8.2 /10 1 Votes
100% Rotten Tomatoes Produced by Giovanni Bertolucci Initial release 25 October 1970 (Italy) Music director Giuseppe Verdi | 7.1/10 IMDb 3/4 Roger Ebert Edited by Roberto Perpignani Director Bernardo Bertolucci | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Written by Bernardo Bertolucci
Marilù Parolini
Edoardo De Gregorio
Story:
Jorge Luis Borges Starring Giulio Brogi
Alida Valli Music by Giuseppe Verdi from Aida and Rigoletto Release date August 1970, Italy
5 January 1973 (USA) Cinematography Vittorio Storaro, Franco Di Giacomo Screenplay Bernardo Bertolucci, Eduardo de Gregorio, Marilù Parolini Cast Alida Valli, Giulio Brogi, Pippo Campanini, Tino Scotti, Allen Midgette Similar Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, Movies about fascism, Movies about heroism | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bernardo bertolucci s the spider s stratagem 1970
The Spider's Stratagem (Italian: Strategia del ragno) (1970) is a political film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.
Contents
- Bernardo bertolucci s the spider s stratagem 1970
- Fade out fade in in bertolucci s the spider s stratagem 1970
- Plot
- Cast
- References
The screenplay was written by Bertolucci based on "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" story written by Jorge Luis Borges.
Fade out fade in in bertolucci s the spider s stratagem 1970
Plot
Athos Magnani arrives by train in the (fictional) town of Tara, where his father was killed before his birth, at the request of his father's mistress, Draifa. The father, also named Athos Magnani, remembered as a resistance hero and looking exactly like the son, was killed by unknown fascists in 1936—or so says Draifa, the statue in the square, and everyone in the town.
His enquiries meet with evasion or hostility. Eventually three old acquaintances of his father tell him his father planned to blow up Mussolini in the town theatre during a performance of Rigoletto. Instead of the dictator, the assassin died after being betrayed to the police. Young Athos does not believe this tale either.
Unsure whether to stay in this claustrophobic town where the truth is never told, he hears the sound of Rigoletto coming from the theatre. Entering, he is told that his father failed to go through with the bombing out of fear and himself tipped off the police. For this his associates killed him, with his agreement, and ascribed the death to unknown fascists. A few days earlier a fortune teller had predicted his death, as with Macbeth, and on his corpse was an unread letter warning him not to go ahead, as in the case of Julius Caesar.
At a ceremony in front of his father's statue, Athos starts to tell this story but stops. Though it was through cowardice and betrayal that his father had made himself into a hero, the town needs its myth. Resolving to leave, at the railway station he hears announcements that trains are increasingly late and, looking at the tracks, he sees they are rusted and overgrown. He too is caught in the web.
Cast
