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hues of bluish-grey colouring are deployed to depict Rome at night, again cueing a sense of
the unreal, but this time conditioned by anxiety, hi the Rome scene, viewers are manoeuvred
into a POV shot from the perspective of Clerici and Italo to witness the destruction of a statue
of Mussolini which is illuminated by a flashing light normally used during air raids, the
statue's huge head being dragged along by a car like a horrible trophy. This lighting effect
transforms Rome's streets into a theatrical stage, diffusing a sense of ritualism and implying
that something sinister may happen at any moment. In this regard Bertolucci remembers how,
with Storaro, he sought to perfect a cold form of lighting for Rome, almost in a 'fascist' style,
and a softer illumination for Paris, effects which derived from the research on blue light that
the director started in Stratagem (Ungari, 1982: 117).
The depiction of Manganiello's car is also used to create a dreamlike (or nightmarish)
ambience; the interior is always dark, with weak light entering from the windows, while only
fog is visible in the background. When the car is shot from the outside, its headlights, cutting
through the night or the fog, are its main features. This visual approach evokes the oneiric
qualities of noir, although Bertolucci moves the action away from the labyrinthine cityscapes
that form noirs traditional backdrop (Place, 1998: 41; Vincendeau 2007: 26) to uninhabited
country locations. The road to Savoia is immersed in fog, and as it passes a bleak forest, the
surrounding landscape is eerie with the brushwood, whitened by the snow, contrasting with
the grey-black of the leafless trees. Therefore, although using a rural setting, Bertolucci elicits
a similar sense of time suspension, an effect that induces within viewers a temporary blur
between reality and dreams.
The dominance of procedural schemata
The viewer's perception of time is further complicated by the many shots of Clerici within
the interior of a car, being transported around as a child by the chauffeur Lino, and as an adult
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