1900 - NOVOCENTO - a magnificent hymn to class struggle

1900 is the mistranslated title of Italian auteur, Bernardo Bertolucci's political epic, NOVOCENTO - more literally, 20th CENTURY. It's a majestic, sprawling film that was financed lavishly on the back of the success of LAST TANGO IN PARIS, but even then exceeded its budget by millions. A source of controversy and initial disappointment when it played Venice and Cannes, even it's heavily reduced 3 hour cut is a marathon experience. Granted, the movie has moments of seeming self-indulgence. It is blatantly partisan, and is often poorly dubbed. But this is more than compensated for by beautiful visuals from DP Vittorio Storaro, unforgettable dramatic set-pieces, and the honesty and courage with which Bertolucci examines male friendship, moral cowardice and the mob mentality.

Essentially the movie is a story of childhood friendship turned to betrayal and anger. As the movie opens, an icon of unified Italy, Verdi, has died and two boys have been born. They represent the twin political forces that will split the newly unified country in two, and define the politics of twentieth century Western Europe. Alfredo is the rich son of the local landowner, a beneficiary of conservative politic interests; Olmo is the poor son of the local farmers, downtrodden, disenfranchised, but ripe for radical politics. Their child-hood is played out during endless summers: the fields are fecund, the sun always shines, and life is good. The young boys discover their sexuality together and are firm friends. Alfredo's home life is stunted by a cold and exploitative family - best symbolised by his lecherous grandfather (Burt Lancaster) who leers over a buxom milk-maid - exploited sexually and financially. By contrast, Olmo is raised by his community, in one particularly striking scene, standing atop a well-laden table as the village eats supper and the sun shines behind him giving him a halo. He is metaphorically the blessed son of the land.

As teenagers, the two boys are wing-men, visiting whores together, but politics and economics pull them apart in the autumn of their lives. Olmo (Gerard Depardieu) is a Communist and Alfredo (Robert de Niro) is his class enemy. His life is decadent - he marries a beautiful but distant wife - and his character callow. On his wedding day he allows a fascist mob to hound Olmo for apparently murdering a child. And so we are introduced to the most terrifying and memorable character in the movie, Atilla Mellanchini (Donald Sutherland). If Alfredo is upper class and Olmo working class, Atilla represents the middle-class response to class struggle - a radical movement to create a new elite and keep both decadent aristos and the mob oppressed. Nowhere is the brutality and egotism of Fascism better and most horrifyingly depicted on screen than in Sutherland's Oscar-worthy portrait. Winter has truly settled upon Italy.

As the war ends in humiliation, scores must be settled. The mob turns on the Fascists: Bertolucci seems to indicate that a necessary destruction preceeds the Spring of renewal and rebirth for modern Italy. Alfredo and Olmo are reuited as old men, fighting, literally, as the movie ends, transformed into little children again. Bertolucci's class struggle continues - it is historically determined and inevitable.

1900 - NOVOCENTO played Venice 1976 and was released that year. It is available on DVD.

STEALING BEAUTY - interactive voyeurism

Disturbingly leery film in which a variety of men and women are transfixed by a virginal American teen staying in Tuscany. The voyeurism hinted at in the title begins in the opening credits when our protagonist (Liv Tyler) is stealthily photographed on a plane to Sienna. It continues as the old bohemians speculate about her losing her virginity and implicates the viewer as we're forced to watch her being deflowered. This is after we've sat through two hours of flirting with a terminally ill Jeremy Irons and a whole bunch of teen angst, condensed into mind-numbingly juvenile poems. It's all left me asking, "So what?" This being a Bertolucci film it looks fantastic, of course, but without the political context or deep psychosexual drama of THE DREAMERS and LAST TANGO it all seems rather thin.

STEALING BEAUTY played Cannes 1996 and was released that year. It is available on DVD.

LAST TANGO IN PARIS/ULTIMO TANGO A PARIGI - Beyond Butter

LAST TANGO IN PARIS is a movie whose myths engulf our perceptions of it. For generations of leery teenagers there has been the attraction of the infamous butter-lubricated sodomy scene. For cinephiles, there is the hysterically positive movie review that made Pauline Kael's career. And for chroniclers of the censors' dark arts, there are those missing 9 seconds and the Italian court case.

With the re-release of an uncut version of the film as part of the British Film Institute's Marlon Brando season, we have a chance to move beyond the hype and the reams of coverage and back to the film itself. Shorn of the controversy and the mores of the time, how does LAST TANGO IN PARIS play? The good news is that we really do have one of the great performances of all time. We also have flashes of directorial brilliance. But we also have a grossly self-indulgent film with a rather careless denouement.

Director Bernardo Bertolucci and lead actors Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider create an absolutely courageous and brutal piece of cinema. Its courageousness stems from its complete honesty in dissecting a middle-aged man's traumatic relationship with his dead wife. The scene in which Brando confronts his emotions at the side of his wife's corpse is searing in its intensity and honesty. The scene is brave and raw in a way that one can only imagine Brando truly pulling off.

