More on Bush on Conservatism

The other day I defended W for saying that he needed to destroy the free market in order to save it (link). I suggested that it sounded vaguely Rooseveltian. Maybe, but in any event sinnce then, I've stumbled on a couple more references int he same vein. One is the excellent Saving Capitalism from Capitlists by Raghuram G. Rajan and Luigi Zingales.

The other is more portentous. It is from Chapter One of Il Gattopardo, The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa's great Italian novel about his grandfather, the old Prince di Lampedusa. We pass the mike to Nigel Rees, who develops the point in the current issue of The "Quote...Unquote" Newsletter:

Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga come è, bisogna che tutto cambi [If we want everything to remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change.] In the first chapter, this ‘ambiguous’ observation is said to be well-understood by Prince Fabrizio but to have originated with his nephew and heir, Tancredi. In an introductory title to some versions of Luchino Visconti’s film (Italy/US 1963), it is indeed given as the Prince’s own credo, but translated into English as ‘Things will have to change in order that they can remain the same.’ In the course of the film, the Prince (played by Burt Lancaster) also gets to ‘speak’ the words (in dubbed Italian) when referring to Garibaldi’s victory. The subtitles relay these as: Something had to change so that everything might remain as it was before.’

--The "Quote...Unquote" Newsletter 7, Vol. 18, No. 1, January 2009

Or as they say in the Oval Office, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Appreciation: Il Gattopardo

Mr. and Mrs. B settled in for a two-evening viewing this week of Visconti's Il Gattopardo, The Leopard, his film rendition of Giusepppe Tomasi di Lampadusa's renowned novel. We'd each seen it separately; oddly, we had only dim memories of a film so much discussed, so often with admiration. The verdict on this viewing: a worthwhile exercise, time well spent, although a "great" movie it certainly is not. Let's see if I can make just a couple of points not already well made elsewhere.

One: much is made of the casting of Burt Lancaster as the old prince. The short answer has to be: he looks the part even if he sounds ridiculous. The overlooked point is that the old prince was a figure of legend and enchantment to the author himself long before he became a literary archetype. Lampedusa was born in 1896; the events of the story take place during the Risorgimento, around 1860. Take a look at the picture of the old prince in David Gilmour's splendid biography of Lampedusa, and you can see in as flash that the whole business is a fairy tale: the old man in the picture is plump and ridiculous, not remotely the kind of character that deserves to be played by anybody with washboard abs. But that's fine: treat it as legend and it works. Might be fun to watch the dubbed Italian version to see if it offers anything different.

Two: there is a kind of epic style of moviemaking that seems inescapable for this kind of family saga. Seen in this light, Il Gattopardo reminds me of nothing so much as Sunshine, István Szabó's film saga of a Hungarian Jewish family caught up in the cruel politics of the 20th Century. Both of them sketch their pictures with Crayola strokes; you've just got to accept the convention and stipulate to enjoy.

I repeat that I liked Il Gattopardo. Yet I yield to the temptation to repeat a remarkable piece of film criticism--David Thompson's savaging of Visconti's directorial career. "It certainly is true," says Thompson,

that on the international art house circuit Visconti's flamboyant treatment of a few prestigious ventures passed for respectability. If there was a Nobel prize for cinema, Visconti would have had it long ago; he was as deserving as Steinbeck, and he was very social.

Thompson does concede that it is a "splendid art-house package[], with dazzling production values, meticulous if unsurprising acting and well-signposted significance." Fair comment, I'd say, but "worthy of Nobel prize"--oooh, that hurts.

Fn.: Wiki makes an interesting point on the translation of "gattopardo" (link).

The Last Leopard, with Pastry and Proust

Over dinner with my friends Michael and Linda, we fell to talking about Giuseppe di Lampedusa, author of The Leopard, the celebrated (novelized) biography of his grandfather, the Sicilian prince. It was a happy reminder of David Gilmour's wonderful biography, The Last Leopard (1991)--this of the grandson, not the grandfather. I did an Amazon review which you can find here. I didn't think to include this sample:

Rising at about seven, he would be walking down the Corso Vittrorio Emmanuele toward the center of the city by eight. Turning west at the Via Roma or a little further on at Quattro Canti, he then walked westward until he reached one of his favorite cafes, the Pasticceria del Massimo in Via Ruggero Settimo. Then he had a long breakfast and read one of the books he had brought with him. He ate cakes and pastry with particular pleasure, recalled Francesco Orlando, if he had before him a volume of sixteenth-century French poetry. Once he sat in the Pasticceria for four hours and read a whole Balzac novel at a sitting. . . . Before leaving the Massimo, he bought some more cakes, which he put in his bag, and then wandered off to Flaccovio’s or one of the other bookshops. He felt guilty, however, about buying so many and used to pretend to Licy that he had found them in a sale.

Lampedusa in the crowded streets in mid-morning, recalled Orlando, was a sight difficult to forget: a large bulky figure, very distinct and shabby, his eyes alert and his leather bag always overloaded with books and confectionery which had to last him the rest of the day. Flaccovio had a similar memory of Lampedusa entering his shop not in the least embarrassed by his bag containing courgettes and several volumes of Proust.

Sorry, I didn't save the page number and I don't have the book any more. Gilmour went on to write an admirable biography of Lord Curzon, a bit of a "last leopard" himself; find it here.