ridiculous rating

An Exercise In Nonsense

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Bernardo Bertolucci was probably the last in the line of great filmmakers from Italian cinema's heyday. The neorealist movement, helmed by Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti, brought Italian cinema into the spotlight in the mid-'40s. The next generation, who had apprenticed under the neorealists, included Fellini, Antonioni, and Monicelli. Following that, Pasolini apprenticed under Fellini, and then, finally, Bertolucci apprenticed under Pasolini. This is all a bit of an oversimplification, mind you, but that's approximately how we arrive at Bertolucci on the Italian cinematic family tree."Before the Revolution", released in 1964, was Bertolucci's second film. His 1962 debut effort, "La commare secca" (a.k.a. "The Grim Reaper"), had been a critical success, although I'd call it only a good film, not a great one. Pasolini's influence is very evident in both films.Bertolucci is clearly a student of cinema. The era of "new wave" directors, who came around in about 1960 and engendered a changing of the guard all across the cinematic landscape, were notable for being the first generation of filmmakers to have any significant critical background. Previous generations of filmmakers had no serious, consistent means of exploring the cinema of other countries, not to mention other generations. These '60s filmmakers, however, thanks to the likes of Langlois and Bazin, were raised on film clubs and therefore exposed to a much wider spectrum of the cinema. As a result, this era of filmmaking is the first to be so heavily subject to that all-important aspect of the cinematic process: influence.It's never difficult to identify a director who has an immense love for cinema. Their films are filled with allusions, pastiche, and references galore, and they exhibit all sorts of influences stemming from different cinematic styles. Bertolucci is one such filmmaker, and "Before the Revolution" is one such film. This is most obvious in one scene, which features explicit dialogue regarding the political merits of many contemporaneous filmmakers, but even aside from that, we can detect a vast world of inspirations in this film. "Before the Revolution" is like an amalgam of Pasolini, Godard, and a left bank nouvelle vague director like Resnais or Varda. Godard's jump cuts and playful style are present at times. We see compositions that are distinctly reminiscent of Varda's "La Pointe-Courte" or Resnais's "Hiroshima mon amour" (similar compositions can also be seen in Antonioni's early '60s work, such as "L'eclisse", as well as in Bergman's "Persona" and Godard's "Une femme mariée"). Most notably, the film shares Pasolini's proclivity for a highly poetic form of cinema. There is poetic narration, but like "Accattone" or "Mamma Roma", the core of the film's poetry is in its visual style.Visually, "Before the Revolution" is absolutely stunning. It's formally impeccable, and the cinematography warrants some analysis. At times it emulates Pasolini's unique pseudo-realist technique, and at other times it is much more formal, featuring very slow, smooth, graceful, poetic camera-work. Some of these latter shots are very much ahead of their time, reminding me of the more recent films of Terrence Malick, or Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty". We can see a good deal of virtuosity in the young Bertolucci here.As for the film's content, it's very much a communist film, focusing on all the usual topics: revolution, the bourgeoisie, et cetera. The film's protagonist is Fabrizio, a young man who has committed himself to the revolution and to breaking free of his bourgeois chains. The film's other two central characters are Cesare, Fabrizio's revolutionary mentor, and Gina, Fabrizio's aunt with whom he begins a love affair. Each character plays their role. Fabrizio is the bourgeoisie, Cesare the revolutionary, and Gina the troubled soul, essentially apolitical because she is too wrapped up in her own existential angst to concern herself with political or revolutionary action. Cesare tries to win Fabrizio over to the revolutionary cause, and Fabrizio wants to be won over, but is he truly committed? Can a bourgeoisie ever be truly committed to the revolution, or will he always bow out "before the revolution" materializes? Perhaps he has too much to lose to truly act on his ideals when the moment for action finally arrives. This was the core of the conflict between workers and students within the revolutionary movement, discussed at length in Godard's "A Film Like Any Other". Workers fought the revolution out of necessity, but the students could always go home to mommy and daddy as soon as the fire got too hot. As outmoded as they may sound in America today, these ideas were central to political cinema for a long time. This issue — the complexities of attempting to break the oppressive bonds of bourgeois society — has been the subject of a great many political films, and it is again here. I'd like to think of "Before the Revolution" as a film about the difficulties of achieving social change, the aspects of the human condition that drive individuals to revolt against society, and the basic need for comfort and security that ultimately undermines the ideals of those who act out of ideology and not practical necessity. The film can certainly be seen that way, and I, personally, want to think of it in those terms because I am not a political person. I'm more interested in subjective portrayals of one individual's vision of life than I am in the politics of revolution. That being said, what Bertolucci intended here was probably not a subjective contemplation of the futility of revolution, but rather an objective reflection on the necessity for total revolution — the need to wipe out every trace of bourgeois society in order to achieve any genuine positive social change. Like most great films, a lot is left open to interpretation here, although maybe less than what appears at first glance, if you know the politics of the time. Certainly, this is an immensely complex, largely under-appreciated, and truly great film. RATING: 9.00 out of 10 stars

