Word: conflicted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Viet Nam and Cambodia clash in a far from fraternal border conflict...
...Penh -and by extension, to Peking. The Chinese, more restrained, declared only that they hoped the situation could be resolved by negotiation. Unhappy over their inability to contain Cambodian intransigence and intent on preserving their tenuous relationship with Hanoi, Chinese leaders evenhandedly publicized reports from both sides in the conflict...
...didn't have to be so long, or so intense. Had Bertolucci felt more kindly toward his audiences, he could have made his tale a simple epic--45 years of conflict between landlords and peasants in northern Italy, living out a history most of us already know. He could have shown us the breakdown of the traditional patronage system under the influence of industrialization, the rise of peasant leagues, the landlords' reaction and the spread of fascism without involving us so totally; or he could have shown us the characters' interaction without making such a detailed effort to place their...
...unfortunate that Bertolucci chose to portray unresolveable tension; whether or not his message is valid, it does not lend itself easily to a heavyhanded treatment. The main conflict in 1900 is the love these two men bear for each other, across ideological and social grounds; and the main question we are left with is why they bear it. De Niro and Depardieu are both fine actors, and play their roles well, so the fault lies elsewhere--probably with their director. In his effort to give 1900 an epic vastness, it seems, Bertolucci lost sight of the smaller things, the individuals...
...order, the idea that the federal government tried to do too much too quickly in the '60s and must pull back now, the white flight to suburbia, all fit together into one unhappy picture. Understanding Brooklyn, where the battleground is big, the players easy to spot and the conflict starting early, helps one to understand how the foul weed of neoconservatism flourishes in soil once overgrown with liberal begonias...