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the character might be perceived positively for leaving her comfort zone. However, the<br />

following sections will outline how viewer attachments to Jeanne and to the film's other<br />

characters are problematic within the film's overall scheme.<br />

Erasing the viewer's pro-attitude<br />

A pattern emerges in Bertolucci's work where the viewer's nascent affective attachments<br />

towards characters are systematically blocked. After spectators assess whether Paul's life<br />

trajectory and values are compatible with their own value system, whatever this may be, the<br />

narration provokes viewer detachment after the sequence that symbolically concludes Paul's<br />

quest. The sequence resembles one at the beginning <strong>of</strong> the film, but with Paul and Jeanne in<br />

inverted positions. In the opening sequence, the camera followed a disconsolate Paul, while<br />

Jeanne stared at him as he passed; now it is Paul who passes a disconsolate Jeanne, and stops<br />

to introduce himself using his real identity. This symbolic, circular representation <strong>of</strong> the end<br />

<strong>of</strong> Paul's retreat into an alternative existence cues a possible cognitive expectation from<br />

viewers <strong>of</strong> a positive narrative outcome that might encompass his new self-awareness and<br />

Jeanne's love for him. Instead, Bertolucci dwells on Paul's dominance within the film's<br />

scheme, hi the next sequence viewers witness Paul's mockery <strong>of</strong> a tango competition - which<br />

functions as a metaphor for society's fakeness - but viewers also have access to Paul's<br />

thoughts, through his voiceover, as he reflects on how in America Jeanne would be<br />

considered a bimbo. And this is how he treats her in dismissing her understandable<br />

reservations about a prospective future at the hotel, and in reacting to her decision to end their<br />

relationship by compelling her to masturbate him under the table, because 'there is something<br />

left to do'. In this long take, which heralds the film's dramatic denouement, Paul's egocentric<br />

dominance, examples <strong>of</strong> which this chapter has already highlighted, escalates into the worst<br />

form <strong>of</strong> patriarchal contempt towards the female, and the film's last traces <strong>of</strong> progressive<br />

liberation evaporate. This inevitably dismays those viewers who had been sensitive to the<br />

151

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