Niro as one of his lead actors. But '1900' is vastly inferior to Francis Ford Coppola's 'Godfather' films.

    The central gimmick is that two boys are born on the same day on a remote Italian plantation in the year 1900. One is a peasant; the other is the plantation owner's son. The boys become very close and intimate, so much so that they masturbate together on more than one occasion. But they are not boyfriends. As adults they are played by Gerard Depardieu (the peasant) and de Niro.

    But Bertolucci doesn't so much care about these men as individuals; he cares about using them to explore issues of class and politics. The two are stand-ins for the socio-political struggles that made the first half of the 20th century so tumultuous, especially in Europe. Depardieu is the Communist-Supporting Peasantry, and de Niro the Fascist-Supporting Aristocracy.

    Bertolucci assembled an international cast, with each actor delivering lines in his native language, be it Italian, English, or French. He then added dubbing to release the film in each country with no subtitles. Thus in the American version, de Niro's vocal track is normal, but Depardieu and all the Italian actors are dubbed. And it's the worst dubbing job I think I've ever seen. Dubbing almost never works, but here it's a disaster. Nothing is quite so ridiculous as hearing Italian peasants sound like perky American college students.

    The politics are also laughably simplistic and one-sided. The Communists are all depicted as earnest do-gooders, and the Fascists are depicted as those who rape and kill schoolboys and then arrest peasants for these crimes. (There is an odd undercurrent of homo-eroticism through the entire project, complete with de Niro and Depardieu doing full-frontal nudity together during yet another masturbation scene.)

    Donald Sutherland plays the biggest, baddest Black Shirt in the village. He does what he can to give the acting credibility, but there's not much you can do when the characterization is so ridiculous. Sutherland's Fascist girlfriend has a bizarre voice that makes her sound like Satan from 'The Exorcist,' which had come out just two years prior. I honestly think that Bertolucci looked for an actress who could do that voice.

    Oh, Bernardo, what the hell was going on for you during this strange project?
  • animegirlaya
    June 1, 2011
    animegirlaya
    Bernardo Bertolucci's Novecento has five hours and fifteen minutes and before we know it this historical epic ends and we're left craving for more. That's the ultimate grace of Bertolucci's masterpiece: one never feels the movie's length; it flows and involves us so hypnotically ... read morein its story that we lose sense of time. The story is so finely constructed, the actors so good, the cinematography so breath-taking, the music so exciting, that one curses the unavoidable moment when the credits roll down the screen.

    Released in 1976, Novecento is, as the title says it, a story of Italy in the 20th century, from its beginning to the year of its release. Known in the USA as 1900, I chose the Italian title because this one misleading. The action starts the year Italian composer Verdi dies, so it's actually 1901 (Bertolucci knows the Gregorian calendar unlike the majority who believe in pop culture). Two children are born, Alfredo and Olmo, the first the heir of the Berlinghieri estate and fortune, the second the bastard offspring of Alfredo's father and a peasant woman from the Dalco clan. They grow together and their lives, although going in different ways many times, continue to intertwine throughout the decades, from the aftermath of WWI to the rise of Fascism in Italy, to the liberation of Italy in 1945; they're always together until their old age.

    Novecento is effectively about the organisation of the labour rights movement in Italy and its clashes with Fascism. Olmo (Gérard Depardieu), returned from the WWI, sees communism as a way of uniting the peasants in the struggle for better wages and more rights and end the hunger and humiliations perpetuated by the padrones, the bosses.

    Parallel to the labour rights movement's organisation is the rise of fascism, embodied by Attila Mellanchini (Donald Sutherland), the Berlinghieri forearm who organizes the local Black Shirts. In the middle of this struggle is Alfredo (Robert DeNiro), a bon vivant who only seeks pleasure and finds love in Ada (Dominique Sanda), an avant-garde woman who fascinates him with her sense of modernity. Unwilling kept away from the war thanks to his father's money, Alfredo sees Olmo's return as good news until politics and his inevitable fate of becoming the new padrone get in the way, not to mention his inability to stand up to Attila.

