Did You Know?
The film's $6 million budget was supplied by three different sources: $2 million from United Artists, $2 million from Paramount and $2 million from 20th Century Fox.
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Bernardo Bertolucci stated that in an interview, he filmed the scenes of the movie based on the four seasons. If you notice, the meeting of the boys is summer, the adult reunion of Alfredo and Olmo takes place in a fall moment. The Fascist takeover is winter, while the end of World War Two is spring.
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The original uncut version is five hours and 17 minutes long, and features additional dramatic scenes, actual animal killings, and explicit sex scenes including one involving Alfredo, Olmo, and Neve. It also features one scene of the two prepubescent boys examining each other's penises.
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The integral version of the film, the entire 5 hours and 20 minutes, was shown for the first time in 30 years in Belgrade, Serbia (ex-Yugoslavia), on April 12 2007.
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The painting shown during the opening credits is Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo's "Il quarto stato" (1901).
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Bertolucci himself cut the 3.5 hour version that was originally shown internationally, which he did to appease the studios and financiers, who wanted to use an even shorter cut that was never released. He still says he prefers the original 5 and half hour cut. His main complaint with the international release was the English title "1900". With the original title "Novecento", he meant to imply a tale of the 20th century.
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The full uncut version (317 minutes) is available in DVD since late 2006 (two discs) including some interviews with Bertolucci.
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Donald Sutherland got so upset after seeing his own performance as the sadistic homicidal fascist leader Atilla, that he was unable to watch the film for years.
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Bernardo Bertolucci once said of this film: "At first we planned it as six episodes for television. But in elaborating the scenario, we began to feel that for political, social and narrative reasons, it belonged on the large screen."
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After production shooting was completed, it was decided that this movie would be split into two halves for release as two separate films.
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Principal photography started on this picture in July 1974 and was completed nine months later in May 1975 with extra filming continuing right up until September 1975 making the over shooting period spanning a period of an epic 14 months.
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Extra scenes after principal photography had been completed were filmed in September 1975 after production had finished in May of that year.
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Reportedly, it was publicity at the time this movie was released, stated that this was the most expensive and ambitious Italian movie ever made.
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Two years earlier, Robert De Niro won an Oscar for playing Vito Corleone, a role that had already won as Oscar for Marlon Brando two years before that. Gérard Depardieu would later be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, and win a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, for his performance in Cyrano de Bergerac, a role that had already won an Oscar, forty years earlier, for José Ferrer.
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