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La stratesia del raeno/The Spider's Stratagem: Political and Cinematic Liberation
The release in 1970 of La strategia del ragno/Tlie Spider's Stratagem and // conformista/The
Conformist constitutes a significant example of cinematic experimentation in Bertolucci's
career. These films - partially financed by Bertolucci's cousin Giovanni - came after the
failure of Partner (entirely financed by Giovanni Bertolucci) two years earlier, which in turn
had been shot after four years of inactivity following the failure of Before the Revolution. As
a consequence of this difficult situation Bertolucci began psychoanalysis a few weeks after he
started filming Stratagem (Socci, 1996: 7): 'At a certain point I needed to understand better,
and to try to see inside myself better' (Chaluja, Chadhauser and Mingrone, 1970: 58). This
circumstance, together with his declaration that he stopped writing poetry to differentiate
himself from his father (Fieschi, 1968: 37; Ungari, 1982: 12) paved the way for many
psychoanalytical readings of his works, often under the Freudian lens of the Oedipus
complex. Kline has tried to link the father figures in Bertolucci's films with the director's
biological father and with Pasolini, (Kline, 1987: 6-7) while other scholars have extended
father figure status to Godard.
On Bertolucci's cessation of writing poetry, it is significant that he gave other
plausible motivations which do not relate to father-son rivalry. One concerns his lack of time:
'Unfortunately, making films completely takes over my life. It's something so invasive that it
makes it difficult to succeed at two occupations at once.' (Marcorelles and Bontemps, 1965:
12). Elsewhere he asserts that he had stopped writing poetry because he would have said 'the
same things in poetry and in films' and therefore 'it would have been a repetition' (Bragin,
1966: 23). On re-examining the films and also Bertolucci's statements regarding the negative
response to his earlier work,(l) my study suggests that more prominence should be given to
the impact of the rejection of his first three films on the director's self-confidence, which had
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