    The film is shot in four sections, each one employing a different color palette, to represent each station of the year. So the first part, Olmo and Alfredo's birth and childhood, is bathed in bright summer colors; the WWI's aftermath is filmed with autumnal browns. The Fascist reign is grey and drenched in winter rains, and only Italy's liberation gives the movie its bright early colors with the coming of springtime. This is one of the greatest achievements of Vittorio Storaro, a director of cinematography who never ceases to amaze me. He's lent his talent to many good movies over his legendary career (Apocalypse Now, The Conformist, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Reds), but I've never loved the look of one of his movies so much except perhaps in an earlier, much neglected Bertolucci movie called The Spider's Stratagem. Each shot could be a painting.

    The actors are also excellent here, especially the veterans Burt Lancaster (who plays Alfredo's grandfather, also named Alfredo) and Sterling Hayden, who plays Leo, the patriarch of the Dalco family. They're in the movie for about an hour, but their performances are amazing enough to leave an impression, especially Hayden's.

    As much as this movie is about fascism and communism, it's also about class differences and class clashes, and this is shown in the three Berlinghieri generations. Grandfather Alfredo and Leo have a relationship based on respect and co-dependence. His son Giovanni brings technology and consequently unemployment to his lands as well as the violent Attila to keep the workers in order, and also ends many of the ancestral rights the workers had. His despotic rule marks the beginning of the peasants' consciousness that change is necessary. Giovanni's brother, Ottavio, is his opposite, preferring to travel and enjoy life, much like his nephew. Finally Alfredo simply doesn't care, pursuing self-gratification and allowing Attila to gain power and impose a reign of terror in his lands, with the help of Alfredo's cousin, Regina (Laura Betti).

    Donald Sutherland has always had a gift for playing villains but he set a bar too high even for himself to surpass when he played Attila, the sadistic Black Shirt who crushes kittens to make philosophical points about communism, molests children and kills helpless old people. Fans of Sutherland who wish to see him at his darkest and most intimidating mustn't miss this film.

    DeNiro, Sanda, Betti and Depardieu are also very good, with Depardieu outshining DeNiro only because he has a more demanding and visible role. Sanda is also good, even if her role is to be basically annoying most of the time. Betti makes a great demonic pair with Sutherland. DeNiro, today the most famous of the actors who worked in this film, delivers one of his typically good performances, but he doesn't reinvent himself like in Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. This is Depardieu's film.

    Also worthy of note is Ennio Morricone's score, containing many of his most uplifting compositions. Bertolucci made this film to inflame hearts and rouse consciousnesses, to make viewers leave the cinemas anxious to change society and make the world a better, fairer place, so Morricone's music works perfectly with the images. And even if Bertolucci's goal ultimately failed, the movie is so well crafted its grandiose finale should leave viewers pretty upbeat and hopeful.

    No review of Novecento can do the movie justice. It's a work of art, it must be watched.

    Keiko's score 100%
  • SarahG1988
    February 11, 2010
    SarahG1988
    A fascinating tale of two young boys growing up in Italy, during the 1900s. One boy, Alfredo (Robert De Niro) represents the rise of fascism and Olmo (Gérard Depardieu) the working class, proletariat. Throughout the 3 and a half hour running time we get to the say the relationshi... read morep between the two and their families against some stunning cinematography. Bertolucci really has created an underrated little film here and one that seems to have really educated me on the rise of Fascim in Italy and general history of the proletariat and the Bourgeoisie. Interestingly, 1900 was not shown in the US at the time but popular in various parts of Europe.

    1900, also contains some great supporting actors: Donald Sutherland, Sterling Hayden, Dominique Sanda, Burt Lancaster and Laura Betti. Donald Sutherland, gave one performance which I don't think I've ever seen him do. The two strong characters for me have to be Sutherland's and Betti's(Attila and Regina). Two fascist characters that carry out some truly gruesome crimes which I won't dwell into and as such go into my list of some of the most evil characters I have witnessed.

    *Highly Recomended*
  • fb1142797643
    December 20, 2011
    fb1142797643
    With over five hours of material to review, one scarcely knows where to begin. Hopeless!

