Lions and Jackals
Lindsey German celebrates the re-release of 'The Leopard', the classic film about the conflict between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie during the creation of Italy.
Luchino Visconti's 'The Leopard' is a great Marxist film. It tells us about a crucial point in Italian history through the story of one man, the prince of Salina - head of an aristocratic Sicilian dynasty. In 1860, when the film opens, Italy as a unified state only exists in the imagination. The country we now know is comprised of dozens of states, with no unified politics or civil society or even language.