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leadership, which is arguably assumed by the character of Anita, but to a lesser degree. But
these individual positive sentiments experienced by the viewer towards single characters are
outweighed by the solid allegiance that evolves towards the peasants as a group. The
materialization of the peasants as a collective protagonist is achieved through the descriptive
quality cast on the narration by the extensive use of external focalization, (Branigan, 1992:
102-104) a narration attached to none of the intra-diegetic characters. In 1900 the perspective
behind the narration can be traced to the subjectivity behind the camera which powerfully
cues indignation and compassion towards the peasants based on what, emotionally and
cognitively, is identified as the criterion of wrongfulness, which galvanizes a spectator's
solidarity when screen scenarios depict mistreatment (Carroll, 1999: 25-26). In fact when
Bertolucci was asked about his personal reading of the twentieth century, he replied that
when shooting 1900 he was filled with a sense of injustice, above all for the peasants' destiny
(Fantoni Minnella, 2004: 233).
Conclusion
The film's twofold emotional essence, based around empathy and condemnation, builds
slowly and reaches an appreciable intensity in the violent scenes, which contain an intrinsic
shock value, hi this context, 1900 perhaps does not cause the same degree of distress as other
films on a similar subject, such as La notte di San Lorenzo (1982) by Emilio and Vittorio
Taviani, the latter being a work whose sense of intense anguish - elicited by the Nazi/Fascist
ferocity against a village in Central Italy - remains consistently high. What marks the
difference between 1900 and related works, like La notte di San Lorenzo, is a tenser, tighter
rhythm achieved by the Taviani brothers by limiting the length of their narrative. By contrast,
the form of 1900, with its extended narrative and emotional ebbs and flows, contains a more
intellectual ambition to encourage meditation on the causes and the consequences of the
historical events. The mise-en-scene appears designed to reflect symbolic elements: the
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