‘Before The Revolution’ or — After Godard?
“Only those who lived before the revolution knew how sweet life could be.” — Talleyrand.
Young student Fabrizio is in a terrible situation: he is middle class but wants to be a Communist, so he’s basically an Italian version of Rik from The Young Ones except even more annoying and irritating and with less funny catch phrases. Agostino is Fabrizio’s friend and he’s on the fence about joining the Communist Party as it conflicts with his Catholicism and besides, he’d rather be just enjoying riding his bicycle (the name Agostino, apparently, derives from the Latin for ‘favoured with good omens’ so I’m sure he’s going to be just fine and not meet some horrific and ironic end at all).
Agostino counter-acts Fabrizio’s personal attack by pretending to be in a Nouvelle Vague movie which, to be honest, comes off a bit clumsy and awkward leading me to wonder which is the more cack-handed — Agostino’s handling of his bike or Bertolucci’s grasp of comedy… and I suspect it’s the latter.
Fabrizio wants Agostino to meet Cesare, Fabrizio’s political father figure (this is a Bertolucci film after all so there has to be a father figure in here someone), to discuss Communism yet before this can be arranged Fabrizio discovers Agostino has killed himself, possibly because drowning himself in the river Po seemed like the more appealing alternative to Fabrizio’s invitation.
Upset at Agostino’s apparent suicide Fabrizio responds to this tragedy in a mature and grown up way by dumping his sweet, middle-class fiancée and shagging his hot aunt Gina. I guess that’s one way to deal with your grief (is this incestuous relationship a sign of contempt for the family? For tradition?). Not that Gina is any more mentally stable than her nephew as she bangs on about death, exhibits wild mood swings and has long distance, jump-cut phone calls with her therapist.
Fabrizio decides he wants Gina to meet Cesare, his political father figure, so they can discuss Communism and hopefully Gina won’t throw herself in the river Po before this can be arranged. Although with Gina catching other men’s eyes and Fabrizio still struggling to reconcile Communism with being a grating asshole things aren’t looking too promising for this totally normal aunt/nephew sexual relationship. Fortunately Fabrizio has a cineaste friend had can meet up with and discuss Howard Hawks’ ‘Red River’, another movie with an intense, possibly Freudian, relationship between an older mentor and a younger man even if it feels less like Fabrizio receiving comfort from a friend and more Bertolucci hitting us over the head that he’s cineliterate.
Will Fabrizio escape his bourgeois background sociale? Can Gina find happiness in a man she isn’t related to? And, most importantly of all, will someone whisper in Bertolucci’s ear that he can’t direct comedy even if his life, or our sanity, depended on it? Watch ‘Before The Revolution’ (1964) and find out!
What we have here are all the typical Bertolucci obsessions and quirks: father figures; Verdi; left-wing politics; bourgeois guilt; a regression to infantile sexuality; Freud; the influence of Godard and Pasolini; a ‘painterly style’ and, most importantly of all, the ability to be both brilliant and infuriating as all buggery simultaneously.
Also here Bertolucci seems to be working through his fixation with Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave so be prepared for moments of toe-curling Nouvelle Vague-ing in this movie up the jacksy and then some. The only problem is poor Bernardo can’t pull off the comedic aspect. The most embarrassing example is when Gina first flirts with her nephew by coquettishly modelling her glasses in different poses for him, the film cutting hard and fast between the takes, except you can palpably feel Bertolucci struggling with the humour like someone with boxing gloves attempting to juggle jelly, some “comedy” music only emphasising the clumsiness of it all and making me wish Richard Lester had taken a break from ‘It’s a Hard Day’s Night’ to fly over and show him how it’s done.
Not that there isn’t some effective humour in Bertolucci’s movie. For example, take the scene where Fabrizio talks to Gina about Giambatista Bodoni, an 18th Century typographer from Parma, just before some lettering and text itself appear super-imposed on the screen. Hey, maybe Bertolucci can direct comedy after all but that depends on how hilarious you find in-jokes jokes about Italian fonts and typesetters. If that’s your bag you’re be rolling in the fucking aisles at this one.
Of course being a Bertolucci film comedy isn’t (thank god) the point but rather… well, I’m not really sure what the point of this film is (maybe don’t fuck your aunt?) but there’s some good stuff going on here. The cinematography veers from gorgeous (Aldo Scarvarda’s black and white cinematography is often breathtakingly beautiful) and refined, often evoking the work of Renais and Ophuls, to the wildly ill-disciplined and bristling with unnecessary movements like a trembling hedgehog, yanking me out the movie as I’m constantly asking “What’s the motivation behind that camera movement? Is it telling us anything or is it just an affectation or some New Wave bollocks?”
There are times, though, when you can feel a sense of control and discipline coalescing and it all comes together, possibly no better illustrated than in the scene in the park between Fabrizio and Cesare, the two men sitting opposite each other with Fabrizio brought in and out of isolated space on his bench by some very nice lateral tracking shots.
Plus, despite being an early film of his ‘Before The Revolution’, surprisingly, comes across more politically astute and mature than Bertolucci’s later, and vastly more expensive, ‘Novecento’ (1976) which seems naive in comparison (possibly because it is). ‘Before The Revolution’ throbs with a certain degree of prescience and urgency, almost predicting the revolutionary unrest to come later in the sixties as opposed to making a museum piece of a romanticised past. Likewise, there’s a similar thematic resonance to Bertolucci’s later ‘The Conformist’ where the relationship between a former student and his once idolised teacher takes on a different, inverted, dynamic.
Yet my biggest problem with ‘Before The Revolution’ is the influence of Godard which often pops up because even though Bertolucci has an immense cinematic mind, for me, he lacks the piercing wit of Godard or, more importantly, the ability to gleefully “vandalise” his own movies. Let’s take the soundtrack as an example. For ‘Before The Revolution’ Morricone provides a perky score full of bursts and snippets dropping in more as punctuation points than as a continuous soundtrack. Yet these are deliberately composed and tailored musical stings hence lacking the energetic violence of, say, Michel LeGrande’s score for ‘Une Femme est Une Femme’ where it was so brutally, and delightfully, ripped to shreds. I think Bertolucci would see such savagery as an act of desecration against his own work. Either way, the effect is nowhere near as powerful despite similar intentions. Sure, there is a very nice use of Verdi’s ‘MacBeth’ for the climatic sequence where he aunt escorts Fabrizio back to a door where his politically inert future awaits but there is an overwhelming sense of reverence Bertolucci extends to the use of the music and, hence, to his own movie.
So am I being tough on this film? Maybe, but I’m fine with that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Bernardo Bertolucci deserves it with nearly all his films annoying me to the point of exasperation despite, or maybe more accurately because of, all the brilliance on display. But secondly, get this — Bertolucci was only 22 years old when he directed this leaving me with the feeling that this isn’t so much a great movie with some flaws but a precocious early feature with some dazzling moments and promising greatness to come. Whether Bertolucci lived up to that promised greatness is a discussion for another time
