Download (12MB) - University of Salford Institutional Repository
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Partner: Social Discontent and Artistic Purity Four years after Before the Revolution which, stylistically, placed Bertolucci in the orbit of the Nouvelle Vague, the director released Partner (1968) - a film so connected to Godard's film-making that Kolker considers it 'a strange attempt to end the relationship [with Godard] by turning influence into imitation" (Kolker 1985: 15). By contrast, this chapter's view is that Partner embodies Bertolucci's unrelinquished enthusiasm for Godard's cinema,(l) despite the critical and commercial failure of Before the Revolution and the years of inactivity that followed. His determination to embrace the new mode of film-making emerges from several declarations. In a 1966 interview, Bertolucci talks about the necessity for a film-maker 'to take a position [...] also in confronting the art he creates', something he said - that he had done in previous films and something which he would do 'above all' in his future work (Bragin, 1966: 23). One implication of this approach was that, due to the difficulties of financing his films, he agreed to make documentaries to avoid compromising his ideas on how cinema should be (Bragin, 1966: 26). hi 1967 Bertolucci indicated that his decision to work with the Living Theatre was motivated by his aspirations towards 'a kind of "rigor", which ultimately 'prevented [him] from working for several years' (Morandini, 1967: 31). On the fortieth anniversary of the release of Marco Bellocchio's seminal Fists in the Pocket, Bertolucci recalls how, when viewing it, he commented: 'between this film and my film [Before the Revolution] a kind of new Italian cinema was born'; in comparing the cinematic ideas expressed by the two films, Bertolucci asserts that he was 'completely for the French Nouvelle Vague\ whereas Bellocchio was 'very much for the English Free Cinema like Lindsay Anderson' (Bertolucci, 2008). These comments support this study's evaluation of Partner as Bertolucci's attempt to introduce to Italy a mode of film-making that he considered new; in addition, the film criticized the transformation that consumerism was 128
inging to contemporary Italian society. Given the film's dense theoretical basis - which includes Godard, Artaud, Brecht, and the Expressionist Theatre - Partner can be viewed as an essay on all the issues that interested Bertolucci in that period, questions such as the language of cinema and the role of cinema in contemporary society. The film, inspired by Dostoevsky's novel Tiie Double, deals with the dualities of realism and anti-realism in cinematic representation, and with the dualism between submission and rebellion within human nature. The two discourses are merged mainly through style, creating a result that no other Bertolucci film emulates in terms of self-conscious artificiality. Within this study's parameters, one could suggest that Partner mainly focuses on cognitive and intellectual forms of viewer engagement; while this is true, this chapter also shows how the film's intellectual orientation informs its emotional structure in generating a viewing experience typified by what Grodal terms intense and saturated modal qualities (Grodal, 1999: 136). The construction of disconcerting emotional associations by means of decor, colour, lighting, sound and music, like the dissonant violin score that dominates the soundtrack when violence is initiated, create a mood of angst punctuated by moments of empathy or of disorientation and estrangement. Plot summary In the style of cinema verite a cafe is shown where a man (later recognizable as Giacobbe's double) is reading a book about the film Nosferatu (1922) and he replicates the vampire's idiosyncratic movements by mimicking his hunched back and claw-like hands. Outside, men put up posters extolling freedom for Vietnam. In the next sequence, shot in theatrical style, the man shoots a youth playing a piano, while caressing his head; the youth seems to submit voluntarily to death. The soundtrack is filled with melancholy noise, produced by a spinning chandelier of which only a shadow is visible. The screen fades to black to end of what is a 129
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Partner: Social Discontent and Artistic Purity<br />
Four years after Before the Revolution which, stylistically, placed Bertolucci in the orbit <strong>of</strong><br />
the Nouvelle Vague, the director released Partner (1968) - a film so connected to Godard's<br />
film-making that Kolker considers it 'a strange attempt to end the relationship [with Godard]<br />
by turning influence into imitation" (Kolker 1985: 15). By contrast, this chapter's view is that<br />
Partner embodies Bertolucci's unrelinquished enthusiasm for Godard's cinema,(l) despite<br />
the critical and commercial failure <strong>of</strong> Before the Revolution and the years <strong>of</strong> inactivity that<br />
followed. His determination to embrace the new mode <strong>of</strong> film-making emerges from several<br />
declarations. In a 1966 interview, Bertolucci talks about the necessity for a film-maker 'to<br />
take a position [...] also in confronting the art he creates', something he said - that he had<br />
done in previous films and something which he would do 'above all' in his future work<br />
(Bragin, 1966: 23). One implication <strong>of</strong> this approach was that, due to the difficulties <strong>of</strong><br />
financing his films, he agreed to make documentaries to avoid compromising his ideas on<br />
how cinema should be (Bragin, 1966: 26). hi 1967 Bertolucci indicated that his decision to<br />
work with the Living Theatre was motivated by his aspirations towards 'a kind <strong>of</strong> "rigor",<br />
which ultimately 'prevented [him] from working for several years' (Morandini, 1967: 31). On<br />
the fortieth anniversary <strong>of</strong> the release <strong>of</strong> Marco Bellocchio's seminal Fists in the Pocket,<br />
Bertolucci recalls how, when viewing it, he commented: 'between this film and my film<br />
[Before the Revolution] a kind <strong>of</strong> new Italian cinema was born'; in comparing the cinematic<br />
ideas expressed by the two films, Bertolucci asserts that he was 'completely for the French<br />
Nouvelle Vague\ whereas Bellocchio was 'very much for the English Free Cinema like<br />
Lindsay Anderson' (Bertolucci, 2008). These comments support this study's evaluation <strong>of</strong><br />
Partner as Bertolucci's attempt to introduce to Italy a mode <strong>of</strong> film-making that he<br />
considered new; in addition, the film criticized the transformation that consumerism was<br />
128
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