Download (12MB) - University of Salford Institutional Repository
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Prima delta Rivoluuone/Before the Revolution: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Nouvelle Vasue In 1964, Bertolucci released Before the Revolution, which - despite being preceded by The Grim Reaper - is generally considered the director's true opera prima. The script - entirely credited to Bertolucci - articulates his disillusionment over Italy's socio-political situation in the 1960s. The autobiographical nature of the film was implied by Bertolucci in describing the protagonist, Fabrizio, as a bourgeois youth who is critical of the Communist Party during the Sixties, which was guilty of being 'dozy 7 and 'reformist 7 ; in pointing out that Fabrizio's criticisms were voiced in real life by the students during the 1968 riots, Bertolucci remarks how he had felt that unease five years earlier. (Leoni, 1995) (1) The film condemns the hold that the Catholic Church and capitalist values had on society, despite the hopes for a new social order that had emerged at the end of World War Two. In comparing, later in the chapter, Before the Revolution with Antonioni's // deserto rosso I TJie Red Desert (1964) from the same year, and with Bellocchio's Ipugni in tasca I Fists in the Pocket (1965) from a year later, the extent to which this socio-political unease was shared by other film-makers and intellectuals of that time becomes clear. The other autobiographical aspect that emerges from the film regards Bertolucci "s delineation of his artistic orientation through a discourse about cinematic form and style within the film's dialogue which privileges the innovations of Jean- Luc Godard. In artistic terms, Before the Revolution is essentially a visual document of the way Bertolucci freely experimented with the sort of cinematic innovation that had been less authoritatively deployed in The Grim Reaper. Plot summary The film portrays a period in the life of Fabrizio, a young intellectual living in Parma and engaged to Clelia, who conies from the same bourgeois milieu and has a strict Catholic sense 72
of respectability. Inspired by Cesare, who acts as his political mentor, Fabrizio embraces leftist politics, and breaks up with Clelia in his desire to reject the social status quo. Fascinated by Gina - his mothers emancipated younger sister who lives in Milan - the two become intimate, but the rapport is conditioned by Gina's awareness that it has no future. Fabrizio shows insensitivity towards his best friend Agostino, who is uncomfortable with the materialism of his parents, and has difficulty in adjusting to a lifestyle split between the modem cosmopolitanism of Switzerland and Parma's provincialism. The news that Agostino has drowned hits Fabrizio, because it is suspected to be suicide, and also Gina, as it exacerbates her neurosis and solitude. The poetic goodbye that Gina's friend Puck addresses to the family estate he can no longer afford comes to represent a metaphorical form of closure for Gina who returns to Milan, and for Fabrizio who realizes that his bourgeois destiny is inescapable. During a Communist Party festival, Fabrizio declares his disillusionment and sense of failure to Cesare, who instead reaffirms his political credo. The film's ending shows how all three main characters settle for unfulfilling existential compromises. Cesare takes the soft option of teaching in a school, since he thinks that revolutionary ideals are likelier to germinate within children. Fabrizio marries Clelia as an act of individual resignation and failure, whereas Gina's tears during the wedding reveal her unhappiness. Political disillusionment, pessimism and melancholy The film s first images are accompanied by Fabrizio reciting in voiceover Pasolini's poem La religione del mio tempo, which immediately establishes the intellectual remit of Before the Revolution and its pessimistic mood, the poem criticizing Italian society and accusing Catholicism of accepting and perpetuating socio-economic injustice, and of being the merciless heart of the State itself.(2) By the early 1960s, the hopes of Italy's progressive political parties, such as the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), for a better and fairer world had receded, having been dashed by defeat in the 1948 general election which saw the 73
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Prima delta Rivoluuone/Before the Revolution: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Nouvelle<br />
Vasue<br />
In 1964, Bertolucci released Before the Revolution, which - despite being preceded by The<br />
Grim Reaper - is generally considered the director's true opera prima. The script - entirely<br />
credited to Bertolucci - articulates his disillusionment over Italy's socio-political situation in<br />
the 1960s. The autobiographical nature <strong>of</strong> the film was implied by Bertolucci in describing<br />
the protagonist, Fabrizio, as a bourgeois youth who is critical <strong>of</strong> the Communist Party during<br />
the Sixties, which was guilty <strong>of</strong> being 'dozy 7 and 'reformist 7 ; in pointing out that Fabrizio's<br />
criticisms were voiced in real life by the students during the 1968 riots, Bertolucci remarks<br />
how he had felt that unease five years earlier. (Leoni, 1995) (1) The film condemns the hold<br />
that the Catholic Church and capitalist values had on society, despite the hopes for a new<br />
social order that had emerged at the end <strong>of</strong> World War Two. In comparing, later in the<br />
chapter, Before the Revolution with Antonioni's // deserto rosso I TJie Red Desert (1964)<br />
from the same year, and with Bellocchio's Ipugni in tasca I Fists in the Pocket (1965) from a<br />
year later, the extent to which this socio-political unease was shared by other film-makers and<br />
intellectuals <strong>of</strong> that time becomes clear. The other autobiographical aspect that emerges from<br />
the film regards Bertolucci "s delineation <strong>of</strong> his artistic orientation through a discourse about<br />
cinematic form and style within the film's dialogue which privileges the innovations <strong>of</strong> Jean-<br />
Luc Godard. In artistic terms, Before the Revolution is essentially a visual document <strong>of</strong> the<br />
way Bertolucci freely experimented with the sort <strong>of</strong> cinematic innovation that had been less<br />
authoritatively deployed in The Grim Reaper.<br />
Plot summary<br />
The film portrays a period in the life <strong>of</strong> Fabrizio, a young intellectual living in Parma and<br />
engaged to Clelia, who conies from the same bourgeois milieu and has a strict Catholic sense<br />
72
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