The movie is brutal in its direct portrayal of the way in which Brando's character, Paul, exorcises his ghosts - namely in a highly-charged erotic relationship with a self-confident younger woman called Jeanne, played by Maria Schneider. The brutality of the relationship is displayed superficially in Brando's harsh treatment of Jeanne and in her submission to his perverse education. In scenes clearly inspired by Sade and Bataille, Paul encourages Jeanne to explore the savage aspects of her sexuality and to break from bourgeois morality. But the brutality plays at a much more sophisticated level. Paul has been deeply traumatised by her relationship with his ex-wife and wants to savagely cut out all emotion from his relationship to Jeanne. He literally wants to brutalise himself. Jeanne is a victim of this as Paul with-holds even his name from her. The tragedy of the situation is that Paul cannot stop himself from developing feelings from Jeanne. But, paradoxically, by brutalising Jeanne, he helps her "grow up" and out of her dependence on him.

LAST TANGO IN PARIS is, then, an intense experience and is carried by the talent and experience of Brando the actor and by the raw performance of Maria Schneider. It is, I think, let down by the director's musings on the nature of cinema and by the denouement. Obviously, I cannot discuss the latter here, but the former strikes me as self-indulgent. Bertolucci clearly identifies with the French New Wave - a movement dominated by French critics turned film-makers. So the role of the artist is of interest to him. Sadly, however, the sub-plot involving Jeanne's fiance - a documentary film-maker, seems like a distraction.

Still, for all that, LAST TANGO is worth watching. But just watch it for the right reasons! For Brando. For DP Vittorio Storaro's delicate use of colour. Those searching for pornography will feel very disappointed. Watching as part of a contemporary audience, I can't help but think how discreet it is!

LAST TANGO IN PARIS was originally released in 1972 and is currently on re-release in the UK. It is also available on DVD.

THE DREAMERS - less Tango more self-indulgence

In a week when Bertolucci's greatest film, LAST TANGO IN PARIS, is released again in the UK, let's take a look at his 2003 release, THE DREAMERS. Both films deal with self-realisation through transgressive sexual relationships and put cinephilia cetre stage. But, separated by thirty years, Berolucci treats the subjects rather differently.

TANGO is a 100% Bertolucci product mediated by Brando. The sexual obsession with a random younger woman stems from his own fantasies, as does the need to put a film-maker centre stage. The brutality and the refusal to opt for easy choices (up until the final scene) are pure anti-Hollywood, as is the visual experimentation.

THE DREAMERS is a different beast, not least because Bertolucci is mediating the memoirs of Gilbert Adair. He tells the story of a young American (Michael Pitt) who arrives in Paris on the eve of the 1968 riots. He is taken up by an eccentric brother and sister (Louis Garrel and Eva "Casino Royale" Green). Soon they are abandoned in their parents decadent apartment and enter into an incestuous menage a trois while Paris burns outside their window. At first, the American is entranced by their chic and cine-literacy. When he asks the sister how old she is, she responds, a la Jean Seberg, "I entered this world on the Champs-Elysees, 1959. La trottoir du Champs Elysees. And do you know what my very first words were? New York Herald Tribune! New York Herald Tribune!" The American is flattered and seduced by the siblings declaration that "We accept you, one of us! One of us!" As their relationship deepends he realises that he may not be as accepting of their transgressive behaviour as they are. To be one of them is to be, to some extent, a freak. Their relationship is, then, ultimately doomed.

THE DREAMERS is as courageous in portraying sexual relationships as TANGO but lacks the emotional depth. Furthermore, unshackled from the intensity and brutality of emotional discoveries made in TANGO, Bertolucci is free to indulge his love of the French New Wave. THE DREAMERS is a web of references to and re-enactments of seminal scenes from cinema history. To that end, it's a joyful puzzle for cinema fans, but I suspect something of a bore for casual viewers. It's not just cinema history that's under the 'scope, but the very means by which we take in moving images. In a key scene, the American takes the Sister to the cinema. She instinctively goes to the first row, where the cinephiles sit. But the American wants her to sit in the back row, like on a real date, where the point of being there is to kiss rather than watch the art.

"Why do we sit so close? Maybe it was because we wanted to receive the images first. When they were still new, still fresh. Before they cleared the hurdles of the rows behind us. Before they'd been relayed back from row to row, spectator to spectator; until worn out, secondhand, the size of a postage stamp, it returned to the projectionist's cabin. Maybe, too, the screen was really a screen. It screened us... from the world."

Overall then, THE DREAMERS is a cinephile's delight. The lush photography and production design; the cinema references and the decent performances from the leads make it a worthwhile experience. But it does not have the profound impact of TANGO.

THE DREAMERS was originally released in 2003 and is available on DVD.