1900

Like a Visconti epic gone mad, explosive, beautiful, unforgettable. [08 Dec 2006, p.C8]

Haphazard in its narrative but consistently mesmerizing until an overdose of communist rah-rah in the late going. [08 Dec 2005, p.4E]

The story is almost too small for Bertolucci's sprawling approach, and the ungainliness of his international cast stifles both the dialogue and the performances.

Even in the full-length Italian version, 1900 is too emotionally extravagant ever to be considered a masterpiece. Rather, it’s a monumental achievement like such original and impassioned but scarcely flawless screen epics as D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Abel Gance’s Napoleon.

Bertolucci’s ambitious generational canvas is elaborately constructed.

Like a delicious pasta salad, ruined with intermittent slabs of Velveeta cheese.

Whether one takes the two-part movie as a glamorous epic or as a lengthy advertisement for the Italian communist party, it still looks like a major catastrophe.