    "1900" (Italian title: "Novecento") aims to be a class study of Italy between 1900 and 1945, as depicted through the experiences of two men born on the same day in 1900. Alfredo Berlinghieri... read more (Robert Deniro) inherits a life of comfort and power, while Olmo Dalco (a slimmer Gerard Depardieu) is among the many peasants living and working on the Berlinghieri family farm. Alfredo and Olmo grow up as friends, but always with an underlying, aggressive tension. As years pass, ideological conflicts between fascism, socialism and the old manorial system test the two's relationship more fiercely.

    The cast is large though not as large as one might expect, considering the story's scope. Other well-known names include Donald Sutherland as a Blackshirt fascist who helps oversee the farm, Burt Lancaster as the Berlinghieri patriarch (an interesting echo of his somewhat similar role in "The Leopard"), Sterling Hayden as Olmo's father and the always stunning Dominique Sanda as Deniro's moodswinging wife. Seemingly, Depardieu and all the English actors are dubbed in Italian, which can be problematic -- particularly in Deniro's case.

    The charismatic leads and director Bertolucci's painterly sense of sets and cinematography add up to a film which is never dull, but I would advise watching "1900" in chunks. There is a break inserted near the halfway point -- take it, and come back the next day.

    Because this is the work of Bernardo Bertolucci (director of provocative films such as "Last Tango in Paris," "La Luna" and "The Dreamers"), the story naturally has some twisted sexual elements. Lancaster and Sutherland both commit shocking acts of molestation, and homoeroticism abounds between Deniro and Depardieu (who, incidentally, gives a far more vivid performance). Otherwise, the array of offbeat sights found in "1900" is dizzying to recall. A random sampling? Sanda dementedly feigning blindness. People punching themselves in the head. Someone cutting off his own ear. Depardieu slaughtering a pig. The erection of a boy about 12 years old. A horse's sphincter excreting at close range. Wounded ducks, dying limply in the water. The brutal murder of a child. Suicide. And, strangest of all, an embarrassing nude scene where an epileptic woman gives Deniro and Depardieu simultaneous hand stimulation. Yes! And Deniro fans also can *not* miss the goofy scene where Alfredo experiences his first cocaine rush.

    Unfortunately, "1900"'s weakest element is its closing section. Sutherland turns almost cartoonishly evil, and a long sequence celebrating the triumph of socialism over fascism may be the most over-the-top demagoguery since Eisenstein's "October." Depardieu even directly lectures into the camera, at one point. It's a shame that Bertolucci ended on a sour note, by indulging himself so completely. Still, "1900" is simply too unique to be missed.
  • gator681
    July 23, 2007
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]In "1900," Olmo(Gerard Depardieu), the illegitimate child of peasants, and Alfredo(Robert De Niro), whose grandfather(Burt Lancaster) is the padrone of the estate, are born within minutes of each other in rural Italy in 1900. Despite the obvious differences ... read morein their upbringings, the boys become friends. Their friendship survives into adulthood as each returns home from the battlefields of World War I to find changes in the estate, ranging from mechanized farm equipment to a new foreman, Attila(Donald Sutherland).[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, "1900" is a good premise for a movie but in the end is little more than a bloated, unwieldy melodrama with a simplistic rendering of class relations and history.("The Best of Youth" was a better take on the other end of the twentieth century in Italy.) What Bertolucci is concerned with here is the rise of fascism and how inaction by good people allowed it to flourish. But he handled similar themes with much more aplomb in his previous "The Conformist."[/font]
  • michaelcorleone
    August 12, 2009
    michaelcorleone
    There are very few directors whose films consistently garner such contrasting responses as Bernardo Bertolucci. David Lynch comes to mind as being another, and Darren Aronofsky may work his way into the same category as his career progresses. I am one of Bertolucci's enthusiastic... read more admirers. Novecento is a gargantuan labor of love whose 315 minute length brings about labels ranging from "self-indulgent" to "ingenious ambition". Regardless of its flaws, this is one of the most visually astonishing pieces of cinema available. Full of majestic camera movement and stunning wide-lens composition, it is a gorgeously painted piece of art. Throughout the course of its running time, the narrative clarity fades considerably, but it never fails to mesmerize. It is an exciting, operatic experience full of unforgettable set pieces and theatrical performances. This picture has brought about divided feedback for decades, and it probably always will, but I am on the side of its supporters. As Roger Ebert (who dislikes the movie) said in his review, this is something that film buffs should see.
  • threefolddado
    September 10, 2009
    threefolddado
    Make sure to see it uncut.
  • HuskersNC949597
    March 4, 2011
    HuskersNC949597
    I'm sorry, but some of the dubbing on the VHS copy really annoyed me and makes it hard for me to judge, it's kind of painful to watch some scenes, although others are fine. But also, the first stanza with Olmo and Alfredo as young children did not particularly interest me that m... read moreuch, felt overly long. Seeing them naked was also not really on my to-do list, but then it happened and I was like, "Thanks, movie." The movie did not detect my sarcasm and showed more naked people later, fortunately they were at least adults. But you know, once Depardieu and De Niro show up, it's pretty good, outside of the lousy dubbing.

