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Conformism and its double radicalism, a detersive combustion. The theater instructor (Pierre Clémenti) reads at the café and pulls his trenchcoat up like Nosferatu's cape, so begin Bernardo Bertolucci's "esperimenti di mise en scène improvisata." The would-be revolutionary's situation, imaginary furniture and columns of books and no pants, even his shadow marches to a different beat (cf. Duck Soup). The goal is to get agitators out of the classroom and into the streets, the riotous doppelgänger lends a hand, plus a murder or two. Old and new orders, "worms inside a corpse," just the madness of being young and political in Rome '68. Against "the aesthetic lingering on forms," a vivacious screen rattled by slogans and jokes. Rimbaud redivivus, Magritte somewhere, "Vietnam Libero!" Clémenti the human pogo stick, spinning a one-man tango and crowing like a rooster, relentless sound and fury to keep ideological paralysis at bay. The grandiose romanticism of the hero's elopement with the debutante (Stefania Sandrelli) is readily punctured, he has her sniffing his armpit in the back of a stalled convertible while Petrushka the servant (Sergio Tofano) makes vroom-vroom sounds in the driver's seat. "Do panning shots of life, in Techniscope and color if you have broad ideas." Bertolucci at his most fractured and ebullient—his camera is a mirror, an orb turned on its side, a tray for a Molotov cocktail bottle. Cobwebs and guillotines, modernity amid the ruins, an acting exercise set to the metronome of Ninetto Davoli's jaw harp. Eisenstein's baby carriage and Cocteau's painted eyelids, overflowing suds and a slushy tune spell the end of the dippy muse (Tina Aumont) for the benefit of Russell's Tommy. "Buttiano via le maschere!" The contrasting halves argue still at the close, the director of Novecento wouldn't have it any other way. Cinematography by Ugo Piccone.
--- Fernando F. Croce |