Word: contentedly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...shown for the first time commercially in the United States now, is a derivative, incoherent, flamboyant yet unemotional film that would deserve little mention were it not made by the same man who made Last Tango in Parish and a possibly greater film, The Conformist (1970). Its pseudo-political content, called "Marxist" by Bertolucci, is puerile at best. And there is no way to classify Partner with some sweeping phrase: even the most taxonomic of critics would have to allot a special hole for this quirky film. Partner is interesting only because it accents Bertolucci's weaknesses...
VISUALLY, TOO, PARTNER points up Bertolucci's greatest short-coming. Aside from occasional verbal slips, he is most pretentious when his fluid camerawork begins to dominate the content of the film. Superfluous dolly shots, over-emphasis on color, and attempts at unusual angles begin at times to take over his films. Spider's Stratagem is probably the worst offender in this area, since Borges' story needed no extra emphasis at all. But there Bertolucci was merely trying too hard to make his points. In Partner he molds the film to suit his visual whim. A revolving chandelier is the most...
...works are played more often than they deserve. Western critics might denounce him too, if anyone cared. The diatribe in Jenmin Jih Pao specifically cited Respighi's symphonic poem, Pines of Rome for stimulating "empty talk about changes in contrasts and emotions" which tries to "gloss over the class content.... so as to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses and deceive them...
...universities. Test scores of minority applicants from ghetto schools and of lower socio-economic background, cannot be expected to come out as high as those of students from suburban schools and environments which stress educational achievement, especially when the tests continue to have a strong middle-class bias in content and value...
...narration. The camera work and editing have occasional rough edges. But nothing detracts from the clarity or importance of the film's story. In a way, the film's roughness even enhances its politics; it seems unafraid to show itself as the product of labor, of a commitment to content over gloss...