1900 is one of Bernardo Bertolucci’s adventures in epic filmmaking that never found the reception he had hoped for…. Originally more than six hours long, it was chopped down to four hours for its U.S. release and eventually restored it to five hours. The film examines two lives that begin the same year in rural Italy: the weak-willed son of the aristocracy (Robert De Niro) and the hardy, courageous son of peasants (Gerard Depardieu). They grow up as best friends on the same estate, until class differences pull them apart and then the era’s fascist politics divide them for good…. The film has strong performances by both leads, as well as Sterling Hayden, Donald Sutherland, Dominique Sanda, and Burt Lancaster. –Marshall Fine

Arguing the World follows the careers of four New York intellectuals, the first to rise from America’s working class in the 30s. It is through them that radical politics and the cultural avantgarde collided for the first time in the US. Their imprint can be traced through magazines and journals like Partisan Review and Commentary. Embroiled in the controversies of the Cold War and later the rise of the New Left in the 60s, the group’s politics diverged over the years. Spanning three generations, its members now occupy places across the political spectrum, and have written some of the most influential essays of this century as journalists and scholars.