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the film's dramatic pivot - appears inadequately grounded. Inevitably, Bertolucci's
declaration that the incest theme was a development of the one presented in Before the
Revolution, (Ungari, 1982: 35 and 195) immediately attached a psychoanalytical significance
to the film whose durability has possibly restricted the development of alternative critical
hypotheses about its meaning, hi this respect, the following analysis will interpret it
differently, positing that, in emotional terms, La lima can be interpreted as the director
expressing his mixed feelings towards America and its audiences - intended here as both
viewers and critics.
This chapter will trace a contradictory attitude of attraction and resentment in the
film's framework and within a metaphorical meaning for the film that I will outline, an
interpretation based on the mother figure, Caterina, embodying America and its capricious
audiences, and on her son Joe embodying Bertolucci's attempts to elicit a greater
understanding and appreciation of himself and his work in the States. These contrasting
sentiments are responsible for the likely response of disorientation and occasional annoyance
that viewers may feel while watching La luna. At a general level, a sense of attraction is
evoked in the film's emotional structure, based on the viewer's fascination for opera music
and performances, on a degree of enthralment at the film's daring sexual component, and on
its lyrical, poetic sequences. This combination of elements implies an intention on
Bertolucci's part to regain significance for American audiences through the use of
ingredients, such as the traditional cultural appeal of opera, and the eroticism of Tango, that
had proved attractive to them.
By contrast, a sense of authorial resentment emerges in the film's flat cognitive and
intellectual structure, an approach that reflects Bertolucci's conviction - at the time - that the
European tradition of analysing reality in political terms was extraneous to the Americans,
(Ungari, 1982: 127) and he thereby attributed a limited interest in intellectual matters to
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