April 5 - 13, 2023 - Daily Hours: 1:20, 3:40, 6:00, & 8:20
~In a last-ditch effort to fit in, repressed Jean-Louis Trintignant joins the Fascists in Mussolini’s Italy, attempting to erase memories of a young, homosexual episode—and murder. As the reluctant Judas drives to his own Gethsemane—the killing of his leftist mentor—he remembers his wife Stefania Sandrelli and her lover Dominique Sanda dancing the tango in a working-class hall, a dance celebration for the blind, and an insane asylum inside a stadium. But those are just a few of the anthology scenes in this political thriller, which also feature Trintignant and Sandrelli on their honeymoon in a train compartment as the sun sets outside their window, a bimbo lounging on a fascist functionary’s desk who can be seen in the back of his spacious office, and a murder victim’s hands leaving bloody streaks on a limousine parked in a snowy forest. The Alberto Moravia book was the inspiration for Bernardo Bertolucci’s masterpiece, which features a score by the legendary Georges Delerue (CONTEMPT, JULES AND JIM, etc.), breathtaking color cinematography by Vittorio Storaro, and an authentic Art Deco aesthetic developed by production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti.
