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Dreamers is unsurprising, given the considerable difference in status between an influential,
established director and three young, unknown actors.
In the same way, decadence pervades the decor, the costumes, and even the bodies of
the actors, often intertwined in positions that evoke those of models positioned by a sculptor.
These elements create an effect of studied stylization - a form of (re)production emanating
from an artistic consciousness rather than a mimetic evocation of Paris in 1968. Regarding
the choice of costume in certain sequences, the kimonos worn by Matthew and Theo are
emblematic. Wearing a black silk kimono himself, Theo offers Matthew a kimono with a
feminine, flowered pattern; even allowing for the frisson of bisexual eroticism hinted at in
these scenes, these touches have more in common with decadent bourgeois aesthetics than
with the apparel of the rebellious youngsters of 1968, whose fashions - to say the least - were
informal and basic. It is significant that in The Conformist, the abductor Lino offers his
victims a Japanese kimono; the inference is that for Bertolucci, these costumes, gestures, and
decor possess a personal significance connected with a loss of innocence, and that these
components emerge in what are arguably cinematic re-enactments of these fantasies.
Conclusion
For viewers familiar with Bertoluccrs work, The Dreamers can be compared to an individual
returning to a key location in one's life, as the film contains most of the themes and
influences regarding cinema and politics that have emerged in his career. The film is
characterized by a neophyte's enthusiasm for cinema's technical and visual power, as well as
for its role in enabling humans to understand reality. In this sense the Nouvelle Vague
influence and the culture of the Cinematheque is tangible in the film. Stylistically, Jlte
Dreamers typifies Bertolucci's hybrid approach in which realism and sophisticated filmic
techniques merge to create an art form that is affectively fascinating and intellectually
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