    Edit: holy shit, I didn't even notice my copy was missing an entire hour. 315 minutes of this does not sound appealing.
  • RicC
    December 17, 2010
    RicC
    Bertolucci has, from what I've seen, overflowed his films with dry politics, so I expected this film to fail epically. Curiously, it was good and that's because it's more a character trajectory instead of a political lesson (Though it's not politically exepmpt either). If the fir... read morest or so hour immerses you then the rest of the film will pass by easily, and what's not to like from the all star cast, the deluxe camera field scopes, the trailing of adjacent family lines during both world wars, the tug of war betwen pesants and upper class? There's also a sensation of frank reality filmed on screen which pops up every so often - you'll be wondering how a scene was filmed, or how Bertolucci got away with filming it. This is where its European vibe originates, in my opinion; however, it would've been finer had it been in Italian, and not in broken Italian-imitating English. It completely sabotages either language, dissolves the mood the film builds up, and grates your nerves, although this broken Italian-imitating English, together with the dramatic acting, add somewhat to the suspension of belief. So, it's a matter of can't film with it; can't film without it, though it's still irksome. For its message of equality between social classes, it's over obvious and clumsy, but for an epic directorial effort, it's successful. Its family-tree depiciton serves as a great ethnographic tool, even if fictional.
  • itsgodswater
    May 3, 2007
    itsgodswater
    Unlike many other epic period pieces, what makes 1900 excellent is that everything feels neccessary.

View All 1900 (Novecento) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Dave Kehr
December 7, 2007
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Great moments stud Bernardo Bertolucci's 1976 Marxist epic, but the end result is ambiguous. Full Review

Roger Ebert
October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

What high hopes were inspired by Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 -- and how few of them are realized. Full Review

Vincent Canby
May 20, 2003
Vincent Canby, New York Times

It's a shapeless mass of film stock containing some brilliant moments and a lot more that are singularly uninspired. Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson
May 25, 2012
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

The sumptuous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and the beautiful score by Ennio Morricone are reason enough to rejoice. Full Review

Cole Smithey
January 18, 2009
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

"1900" (made in 1976) is Bernardo Bertolucci's crowning achievement of collectivist socio-political cinema. Full Review

Fran Hortop
December 7, 2007
Fran Hortop, Film4

This is a handsome film with fierce and heartfelt ambition that succeeds in capturing something of the extreme social turmoil of pre-war Italy. Full Review

December 7, 2007
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Like a delicious pasta salad, ruined with intermittent slabs of Velveeta cheese. Full Review

January 26, 2006
Time Out

The mannered elegance of the camerawork and lighting cocoons the whole sad mess within a veneer of utterly spurious 'style.' Full Review

Emanuel Levy
July 1, 2005
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Bertolucci's first failure after a series of masterpieces is an ambitious but structurally shapeless and thematically ambiguous historical epic that doesn't work even in its original cut of five hours. Full Review

Dennis Schwartz
February 4, 2004
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

A colossal bore. Full Review

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