The Dreamers (2003), Bertolucci

For anyone that has seen a Bertolucci film, The Dreamers is quintessential Bertolucci. The setting, the cinematography, and the story all fit into the image that Bertolucci creates in many of his films. For being 63 years old when he made this film, The Dreamers succeeds in having a youthful feel to the point that it almost seems to be the work of an up and coming new director as one critic thought upon first viewing the film (film review, A.O. Scott). Maybe this is because of the incestuous sex and politics that create a quite shocking and perverted image of youth. Bertolucci's in your face cinema makes the viewer uncomfortable but also question what it is they are watching and what purpose it serves. While The Dreamers may not be a film for the light-hearted or reserved individual, Bertolucci's film making skills and cinematography were very well done. The scenes in the apartment feel like another world, in stark contrast to the streets below. The colors are warm the lighting is dim and sensual; he creates the feeling that what happens in this apartment is not quite real. Some people relate this film and this apartment to scenes from Bertolucci's other controversial film Last Tango in Paris which was also a sexually driven film, taking place partly in a Parisian apartment.

Bertolucci also has quite a fixation with Paris as a backdrop for his films. The city in itself is often related to ideas of free thinking and sexual freedom and the era that it takes place in, the 1960's, was at the height of sexual liberation throughout the world. Therefore, it seems that The Dreamers could not take place in any other place but Paris.

As far as characterization, Bertolucci uses Matthew as a reflection of the viewer. While Matthew may engage in actions that we could never dream of doing, the core of his charter objects what he sees; he knows that what he seeing and experiencing is wrong, yet his love for Isabelle keeps him there in the belief that he can separate her from Theo, until he realizes that his actions are futile. Matthew is the only person who stays "true." While he explores his sexuality he overall is the voice of reason in the film. Even Matthew liberal spirit cannot accept Isabelle's and Theos "kinky fairy-tale world." (A.O. Scott).

I found The Dreamers to be somewhat a modern neo-realist film. It's film hovers around the periphary of an "idea," esplorino, but never actually concluding anything about it. The characters are literally "dreamers." They live in their own idealized world, outside of reality. Theo and Isabelle glamorize the world outside while Matthew at the end walks away, finally accepting that Theo and Isabelle are still dreamers, unable to grow up and accept reality.


http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-dreamers-2004
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C0CEFD7133BF935A35751C0A9629C8B63

The Conformist (1970), Bertolucci

For me this film really stood out from the other films that we have watched because of its obvious stylistic differences, and more overt political opinions. In this film Fascism is explicitly stated as being a main theme in the film and is what drives the plot; a Fascist, Macercello must assasinate his anti-Fascist former professor Signor Quadri. Also the words that Marcello's sick father is muttering "I'll never be tired of repeating. If the State doesn't model itself on the image of the individual, how will the individual ever model himself in the image of the State? etc...etc..slaughter and melancholy." While what he is saying is "crazy nonsense," to the characters, Bertolucci is sending a message to the viewer and making a statement about fascism. How can the State and the individual become one? The answer is slaughter and melancholy, meaning that these dreams are impossible and will only end in tragedy.

Bertolucci's stylistic choices become become an intergral part of the plot. The frenzied flashbacks are quite confusing but also reflect the confusion and conflict of the main character of Marcello and his own confusion and conflict with his past as well as his present. For example there is the scene when Marcello is stuck in the middle of the dancing people and the camera zooms in on him in the middle with a look of stress and and panic on his face. The scene is a visual representation of Marcello's internal state; he too feels trapped in his duty to kill his professor, unable to escape. Another scene is when Marcello is in the Professor's office and the professor is shown in shadow as they are talking about shadows.

Something that I found in the reading by Bonadella, is that he says that Anna Quadri is a lesbian, yet in the film, I saw homoerotic leanings, I was not utterly convinced that she was a lesbian just as Marcello's homosexual encounter in boyhood did actually mean he was homosexual. Sexuality is an important part of the film, and vital in the character development, especially when we discover the scene of his homosexual boyhood encounter. The scene is not only powerful but gives a whole new understanding about Marcello. From a psychoanalytic point of view, if personality is developed in childhood, then Marcello has no hope of changing; he is already "damaged goods," and at the end of the film we see just that. Marcello, who had tried to repress his past for so many years finally brings everything to the surface. Along with the fall of Fascism comes Marcello's parallel fall. Unable to escape his past he is a prisoner of fate.