Culture, Not Violence: Politics and the Pathetic in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers
Acclaimed Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci made an interesting decision in 2003, opting to look back thirty-five years to the year 1968. With The Dreamers, Bertolucci transports viewers to 1968 Paris, a city enraptured in political unrest and social change, stemming mostly from its growing population of young students. As The Guardian reported when the film was first announced—at the time referred to as Paris ‘68—Bertolucci was likely crafting a “fictionalised account of the strikes and uprisings of May 1968” (“Bertolucci Tangos with Paris ‘68”). It is perhaps even more interesting, then, that Bertolucci’s film does not revisit the very protests and riots that marked this time period in France, but instead takes us to the home of twins Theo and Isabelle, who have welcomed in American student Matthew. This home contrasts rather heavily with the politically charged streets beneath it, as the film’s trio of protagonists try to preserve its apolitical nature throughout much of the film.
These students engage in countless debates, but rarely about politics or the state of the world around them. In this way, they are not like their politically active peers. Instead, they are interested in Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, or Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Their lives are seemingly idyllic, and Bertolucci injects the film with a layer of self-reflexivity that approves of such a lifestyle. Although the characters are eventually pulled down into the streets by the end of the film, this collision of the political and the apolitical is casted as an invasion, not a liberation. The director is therefore suggesting a world in which we can truly be apolitical, where culture equates to freedom and we have no need for constant politicizing, which, in the case of the film, can be understood as engagement with a broader social activism or consciousness, something our protagonists avoid throughout The Dreamers. But in imagining a world simultaneously apolitical and liberated, Bertolucci undercuts this idea, and his film ultimately highlights the inevitability of politics in any space. In this way, despite its celebration of film and exploration of sexual freedom, The Dreamers stands out as a surprisingly conservative film, dangerously empowering the privileged to ignore the plights of those who cannot afford to do so.
Of course, Bertolucci’s depiction of 1968 Paris is not meant to be taken so literally. Nondiegetic inserts from classic films, a constantly moving camera, and a heavily Americanized soundtrack all work together to veil the film under a sort of romanticism. Bertolucci therefore disguises a rather conservative film under a veil of radical form. Bertolucci’s Paris is not Paris as it was, but rather Paris as it is imagined. More specifically, this is Paris as Bertolucci would like to remember it. This distinction is significant, but it does not excuse the film from its controversial politics. In fact, any reading of The Dreamers must account for the dangers associated with remembering. Films depicting historical eras are obviously quite common, but any such depiction must approach its subject with a level of skepticism and deeper thinking notably absent from The Dreamers. As University of New Brunswick at Saint John professor Patrick Anthony Cavaliere points out, Bertolucci’s body of work can be characterized as a “cinematic representation of the conflict between freedom and conformity.” This tension is still apparent in The Dreamers, but not how one might expect. An examination of this conflict, particularly as it relates to the events in 1968 Paris, cannot be conducted from a window looking down on the streets below, and it cannot be conducted via a manufactured memory of a Paris that never was. And so the film’s politics are not necessarily conveyed through its setting. In fact, it might be more appropriate to say they are conveyed in spite of the setting.
Even when Matthew is exploring Paris early in the film, the political riots are clearly marked as obstructions and not attractions. As Matthew moves through the city, the camera glides and follows him, highlighting the beauty and openness around him. But the camera moves in much closer as Matthew moves through the protests. His voiceover remains interested in cinema’s role in the city, and disinterested in what is actually happening around him. In a making-of documentary for The Dreamers, Bertolucci admits to experiencing “traumatic separation and split” from his politically engaged peers in cinema during the events in Paris in ’68. As previously mentioned, this separation is evident in the film, but what Bertolucci may not realize about his own text, is that he cannot build a space entirely separated from politics. While The Dreamers may not deal much with the socialist ideals being fought for on the streets, it builds its own political system, all within the confines of an apartment in Paris.
