I have no problem with lengthy movies, and many of my favorites are over three hours. However, the longer a movie is, the more it risks losing its focus, and that's the problem with 1900. It is not boring, but it goes and on, jumping between characters, ideas, etc, and about halfway through you realize: "This narrative isn't really going anywhere. It's just unfolding in random directions." Yes, I know that the "point" of the story is to show the rise of Fascism and Socialism in Italy, and I've heard people say that you appreciate the movie more if you are Italian. I'm not, though I do love history, and politically am a Socialist, so I should sympathize with this movie, though it provides no real history lesson other than "The only reason for the rise of Fascism was Donald Sutherland's sadism and the only reason for rise of Socialism was that landowners were very mean." Furthermore, the movie is shot in the "spaghetti western" style: an Italian production with English speaking lead roles. This means that most of the supporting characters are dubbed into English, but MAN, is it some blatant dubbing that has a jarring effect! Thanks to DVDs, I can switch over to the Italian audio track, but then I'll have to put up with DeNiro and Lancaster being dubbed. Ugh! I don't get why this style of film-making became popular, because you have to put up with awful dubbing either way.
The movie begins with a lengthy childhood sequence that could have been reduced to 15 minutes without hurting the story much. Bertolucci is interested in establishing settings and characterizations, but doesn't know what to do after creating them. We see a worker protest by cutting off his ear. It's a visually arresting scene, but it goes nowhere. It was nice to see character actor Sterling Hayden play a memorable role, but it's a superfluous character, who does nothing except exist as an obvious parallel to Burt Lancaster's character. Now you might say: "Oh, you're nitpicking. Every movie to some extent has superfluous characters." Yes, but the longer the movie is, the more obvious it becomes that they are superfluous. But my biggest gripe with the childhood sequence is that it focuses on two kids with dubbed voices that are OBVIOUSLY not their own, and that speak out of sync with their mouth movements.
The rest of the first half of the film continues with various sequences and/or character vignettes that are often visually striking or get attention, but are not really cohesive. We get a scene with an epileptic prostitute, and a woman pretending to be blind. There's no real reason for either except that they are eccentric sequences. What exactly is wrong with Ada and why does she engage in what is borderline psychotic behavior when we first meet her? No reason is given.
The second half, however, becomes dominated by the two villains, and they are two of the HAMMIEST villains I've ever seen in a movie. It isn't enough that Sutherland's character is a Fascist; he must also be a sadistic, demented, constantly sneering pedophile who is so obviously mentally unbalanced that he would never get a job in real life. His lover (though these characters are portrayed so cartoon-ishly evil that it's tough to imagine them being capable of love) is Regina, who constantly cackles like a witch. And in case it's still not clear that she's evil, she is sexually deviant as well, and harbors feelings for her cousin, who in one scene appears to be pleasuring her in the woods (why he is participating in this scene is not really explored). These two characters go from scene to scene, killing a kid here, killing an old lady there, no real point, just to show that Fascism is bad. There is a fun scene where Attila is pelted with manure, though it goes on too long (and thank you, Bertolucci, for that random closeup of a horse's rectum! I sure needed to see that). At the movie's climax, these two are chased in a witch hunt. Bertolucci goes out of his way to humiliate and degrade his villains as much as he can, literally dragging them through the mud, and while this scene is somewhat satisfying, its impact is diminished by how long it goes on, just like countless previous scenes in 1900.
Well, this review is getting long (but what can you expect from a movie that tries to cover too much?) so I will sum it up: it would be a much better movie if it focused more on DeNiro and Depardieu's characters and their friendship, and lost a lot of the excess baggage. Sometimes you'll get obvious plot devices (a drifter randomly showing up to confess to a crime he didn't do, just so that Depardieu can get off the hook), at times there is no plot, and most of the time you'll find yourself thinking: "This scene would be so much more effective if it wasn't bogged down by so much excess."
Here is a YouTube video I made making fun of the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I4BxQ5ydMM
The movie begins with a lengthy childhood sequence that could have been reduced to 15 minutes without hurting the story much. Bertolucci is interested in establishing settings and characterizations, but doesn't know what to do after creating them. We see a worker protest by cutting off his ear. It's a visually arresting scene, but it goes nowhere. It was nice to see character actor Sterling Hayden play a memorable role, but it's a superfluous character, who does nothing except exist as an obvious parallel to Burt Lancaster's character. Now you might say: "Oh, you're nitpicking. Every movie to some extent has superfluous characters." Yes, but the longer the movie is, the more obvious it becomes that they are superfluous. But my biggest gripe with the childhood sequence is that it focuses on two kids with dubbed voices that are OBVIOUSLY not their own, and that speak out of sync with their mouth movements.
The rest of the first half of the film continues with various sequences and/or character vignettes that are often visually striking or get attention, but are not really cohesive. We get a scene with an epileptic prostitute, and a woman pretending to be blind. There's no real reason for either except that they are eccentric sequences. What exactly is wrong with Ada and why does she engage in what is borderline psychotic behavior when we first meet her? No reason is given.
The second half, however, becomes dominated by the two villains, and they are two of the HAMMIEST villains I've ever seen in a movie. It isn't enough that Sutherland's character is a Fascist; he must also be a sadistic, demented, constantly sneering pedophile who is so obviously mentally unbalanced that he would never get a job in real life. His lover (though these characters are portrayed so cartoon-ishly evil that it's tough to imagine them being capable of love) is Regina, who constantly cackles like a witch. And in case it's still not clear that she's evil, she is sexually deviant as well, and harbors feelings for her cousin, who in one scene appears to be pleasuring her in the woods (why he is participating in this scene is not really explored). These two characters go from scene to scene, killing a kid here, killing an old lady there, no real point, just to show that Fascism is bad. There is a fun scene where Attila is pelted with manure, though it goes on too long (and thank you, Bertolucci, for that random closeup of a horse's rectum! I sure needed to see that). At the movie's climax, these two are chased in a witch hunt. Bertolucci goes out of his way to humiliate and degrade his villains as much as he can, literally dragging them through the mud, and while this scene is somewhat satisfying, its impact is diminished by how long it goes on, just like countless previous scenes in 1900.
Well, this review is getting long (but what can you expect from a movie that tries to cover too much?) so I will sum it up: it would be a much better movie if it focused more on DeNiro and Depardieu's characters and their friendship, and lost a lot of the excess baggage. Sometimes you'll get obvious plot devices (a drifter randomly showing up to confess to a crime he didn't do, just so that Depardieu can get off the hook), at times there is no plot, and most of the time you'll find yourself thinking: "This scene would be so much more effective if it wasn't bogged down by so much excess."
Here is a YouTube video I made making fun of the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I4BxQ5ydMM