Friday, November 02, 2018

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Leopard (1963)

Prince Don Fabrizio Salina: Sleep, my dear Chevalley, eternal sleep, that is what Sicilians want. And they will always resent anyone who tries to awaken them, even to bring them the most wonderful of gifts. And, between ourselves, I doubt very strongly whether this new Kingdom has very many gifts for us in its luggage. All Sicilian expression, even the most violent, is really a wish for death. Our sensuality, wish for oblivion. Our knifings and shootings, a hankering after extinction. Our laziness, our spiced and drugged sherbets, a desire for voluptuous immobility, that is... for death again.... "They never want to improve. They think themselves perfect. Their vanity is greater than their misery."

I actually smashed together two separate quotes there but they go together and speak to the same thing... they speak to the world I see around me today. The Leopard feels timely right now, and not just because it's Burt Lancaster's birthday! Speaking of here's a shot of Burt on set with co-star Alain Delon (sigh) and director Visconti...


2 comments:

MovieNut14 said...

Fun fact: today's Visconti's birthday too!

Jason Adams said...

Oh man how did I miss that? Good catch :)