Bertolucci operates incredibly close to his characters in The Dreamers. Every cinematic convention employed in the film attempts to support and affirm the central trio. But these attempts are often undercut, which is where the politics of The Dreamers come to fruition. Matthew and the twins—and thusly Bertolucci as well—believe themselves to be participating in an idyllic relationship, free of any societal norms or power structures. This belief is most clearly seen through the presence of sex in the film. The Dreamers earns its NC-17 rating by featuring a heavy dose of full-frontal nudity. Theo and Isabelle are in a not-quite-incestuous relationship, sleeping together in the nude but never consummating the relationship. Matthew is aware of their relationship, but not its extent. In fact, he assumes they are lovers throughout much of the film, already establishing an invisible layer of politics over their interactions. No matter how close Matthew becomes to his new friends—and it is clear that this trio has formed a special connection—he remains subordinated to the twins. Even when he eventually has sex with Isabelle and discovers that he, and not Theo, has taken her virginity, he remains under their control, as Theo reveals they were once Siamese Twins, leading to a special bond that cannot be broken. As University of Stirling professor John Izod puts it, Matthew has therefore become a “go-between” for these uniquely bonded twins.
The extent of this political dynamic is reinforced at various points throughout The Dreamers, as the twins offer Matthew various tests. Tests of what? It is never quite clear, although these sequences typically include the nondiegetic inserts from films of the past. But why should Matthew’s cinematic knowledge act as his ticket into this relationship? While Bertolucci clearly includes these sequences to emphasize the liberating impact cinema has had on these young people, he fails to acknowledge how the referenced films were political in and of themselves, not just welcoming viewers into a free, escapist environment, but actually directing their attention and calling them to action. Matthew arrives in Paris viewing cinema’s capabilities as seemingly endless, but his appreciation for cinema becomes nothing more than a currency that gains him access to, at best, friendship, but perhaps even more accurately, sex.
An early scene in The Dreamers is particularly successful in demonstrating this idea. The scene opens on a closeup of Isabelle staring at Matthew as he sleeps. Her head hovers over his. We did not see her enter the room or approach Matthew’s bed, but we can still understand this as a moment of intimacy, as suggested by the close and tight framing of the shot. Still, this intimacy is paired with a bizarre gesture, as Isabelle picks at and licks around Matthew’s eyes. As Isabelle puts it, she is “removing the sleep” from Matthew’s eyes. A willingness to lick another person’s face can be read as intimate, and to an extent it certainly is, but it also surpasses the limits of what we traditionally define as intimate. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Isabelle’s gesture is intimate, although not quite affectionate. This moment makes it clear that much of what is about to unfold over the rest of the film is a product of lust, and not quite love, at least from the twins’ perspective. Moments such as this one also position the home as an apolitical space, at least in the minds of its inhabitants. With the parents gone, these three students can express themselves freely, notably separated from the riots occurring on the Parisian streets below. The home is where sibling love and face-licking are accepted, albeit falsely, as modes of free expression and not political weapons.
But when Matthew awakes, he is awkward and confused. Isabelle explains that she and Theo wake each other up every morning in this way, reinforcing the notion that they operate in a space where such a method is liberally accepted, even if it also represents a rather aggressive attempt to redefine intimacy. In not fully embracing Isabelle’s attempt to wake him, Matthew presents a threat to the supposedly apolitical nature of the home he has entered into. The framing of Isabelle hovering over Matthew in the opening of this scene, however, suggests a power dynamic as well. While her attempts at intimacy seem like an attempt to liberate herself of any politicizing force, this shot composition suggests that she is forever political, and is establishing a power dynamic simply by inviting Matthew into her environment.
As Isabelle continues her attempt to get Matthew out of bed, she begins acting out scenes from the 1933 film Queen Christina. She walks around the bedroom, exploring its various features. As Isabelle does so, Bertolucci match cuts her actions to nondiegetic inserts from the very film Isabelle is referencing. Matthew and Isabelle are obviously not aware of these cuts, but they don’t need to be. They are speaking a similar language: the language of cinema. Bertolucci includes these cuts so as to allow viewers to understand this language as well. As Matthew watches Isabelle’s reenactment, he lowers the sheets covering his naked body, and eventually participates as well, repeating a corresponding line from Queen Christina. The two then continue to reenact the scene, exchanging the appropriate dialogue. Therefore, this scene rather explicitly demonstrates the power of cinema, particularly as a political tool. While Isabelle may not be consciously exercising political power over Matthew, she still utilizes their shared passion for cinema as a means of literally ushering Matthew out of bed, and even more importantly, welcoming him into this new “apolitical” space. There is another element at play here too, however. As Isabelle capitulates dialogue from Queen Christina, actress Greta Garbo’s dialogue is bridged with Isabelle’s finishing of the line. Isabelle therefore merges with Greta Garbo briefly, which notably contrasts with the separation between the dialogue Matthew and actor John Gilbert repeat in the scene. This contrast confirms Isabelle as the wielder of cinema’s power, and Matthew as her subject. Isabelle’s relationship with Garbo is also worth considering in relation to Garbo’s own celebrity image. Garbo had developed a brand of progressiveness, particularly characterized by the ways in which her roles relied on “gender play of the mannish women feminized by love for a man” (Rédei 53). This reoccurring theme in Garbo’s work gave her a wide cultural appeal, particularly towards the LGBTQIA+ community. Isabelle is therefore able to convince herself of her own progressiveness by merging with Garbo, even if her political actions throughout the rest of the film suggest otherwise. And in merging Isabelle’s dialogue with that of the actress she is mimicking, The Dreamers becomes self-aware, acknowledging its status as cinema. The film is therefore aware of its own political power, and is effectively celebrating the role cinema can play in effecting change.
