Film Details

Last shown at the Cinematheque in 1991, this is the complete, uncut, 5¼ -hour version of Bernardo Bertolucci’s sweeping and sensuous historical saga that chronicles 45 years of Italian political history and class struggle. (Part 2 will show at 6:45 tonight after a one-hour dinner break.) Robert De Niro and Gérard Depardieu star as childhood best friends born in 1901. One is a wealthy landowner’s grandson and the other a peasant, so their lives move in dramatically different directions during the five decades through the end of WWII. 1900 was Bertolucci’s follow up to Last Tango in Paris, and it’s an ambitious, gorgeous epic teeming with lyricism, sex, violence, and nostalgia. The all-star supporting cast includes Burt Lancaster, Sterling Hayden, Donald Sutherland, Dominique Sanda, and Stefania Sandrelli. Vittorio Storaro did the shimmering cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the lilting music.