Recensioni de* critic*

It is a mark of Bertolucci’s rapid rise that the movie, made when he was only 35, could feel like a kind of summation, a sprawling work unpacking the full measure of his talent, boasting lyric moments in an enchanted wood that recall Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood canvases, fired throughout by a sense of political desperation that suggests he might have been the only filmmaker who could properly tackle Zola’s Germinal.

One of the most exuberantly “go for broke” pictures in all of cinema, and it was dependent on the lusciousness of Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography and on the boldness of a young Robert De Niro, who agreed to do a very graphic three-way sex scene.

I've seen many people enraptured by the first four hours bail during this final act . . . These sequences are indeed tough to watch . . . But here's the thing: Nothing like this actually happened . . . Bertolucci has acknowledged that he's indulging in a bit of historical fantasy here. More than that, he is putting _himself_ on trial, exploding his elegant historical epic to do so. It is to this day one of the most impressive and beautiful acts of cinematic self-annihilation I've ever seen.