A Master's Early Treasures

Three of Bernardo Bertolucci's classic movies get big-screen attention at AGO's Jackman Hall

Since writing about cinema, I've frequently mentioned Italian master Bernardo Bertolucci as my favourite living filmmaker. But these last few years he's been referred to by critics as a dried-up talent who, in middle age, has long lost his way. Oscar-winning The Last Emperor (1987) is the shining exception to a series of misguided projects: Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981), The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1994), Stealing Beauty (1996), Besieged (1998) and most recently The Dreamers (2003).
Admittedly biased, I try to stay open to this famously principled man who's impressed me several times during interviews with his cultivated, intelligent and compassionate soul.
However, there's no getting around the fact that Bertolucci's glory days were in the 60s and 70s when he was among the most audacious voices of world cinema. Echoing this opinion, Cinematheque Ontario is presenting Italian Trilogy: Three Early Films by Bertolucci. These include Before the Revolution (1964), The Spider's Stratagem (1970) and The Conformist (1970).
Born on March 16, 1940 in Parma, Italy, Bertolucci grew up in an atmosphere of comfort and intellectualism. His father, a poet, anthologist, film critic and art history professor, encouraged Bernardo's childhood interest in films by frequently taking him to film screenings. At the age of 15 Bertolucci made two short films about children, but was also gaining respect throughout Italy as a writer. His first book, In Search of Mystery (In Cerca del Mistero), won the Premio Viareggio, one of the top literary awards in Italy. At the University of Rome (1958-1961) Bertolucci began his film career as an assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini. Following his work on Pasolini's Accattone, Bertolucci left the University of Rome without graduating and embarked on an independent study of film.
Bertolucci's first feature film, The Grim Reaper (La Commare Secca), was filmed on location in Rome in 1962. Before the Revolution (Prima della Rivoluzione), his second feature film, did no better commercially than The Grim Reaper, but won him recognition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1964.
Only 23 when he made it, Before The Revolution became Bertolucci's artistic 'piece de resistance', and his most biographical to date. The plot (based on Stendhal's early 19th century novel, The Charterhouse of Parma) revolves around Fabrizio (Francesco Barilli), a melancholy man in a disintegrating world, who, after the death of his friend Agostino (Allen Midgette), falls in love with the esoteric Gina (Adriana Asti), his aunt. Love blossoms between the two, then fails in a final act of desperation.
The film covers many themes, from alienation to sex, from cinematic history to understanding. Collage-like in structure, the film begins with a premise of monumental grandeur; shot in striking B&W and magnificently filmed by Aldo Scavarda (who filmed the earlier L'avventura of Michelangelo Antonioni), the film exudes an artistic quality that attempts poetic lyricism.
For a period of about five years Bertolucci wasn't able to raise funds for another feature length film, but instead directed a number of documentaries and helped director Julian Beck with some of his productions.
"Those early films were like sea urchins - very closed, very difficult to handle for an audience," Bertolucci once said in an interview. "And probably I was also like that. Then I started in '69 to have psychoanalysis, and I realized very soon that I was changing, and that's I think why my movies were changing. They became much more open to dialogue."
The first filmic product of Bertolucci's psychoanalysis, made four months after his analysis began, was The Spider's Stratagem, a film based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges titled "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero." In the Borges story a young man embarks on an investigation of his great-grandfather's allegedly heroic death in an 18th century Irish battle. Bertolucci changed the setting to Mussolini's Italy, and a town near Parma.
It tells the story of a fictional anti-fascist hero named Athos Magnani (Giulio Brogi), who was assassinated, and whose home town, Tara, has since been turned into a shrine. Years later, his son, also called Athos Magnani and played by the same actor, returns to this town to investigate his father's death after being summoned by a strange woman, Draifa (Alida Valli). His father is everywhere: there is a statue of him, streets and theatres are named after him - in fact, the town seems to be otherwise empty, inhabited only by his ghost. The young Athos struggles with the memory of his father, whom he never knew, and with his own identity. After many tormented, dreamlike sequences he finds that his father was not as heroic as his legend suggests.
That same year, in 1970, Bertolucci made what has perhaps become his most famous (if not his most notorious) film: The Conformist. Here, too, he made a "little change": in Alberto Moravia's novel on which the film is based, Marcello, the hero and traitor, is killed in an accident. Bertolucci explains that he "substituted Marcello's unconscious for the presence of Destiny in the book." His actions are explained by flashbacks into his past, and, instead of being a classically tragic hero who dies as a result of his actions, his comeuppance is provided by his own tortured mind.
Bertolucci has said that whereas in The Spider's Stratagem he was "more influenced by life", in The Conformist he was "more influenced by movies".
Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant) first comes across as a bureaucrat, a man who dresses in a suit because everyone he wants to impress dresses that way. By trying so diligently to lose himself in the crowd, Marcello appears weak-willed, a blank canvas that can only be inked by another. But he's actually a pragmatist who wants to give the impression of being a 'comrade' without committing body and soul to whatever cause is uppermost. Hence pre-war Italy makes Marcello a fascist.
Marcello first makes use of his friendship with blind Italo (José Quaglio); all he wants are a few delicate string pulls. Success leads to a meeting with Il colonello (Fosco Giachetti) and induction into the secret police. What Marcello doesn't count on is being sent on a mission, particularly one that employs his honeymoon as cover. It's not a big problem though; Marcello only selected lovely, whimsical Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) to be a kind of cover herself! In Paris the mission involves assassination, the killing of Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). Marcello is reluctant to act even when encouraged by associate Manganiello (Gastone Moschin).
In interviews Bertolucci has referred to these three movies as his best, "they were like a celebration... maybe the movies were a kind of offering that I was giving."
An offering we gladly accept and remember.
Italian Trilogy: Three Early Films by Bertolucci screens at AGO's Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas St. W., from August 5 to 11. For more information call 416.968.FILM.

Publication Date: 2004-08-01
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4230