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scene of Clara's murder by the double, during an encounter inside a bus. This time, the
sequence evokes Godard in mimicking the Hollywoodian mechanism of using projected
backdrops, as Bertolucci uses speeded-up city images that are visible from the bus windows.
The resulting artifice is enhanced by filming with a mute soundtrack, another Godardian
effect. Also, on this occasion, the viewer's awareness of the cinematic devices that are being
exposed does not prevent an emotional response to Clara's death. The scene featuring the
third murder by the double, that of a saleswoman, is inspired by Godard's Unefemme est une
femme (1961) with its meta-documentarial frontal shooting by a fixed camera, portraying,
with a mute soundtrack, the playful interaction between the protagonists. Gradually, as the
camera tracks backwards and roams the set to frame the two characters sensually playing
with the foam that overflows from a washing machine, the scene takes on a lyrical form,
before being unexpectedly interrupted by the double turning his caress into a stranglehold.
The mode of killing is the same as that used for Clara, but the doublets earlier attitude of
contempt is replaced here by tenderness towards the woman, whose job had previously been
likened to prostitution at the service of a police state that keeps society under control by
means of consumption - a theme of several films by Godard between 1962 and 1966 (Dixon
1997: 30). However, even the long take of the salesgirl's murder contains a wry self-
consciousness, the double being filmed from the back as he sits on a washing machine with
his raincoat open in front of the girl, thus evoking comic representations of male
exhibitionism.
Bertolucci "s use of Godard's mode of location filming with surreal insertions of staged
elements is visible in the sequences shot around Rome. Nonetheless in Partner the scenes'
metaphorical sense remains more attached to a narrative function, as their symbolic meaning
fills narrative omissions. An example of this occurs during a sequence featuring a student -
blindfolded with a red scarf - who tries to cross a busy road and is followed by others (this
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