1900

A great movie, too seldom seen, was the epic film "1900". Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, it runs over six hours! How's this for cast: Robert DiNiro, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancaster, and Sterling Hayden are the top line.

The story tracks two families from the beginning of the 20th century until the end of World War II. One family is wealthy and owns the huge farm, the other is working class and works the fields for the land-owner. It's classic Marxian society.

The sons of the two families share a thorny friendship, growing up together and bonding as boys do while still having the class line drawn heavily between them. They get wrapped up in the events surrounding Mussolini's rise to power with the workers naturally leaning toward communism and the land-owning family, particularly the villainous Donald Sutherland as the farm's foreman, supporting the Fascists.

We should all recall that it ends with Mussolini hanging upside down from a street corner lamp pole. Along the way, the workers rise up and there is predictable carnage and blood-shed.

The Liberation:



So, now jump to this fine comparison offered in the American Spectator this AM:

Incredible Parallelism

I don't think it is too much of a stretch to see exactly what the author describes. I couldn't find much fantasy in the comparisons at all. It is what it is.