Bernardo Bertolucci
Novecento

Hello, today I am writing my first review on DeBaser, and I’d like to dedicate it to the most pompous, boring, and sycophantic work of that mediocre director from Parma known as Bernardo Bertolucci. Now, we all know the plot of the film, it tells the story of two young men, Olmo and Alfredo (played by Gerard Depardieu, ahem, and Bob De Niro), the first is the son of a peasant woman who works on a farm, the latter is the son of the owners of the same farm where Rosina, that’s the woman’s name, works. The peculiarity is that Olmo and Alfredo were born on the same day and in the same place, and it is through their eyes that we will experience the evolution of the past century from the First World War to the rise of fascism, ending with the Resistance of the partisans. So far, you might ask what’s wrong with it? Nothing, except that in its uncut version, Novecento lasts 311 minutes, which is more than 6 hours.

My take is that everyone can watch films of whatever length they prefer, certainly, but I can guarantee you that after 4 hours, if a film isn’t well made, it starts to be a drag. This delightful stew is stuffed with an inexcusably and deliberately gratuitous critique of fascism. Go watch the fascist character of Attila, played by a masterful Donald Sutherland, his brutality towards animals (the famous scene with the cat) and towards people (an even more famous scene is the rape and murder of a young boy); was it really necessary to hammer home the fascist aspect? I think we all know Bertolucci’s political ideology (but this goes for most of the inhabitants of Emilia-Romagna), namely communism: now, I understand that fascism was a dark period because of the number of deaths it caused in our country, but was it really necessary to highlight this aspect of it? Bertolucci doesn’t remember that atrocities, significant ones, were committed by everyone, blackshirts and reds, Nazis and communists, generals and partisans, but this film reeks of being a denunciation solely against fascism.

In conclusion, this film is an utter piece of proletarian propaganda nonsense, where socialists are portrayed as honest and virtuous men, while right-wing supporters are depicted as selfish and cruel beings, attached to money and land ownership. *** seem excessive to me, ** I give because for a number of reasons it was important (just consider the monstrous cast, where an Italian film recruited internationally renowned actors like De Niro, Depardieu, Sutherland, our Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda, and the two Hollywood veterans Burt Lancaster and Sterling Hayden). The second is that it was made in 1976, the year when Torino won their last championship by defeating their historical rivals Juventus on the last day, what can I say, it seems like an eternity since the great days of the "Gemini of Goals" Paolino Pulici and Ciccio Graziani (now inclined to feats as the coach of the "Pipponi", which have fortunately closed). The third is that we will never again see a De Niro so poor in acting for about a good thirty years, this film is, in its way, historic.

P.s: how is it possible that this film is still restricted to under 18 in Italy today? Oops, maybe they’ve lowered it to 14…

P.p.s: note that I’m not a supporter of fascism or right-wing ideology, but I simply say that Bertolucci should have analyzed both currents that left their mark on the twentieth century here in Italy (and in Europe too). Essentially, the man from Parma lacks objectivity; that’s understandable, every director has their ideas, I don’t agree with his, and I am expressing that.