While hailed as many as a masterpiece (or near), I struggled with Bertolucci's 2nd film, made when he was only 23, although I am a fan of his in general. Beautifully shot, great use of music and unconventional editing, the film is excellent on a film-making and craft level (although it perhaps borrows too liberally from leading film-makers of the era, especially Godard, Antonioni and Resnais). The story of a young bourgeois man trying to come to terms with his tear between his attraction to communism and his desire for an easier life leads him into an incestuous affair with his somewhat older aunt. I found it's themes somewhat muddled, alternating between being heavy-handedly spelled out, or so obtuse I wasn't sure what a given scene was saying. The acting in particular seems a bit all over the place; understated to the point of flatness in one scene, and then almost theatrically over the top the next. At the end I felt glad I'd seen the film, but it didn't stick with me the way Bertolucci's first film "La Commare Secca" or his third "Partner" did. ("Partner" deals with some of the same themes, but in a far more playful, often comedic way). There was a film-school sort of pretentiousness and emotional distance in "Before the Revolution that kept me from feeling moved or from being led to think deeply about the ideas. That said, I am willing to revisit it and see if my reaction changes, and certainly I enjoyed Bertolucci's already masterful use of image and sound, even if the ends he was using them to were a bit muddled.

I first saw this egregiously brilliant film by an egregiously talented young director at a private screening for members of the American Federation of Film Societies at the 34th Street East Theatre in Manhattan in 1965. I was overwhelmed by so many things in it and longed to see it again. When it opened commercially I kept going back to see it in the way fans of "Star Wars" go repeatedly to see what they love. I love it, though it often makes me as nervous and unsettled as the character of Gina in the film each time I re-see it on video.The movie is very loosely based on Stendhal's "The Charterhouse of Parma." Parma is where the film is set, where Bertolucci is from, in the region of Giuseppe Verdi, whose music is heard in the film. At its core is a rather uncomplicated story of a young idealist, Fabrizio, who realizes his ideas will probably never be realized. He is adored by his neurotic and probably nymphomaniac aunt Gina, sent to Parma to visit family by her psychiatrist in Milan, where she lives...to have her "get away" for a while. Adriana Asti gives a dynamic performance that steals the movie from everyone else, especially from Fabrizio, who seems a boring dullard throughout, probably Bertolucci's intention, though played convincingly by Franco Barilli.The lyric elements of the movie and its persistent aural/visual poetry are what struck me the most. There is a scene at the start of the movie when Fabrizio finds out his friend has committed suicide through drowning. Fabrizio stands at the swim-hole area by some pylons and and watches in dazed iciness as a group of young boys in bathing suits make their way out of the water. Camera dissolves are accompanied by rapturous music of Ennio Morricone (one of his best scores and never issued on disc, as far as I know.) Fabrizio asks a young boy "Does it seem right to you?"...as if a pubescent kid could answer questions about life's tragedies. On every level I find that scene and those moments stunning.Many point justly to great set pieces in the movie, such as the one with the aging land-owner Puck, now on hard times, who is about to lose his heavily mortgaged estates. He begins a lament for the past (the true theme of the movie!), and just when you think he's said enough for us to understand, the scene lurches into a sudden leap, expanding and becoming utterly mad and grandiose, even haywire, as the lament continues and the camera swoops over the soon-to-be-lost-lands in a helicopter shot and as Morricone provides an operatic counterpoint and propels us all into some unspeakable dimension of regretful melancholia.Operatic the movie is, stylistically, and in a fabulous scene at the Parma Opera, quite literally. At the opening night of Verdi's "Macbeth" the various strata of Parmesan society are seen at their levels in the theatre, the bourgeoisie at the orchestra level, the aristocrats in posh side boxes, even the communist party members clustered closely in their own upper "people's box." The scene suggests the La Fenice opera scene in Visconti's "Senso." So much in the film is an homage to other directors, Godard, Rossellini, Hawks, all of whom are referred to specifically, occasionally by his film buff friend. Fabrizio's closest friend and role model is the gentle leftist teacher Cesare.By the end of the film, Gina goes back to Milan, Fabrizio loses faith in the party and marries his dull but well-positioned childhood sweetheart, Clelia. No revolution for Fabrizio. He is, with his "nostalgia for the present" condemned to live "before the revolution" as most of us are who have no appetite for revolution, only for living.The final scene has Fabrizio marrying Clelia. It is hard to believe that Bertolucci could top what has preceded it in the movie, but he does, I think. In it the brief marriage scene is inter-cut with Cesare reading to his young pupils from the "Moby Dick" story of Captain Ahab in pursuit of the while whale. As Ahab pursued the impossible, the characters of this film pursue the impossible. Gina is at the wedding, wrenched, jealous, crying. In a series of moments which Andrew Sarris referred to as "electrifying," Gina repeatedly kisses the young adolescent brother of Fabrizio. Over and over. On the face. On the head. Her young nephew. She cannot stop. She is driven, by envy, by regret. She cries. The harpsichord-enriched musical moment of Morricone underscores the Euripidean hysterics. There is a freeze-frame. A film masterpiece ends.

The overall plot deals with a young man drawn to his aunt set in Italy prior to its participation in the war.If you watch this film looking at the plot, actor performances, whether it is well directed, etc, you will miss its beauty.You need to relax, sit back and enjoy the juxtaposition of the visual over the music, especially in the last half. It is a wonderful experience. Bertolucci obviously decided not to conform to the intellectualism of Fellini or the structured approach of Zeffirelli.The scene at the theatre, where the young man faces his aunt, set to the background of the opera is almost a dance.Give the left brain a rest and enjoy.