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placed by Marcus on Bertolucci's shift away from the sense of 'inexorable fate' in Moravia's
original novel in favour of a greater emphasis on 'Marcello's sovereign free will' and the
moral consequences of this, is supported in my own study (Marcus, 1986: 296). Nevertheless,
having outlined this assumption, there is a contradiction when Marcus indicates that where
Marcello Clerici is concerned, the film's cinematic devices 'all suggest an abnormal, chaotic
mental state' (Marcus, 1986: 296). While the notion of abnormality can be defended, that of
mental chaos is less tenable; my analysis will identify a cold determination in Clerici ? s
pursuit of conformism and a lucid awareness of Fascism's threatening and repressive nature.
Yosefa Loshitzky, in The Radical Faces of Godard and Bertolucci (1995), analyses in
parallel the career of the two directors. Her analysis of Bertolucci's films generally mirrors
other scholarly analysis, in terms of reaffirming Godard's influence on Bertolucci, the
implication of an Oedipus complex in their relationship, and Bertolucci's departure from
Godard's avant-garde view on cinema. On the latter point, and without any intention of
mounting a defence or criticism of the decision that led to this different strand of film-
making, I believe that more consideration should be given to the question of cinema and
elitism that troubled Bertolucci and other directors in the early 1970s, film-makers such as
Elio Petri, as both Bertolucci and Petri added their own reflections to the debate. In 1973,
while discussing politically committed films, Bertolucci asserted: 'The great problem of the
political film is very difficult. I see a great contradiction in my work when I do political films
like Before the Revolution and Partner, because political films must be popular films, and
Partner, for example, was anything but popular' (Georgakas, Rubenstein, 1984: 38). hi
commenting on Solanas's regret at having been unable to show his film Hour of the Furnaces
(1973) to the people he would have liked to, Bertolucci affirmed that a revolutionary film
'never goes into a revolutionary space' but 'into festivals. So you do revolutionary films for
the cinephiles' (Georgakas, Rubenstein, 1984: 38-39). This was a preoccupation shared by
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