| |
 |
|
|
Bernardo Bertolucci is the one of the key
influences of why I love cinema. When I first discovered
him in 1971 his work made a huge impact on me as a film
student. He began with Before the Revolution in 1964 a
story about University intellectual who has sided with the
communist rebels in Italian society and it being a Bertolucci
film, he is also having an incestuous relationship with
his aunt. Filmed when he was just 22 it revealed his skills
as a brilliant stylist, if not a great storyteller.
By far greater in impact was his film The Conformist.
Here we have fascism, sex, politics and psychology. It is
a film about acceptance and betrayal. For one outside the
'party' to belong to the fascist movement in Italy the important
test was to prove you can betray your friends, even your
loved ones. For Marcello, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant
a huge international star then - he is an outsider desperate
to belong, to conform. Shot with astonishing bravado and
a wonderful use of lighting and shadows which add menace
and lustre; the whole film is a work of art. It is one of
the most perfect recreations of wartime Italy in character
and sensuality, fully exploiting the architecture and music
of the period. When I think of the 1940's, it is this film
that defines it and helps me understand the period from
an Italian perspective.
Marcello an intellectual wannabe wants to be part of the
new eliteı. He is sent to kill his former tutor, Professor
Quadri, who has fled Fascist Italy for Paris. He is reluctant
to do this, even though he wants to prove he is a good fascist.
He respects Quadri and knows in his heart that Quadri is
a good man. Marcello takes his new wife with him and in
this journey, he comes to realise that his wife is cheap
and Professor Quadri's wife is what he really wants. Dominique
Sanda was then the most extraordinary cruel beauty, used
by Bertolucci in both this film and 1900. There are
many moments of pure cinematic poetry in The Conformist,
the wind swirling the leaves around his mothers house, the
dancing in the restaurant with secret sexual undertones,
even the assassination in the forest is beautiful madness.
The horror on Dominique Sanda's face when she realises Marcelloıs
betrayal haunts one for years. This was Bertolucci at his
best and I feel lucky to have seen the film in a 1000 seat
cinema and left with a crowd overwhelmed by the emotions
of it all. I believe this to be one the finest films of
all time.
It was followed by Last Tango In Paris in 1973. Sure
there was sex. Brando, mannered as usual, buggering Maria
Schneider and doing wonders for butter sales, but where
were the politics? What was the point of it all? Mid-life
crisis? Audiences went in their millions but this was not
the same personna who made The Conformist.
However it was Bertolucci who educated me about film, about
politics and although I did not share his flirtations with
communism, he enabled me to see how fascism and communism
seduced a whole generation. 1900, originally six
hours long,was cut to four hours for US release. I saw both
parts in the compromised five hour European version in 1976.
By this time Bertolucci films were an event, particularly
in Europe, London and South Africa. Starring a young De
Niro and Depardieu, as well as Dominique Sanda, Burt Lancaster,
Sterling Hayden and Donald Sutherland, these were the giants
that strode the land of cinema in the 70's. The film proved
to be a shock however. Broad in scope covering the dawn
of the millennium 1900 and sweeping through the rise of
communism and fascism in Italy through to the aftermath
in 1950, it was unbelievably ambitious for a filmmaker so
young. However, he was the greatest of his time and got
the finance and the stars. I havenıt seen the short versions
and luckily own the European Video release in Italian with
English subtitles, but it was always going to be uphill
to get audiences to go to both parts then. In our times
Lord of the Rings sequels were at least a year apart
and Kill Bill several months between the parts. Having
two parts combined with the shock of seeing the end of part
one proved to be a stumbling block. Audiences reeled out
of the cinema after witnessing the fascist Donald Sutherland
buggering a little boy and then dashing his brains out on
a barn wall. Audiences did not go back for part two.
Bertolucci took a while to recover from the reaction and
it was a time when Italian films worldwide began to disappear
from our cinemas as American dominance took hold. Almost
ten years later in 1987 Bertolucci came back with an amazing
tour de force movie The Last Emperorı an historical sweep
about the last Emperor Pu Yi and his English tutor in China
. Starring Peter OıToole, John Lone, Joan Chen it charts
the tragic life of this royalı child who would be swamped
by the upcoming revolution and die lonely and forgotten
in Maoıs China. If Bertolucci was downcast because of the
reception of 1900, it could be forgotten now as he won nine
Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Cinematography.
