Partner

In all of Bertolucci's movies, there's a central conflict between the 'radical' impulses and a pessimistic (and/or willing) capitulation to the mainstream of bourgeois society and culture. It's a contradiction that takes on juggernaut proportions in '1900', but it stands as a major source of tension and interest in many of the earlier films. Both Before the Revolution and Partner try to examine it head-on. Revolution is about a middle class 20-year-old who 'discovers' Marxism and tries - for a while - to change his life; Partner is an exuberant response to the student riots of '68, with Clémenti as a timid drama student confronting his anarchic revolutionary alter ego. The first is mostly 'classical' in style, the second aggressively 'new wave', but both are full of interruptions and digressions: they throw out ideas and allusions (usually to other movies) with reckless enthusiasm, and they remain invaluable aids to an understanding of the '60s.