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1985: 73) should be contextualized by the consideration that an exceptional degree of
misinterpretation had occurred between the parties.
Nevertheless, this study is mainly interested in Bertolucci's declaration that he
worked in his own way 'in the folds of this system's contradictions' (Georgakas-Rubenstein
1984: 141) and that he intentionally used the lever of emotions to convey to a public
unfamiliar with Italian history the struggle of the Italian working class (Georgakas-
Rubenstein 1984: 143). These assertions are important because they underpin this chapter's
examination of how intellectual stratification and emotional intention run in parallel within
1900. The film's first intellectual reference, addressing mainly Italian viewers, is made as the
opening credits are superimposed on the famous tableau Quarto Stato (The Fourth Estate) by
Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (1868-1970). hi Italy the painting is an icon of class struggle,
because it had been used by the Communist Party for a long time as a logo. Therefore the
association of the tableau with the film functions as an immediate indication of the film's
political orientation and remit; but it also points to the director's artistic intention to depict
the historical period of the twentieth century as a lyrical fresco. Intended to celebrate the
resolve of rural workers as a social class, the painting depicts a crowd of peasants advancing
with intent, the group being led by three people; two men and a woman carrying a baby,
whom the viewers will subsequently relate to the characters of Leo Dalco, Olmo and Anita.
Plot summary
The film opens with a gun battle between partisans and Fascists in a rural landscape, and the
caption '25 aprile 1945' situates it in the closing months of the war. There is a cut to inside a
manor house to show Alfredo Berlinghieri being captured by Olmo's son Leonida; this
sequence is a framing mechanism for the rest of the film, which is an extended flashback of
past events starting from the day on which Alfredo - the landowner's son - and Olmo - the
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