40
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.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
63
Some scenes are banal and offensively simpleminded. But patience, ultimately, is rewarded with a welter of detail and some mighty fine camerawork.
88
Slant Magazine by Jaime N. Christley
Bernardo Bertolucci’s film is a living, fluid organism that spans the distances between several poles of extremity.
89
Austin Chronicle by Kathleen Maher
1900 is a marvelous movie, Bertolucci is one of the best directors who has ever lived.
70
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
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.
83
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.
50
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Bertolucci can direct great set pieces, of course, and some of his biggest scenes (like the outdoor dances that are his favorites) are spectacular. But he needs well-defined characters to anchor his stories, and he seems more confident when he drills into their psyches instead of spreading himself all over the ideological map.
50
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
It's a shapeless mass of film stock containing some brilliant moments and a lot more that are singularly uninspired.