It was compromised somewhat by the Chinese government having
final say over the script, but anyway you look at it, it
was a monumental achievement. Aside from The Moderns
it was certainly John Loneıs finest hour.
Bertolucci followed this with Little Buddha in 1993 which
did not connect with the public but he found them again
with his more recent Stealing Beauty in 1996. It
also gave us Liv Tyler and if you look closely a young Rachael
Weisz in the pool. Light, even though Jeremy irons character
is dying of Aids, it restored faith in Bertolucciıs ability
to mirror the times and the cinematography captured an Italy
second homers adore. Just one chip of the old Bertolucci
survives. An idylic scene, but you slide off the hill for
a moment and there are the whores on the motorway flagging
down motorists. Modern Italy isnıt far away.
Which brings us to The Dreamers. It is possible that
Berlolucci feels that he has said all he can about European
politics in his life. This is a pity because if ever Italy
needed translating to the rest of the world it is now. The
reign of Berlosconi, the Parmalat scandal and the fate of
Fiat are all about corruption, sex and betrayal. So it is
strange that he would want to make a film about the May
Riots in Paris 1968 and yet, use them only as a backdrop.
We are in yet another incestuous world. (I neglected to
mention La Luna, a mother and son love fest in 1979)
Based upon Gilbert Adairıs novel Holy Innocents,
the film is by the Adairıs own confession a very loose adaptation
of his screenplay of his book. An attractive young girl
Isabelle, played by Eva Green (later the Bond girl) who
looks much older than her years, is in love with her twin
brother Theo (Louis Garrel). They sleep together, wash together,
study together and play games, taunting each other. To an
outsider, like young American Mathew, they are beautiful,
sophisticated and he wants to be part of them and their
closed world. They meet at the Cinematheque where students
of film go to see everything and anything that is cinema.
The political element is that Henri Langlois was fired as
director of the Cinematheque in the spring of that year
and the resulting protests and riots were the catalyst for
the May riots that year. There may well be a political film
to be made about the unrest in 1968, but this is not that
film.
This is about the seduction of young Mathew by both sister
and brother and how he falls hopelessly in love with Isabelle
during a month of sex marathons, games and forfeits, drinking
and just playing house whilst the parents are away. There
are inserts from long dead movie stars to show just how
obssessed these kids are with film and this works well.
The kids act with astonishing frankness and natural ability.
The sex is open and often amusing and all of their relationship
and petty jealousies seem very real. Eva Green is wonderful
and you do find yourself liking these selfish kids. The
film is shot in a real Paris flat and compresses us in there
with them; but no matter how much sex you might have wanted
to have with a beautiful girl, if there were riots going
on outside your flat in Paris, youıd want to know why. If
you were 18 and aware as they were, youıd want to take part.
It seems Bertolucci is content to show us young love and
the semi-tragic obssessiveness of Isabelle with her brother
and even though we get to like these innocents and enjoy
their stoned conversations about film and Vietnam, it is
hard to believe they would be so disinterested in the outside
world. Even more difficult to believe that when they do
decided to take an interest at the end of the film theyıd
go to the front-line, as it were, to lob bombs at the police.
They have no political motives, no interest and it just
betrays a certain shallowness of the moment and the times
that they would. People say no one remembers 1968 because
it was a failure. Well I am certain no one will remember
this film much either. It makes no sense to recreate Paris
of 1968 and make a film about bonking in the room next door.
Eva Green is amazing, all the actors are, and you feel you
know them well after two hours. There is an even bigger
surprise about her own sexual experiences and Michael Pitt
as the wide-eyed boy from the States who cannot believe
his luck is totally absorbing. However, even though Fabio
Cianchetti has excelled at creating the period with his
fluid cinematography, it all seems a bit of a waste. Bertolucci
might argue the film isnıt about the riots, itıs about the
kids. Then, why not make a contemporary film in a flat in
Paris? 1968 and its political messages has no bearing on
their lives at all. I feel here is a master filmmaker awaiting
the call of a better story.
In 1964 he began a career that has been honoured, respected
and hugely influential. Scorsese himself has paid tribute
to Bertolucci in the development of his own films. The
Dreamers is a cinematic pause I hope before he touches
greatness again. My best hope is that people will watch
this, enjoy it enough to seek out The Conformist
or 1900 or The Last Emperor and see what a
great filmmaker can really do.
© Sam North Feb 2004
Author of Diamonds - The Rush of 72 and Another Place
to Die
|
|
