This is where the rot first set in as far as Bertolucci’s cinema is concerned. Thirty years later, one can only wonder how the director of Before The Revolution and The Conformist turned into the director of the inconsequential Finding Beauty and the simply awful Dreamers. 1900 is full of the most tremendous filmmaking – the exquisite lighting, the camera movement, the complex choreography of characters constantly moving in and out of frame in big set pieces like the scene of the peasants’ resistance to their eviction, or the wanderings in the woods during the wedding. But the script is a mess, often banal, poorly paced, and its reduction of fascism to Donald Sutherland’s monster (headbutting kittens, molesting and smashing out the brains of young boys) is intellectually and politically reprehensible
by Ian Johnston | Source: Paramount DVD
24 Jul 2007 1:26 PM | Submit Comment