The scene’s celebration of cinema, however, is undercut by how it ends. Isabelle once again reminds Matthew to get out of bed, telling him to meet her and Theo in the bathroom as she exits the bedroom. Matthew gets out of bed and walks to his window, where he looks across to another window that peers into the bathroom. The camera merges with Matthew in this moment, as we see across the way just as he does. We look into the bathroom window, where we see Theo brushing his teeth as Isabelle enters. Both twins are wearing very little clothing, which makes our voyeurism feel rather illicit. This merging of Matthew with the viewer is effective in that we feel what Matthew feels. Although he has been invited into the bathroom, he still feels like an outsider. In this way, the film undercuts itself again. Cinema seems to have successfully comforted and welcomed Matthew, but he remains hesitant to embrace his new environment. As his/our looking into the window continues, Theo eventually turns and looks back at him/us. As Theo stares into the camera, we are implicated in Matthew’s looking, and consequentially are overcome with guilt. The camera cuts to the next scene quickly after Theo’s gaze catches our own, simulating the real-life experience of quickly looking away from someone to avoid their gaze. As an avid cinephile, Matthew enjoys his voyeuristic tendencies, but we come to understand the isolation so often associated with them. Cinema represents one of the more common forms of voyeurism, but this scene manages to simultaneously celebrate cinema and interrogate voyeurism. Cinematic knowledge has gained Matthew access to his new life, but the pleasures associated with it seem inappropriate or even threatening. In fact, Matthew’s presumed pleasure is ultimately encouraging of the exact complacency he and his new friends are so certain they are avoiding in their idyllic home. Bertolucci’s manipulation of voyeurism may seem progressive in its challenging of the male gaze, but its isolating impact on Matthew never welcomes political action of any kind. In his preface to Gilles Deleuze’s 1972 book Anti-Oedipus, Michel Foucault warns us of a certain kind of fascism, “the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.” Bertolucci may hope that Matthew’s passion for cinema and voyeurism liberates him from political strife, but as the twins wield Matthew’s passions over him, they become political weapons, dominating and exploitative just as Foucault once identified.
The twins therefore wield cinema over Matthew as a political weapon. In this way, Bertolucci renders film a controller over Matthew, not a liberator, particularly interesting when you consider Matthew’s American identity. He has come to Paris to study and surround himself with revolutionary ideals, but instead finds himself in a political system not all too different from that of whence he came.
Of course, these revolutionary ideals are still present in the home. Theo and Isabelle’s capitalist implementation is still meant to serve a progressive agenda. In fact, Izod provides us with an entirely different perspective on this power structure, one in which Matthew is instead the force acting upon the twins. For as much as Matthew ascribes to leftist and progressive politics, his Americanness—a sort of puritanical if not conservative attitude—remains evident for much of the movie. For example, Matthew is overcome with love for Isabelle when he discovers he has taken her virginity, and consequently asks her out on a date. This request represents an attempt at shattering the structure Theo and Isabelle have built. They have created a environment in which they can love—or lust—freely and without any strings attached. Matthew, accustomed to traditional, even patriarchal, notions of romance and dating, tries to tear down this environment and replace it with one in which he and Isabelle can be in love. And he is seemingly successful in this venture, as the couple enjoys a date at the Cinematheque, and finally spend a night together in Isabelle’s previously off-limits bedroom. But when Theo invites another woman into the home, locking his door and playing he and his sister’s favorite song, Isabelle “ejects Matthew like a stranger” (Izod). However close Matthew comes to transforming this political landscape, he ultimately cannot combat the twins’ relationship.
