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destroy the structures of production out of contempt at the older generation whom he believes
is guilty of amalgamating itself with the bourgeois system. By making a capitalist
entrepreneur like Primo Spaggiari, and particularly his factory, the victims of terrorism,
Bertolucci emulates Pasolini in highlighting the paradox characterizing extreme left-wing
activism in the 1970s - an elite incapable of linking their abstract ideology with the real
needs of the working classes.
However, Bertolucci implies that the social unrest of the 1970s is generated by a
widespread, growing disappointment at the post-war political orientation of the Communist
Party, which had gradually sidelined the priority of changing society's power base in favour
of attaining the limited goal of securing power at local government level, while, however,
continuing to campaign for social justice. Tragedy foregrounds these issues by questioning
the social state of affairs in the Emilia Romagna region which had been governed by a
Communist administration since 1945. Three elements serve to illustrate the socio-political
situation at a microcosmic level: the entrepreneur Primo Spaggiari, with his ambiguous mix
of idealism and self-centredness; the working class with its eternal troubles, and still some
distance from improving its social status (symbolized by the student workers Laura and
Adelfo); and the misplaced far-left idealism of the younger generation, with its devastating
effect on all society. To complete the gloomy picture, the film portrays groups of local
dignitaries whose hypocritical and unethical behaviour during the critical period after
Giovanni's kidnapping implies that there is little difference between their values and those of
the more unrestrained forms of capitalism that were thriving in other Italian regions.
Theoretical origins of the film's political resonances
This interpretation of the film is echoed by elements in Giorgio Bocca's 1978 analysis of
Italian terrorism. Above all, the Communist Party's deficiencies, denounced by the film,
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