1900 (1976)

Although the likes of De Niro, Donald Sutherland and Burt Lancaster are faves, I’ve always been a bit disappointed with myself for never getting around to Bernardo Bertolucci’s two-part historical drama depicting Italy’s class struggles and political chaos during the first half of the twentieth century.

Well, the goddamned thing does drag on for more than five hours. The longest movies I’ve previously sat through are Heaven’s Gate and the Apocalypse Now Redux, both of which ran for around three and a half. Neither was worth the effort so five hours just makes me want to pretend I’ve got a life and can’t afford the time.

So how did my brave little soldier act go? Not well. 1900 held my attention for the first ninety minutes by focusing on a rich/poor childhood friendship on a country estate. Bertolucci sure knows how to wield a camera, often coming up with wistful compositions that make rural Italy look beautiful. The child actors are also refreshingly unannoying and these early scenes possess a vivid earthiness.

However, the pace starts leisurely and only gets slower. Instead of a plot, too many sequences in part one feel strung together with no particular point. I’m back in Heaven’s Gate territory and by the two-hour mark Bertolucci’s rampant self-indulgence and incoherence are suffocating the picture. All I’m left with is a handful of whacked-out stuff, such as a boy in a writhing, frog-adorned hat, a pitchfork-pierced Sutherland staggering around, Lancaster exposing himself to a nubile milkmaid, a protesting peasant slicing an ear off, and De Niro and Depardieu getting simultaneous hand jobs in graphic detail from an epileptic whore.

Such incidents do not a movie make. They just feel designed to give the sleepy viewer an occasional jolt. Part one descended into boredom, but part two is a waste ground of tension and action in which just about everyone overacts. Nothing drives the plot, leaving the viewer with handsome visuals and bugger all urgency. The real-life animal mistreatment that runs throughout is also off-putting. Put it all together and it’s a staggering piece of anti-cinema, exemplified by the scene in which a squirming Sutherland has fresh horse shit mashed into his face. And yes, I do think that serves as the perfect metaphor for watching this flick.

Perhaps my response is not much of a surprise given I dislike Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris and his multi-Oscar-winning Last Emperor. To put it diplomatically, I think you need a European sensibility to appreciate his work. Or maybe I’m too thick. Whatever the case, I doubt I’ll be tackling a movie with a gargantuan runtime again anytime soon. Now where’s my sodding choccy ice-cream? I just earned two bowls.