It is worth understanding both perspectives on the political dynamic of the home in The Dreamers, because in both cases we can see the significance of the twins’ relationship. If we are to view them as a political power—something I am much more comfortable with—then they are at least successful in guaranteeing Matthew’s participation in their politics. If we are to view the twins as Matthew’s subjects, they are successful in their resistance of his attempts at normalizing the household. Izod identifies the root of their success in the nature of their relationship: “horizontal relationships (of the kind nurtured between siblings when in opposing parents they develop radical new ideas co-operatively) challenge vertical relationships with authority (the child's struggle against parental power).” So, while their efforts may be serving the preservation of what they deem to be an apolitical space, the twins cannot avoid politicizing. It is a shame then that the twins limit themselves to the domestic space. After all, their very relationship is the film’s greatest political weapon, and it is easy to imagine Bertolucci putting forth this horizontal relationship as a means of effecting hope for a new generation in the 21st century. More specifically, the emphasis on the twins’ relationship could be read as a call for more of such relationships in political action, and less focus on the individual. All too often we are clamoring for a sort of lionized hero to correct our societal issues, and much of our media, abiding by the prototypical hero’s journey, reinforces this notion. But horizontal relationships “can lead to a politics in which the partners educate each other and a beneficial fluidity of policy-making results” (Izod). This attribute of horizontal relationships is made clear when Isabelle decides to test her own brother’s cinematic knowledge. She forces Theo to guess what movie she is reenacting, and demands that Matthew does not help him guess at all. When Theo is unable to guess, Isabelle asks that he masturbate in front of a picture of a woman on his wall, just as she saw him do a few nights ago. Theo’s willingness to comply reminds us that Isabelle and Theo are a duo, making this moment more of a game and less of a trial. The twins are further luring Matthew into their erotic world, as he can’t help but watch the bizarre spectacle in front of him. Even a moment that could have fractured this horizontal relationship manages to successfully manipulate Matthew.
If The Dreamers indeed fails in its celebration of cinema, does it at least succeed in its celebration of horizontal relationships? Unfortunately, Bertolucci’s depiction of a romanticized history undercuts his promotion of this unique political tool. We come to understand the excessive, imagined nature of Bertolucci’s Paris through our own voyeuristic tendencies, sometimes merged with Matthew as in the earlier example, but at times unique to our own role as viewer. There are several points throughout the film where our perspective on the protagonists is multiplied by mirrors within the shot composition. By providing us with various views within a single scene, Bertolucci is offering us an excess of voyeurism. Not only are we peering into the lives of the three students, but we are simultaneously seeing them in different ways. One scene depicts the trio taking a bath together, but three mirrors beside the bathtub separate the trio, placing each of them into their mirror. A shot of the trio simply taking a bath together may suggest a full coming-together for them, but the mirrors contradict this idea and suggest there will always be a power dynamic at play. The shot composition also fetishizes each of their nude bodies, teasing the viewer by bringing the characters’ bodies in and out of view via the angles of the respective mirrors. This fetishization maps desire onto the viewer, made especially explicit in those moments where we share Matthew’s perspective. It is a desire not just for the erotic image, but also for the nostalgia of a romanticized Paris. As identified by University of Amsterdam professor Niels Niessen, our voyeurism in the film is more than just “passive watching and that is perhaps best illustrated by Matthew when he hides a picture of Isabelle in his boxer shorts.” Our desire, coupled with our voyeurism, is less about looking and more about obtaining, as evidenced by Matthew’s gesture in the aforementioned scene. In this way, the viewer is inserted into the politics of the film. But determining where the viewer sits in the power structure of the film reveals that all of us, including the protagonists, sit at the bottom of a power structure that includes the film itself at the very top. Niessen refers to this trait in The Dreamers as “cinematic narcissism.” That is, the film believes itself to be above both its characters and its audience. Our desires are not all too different from those of the protagonists, who all, in one way or another, hope for a better world. But in trying to empower this hope, Bertolucci ultimately looks down on it and suggests its futility.
This dynamic is best demonstrated in the previously mentioned scene where Isabelle encourages Theo to guess which movie she is reenacting. When Isabelle calls Theo “pathetic,” the camera cuts to Theo’s perspective. Isabelle calls him that one more time, and points her prop at the camera. She is now addressing the viewer directly, ridiculing him or her in the process. We are pathetic for partaking in the politics of this environment, but Isabelle is pathetic for believing her environment to be apolitical, or different from anywhere else. Our “patheticness” is reinforced in the following scene, as the camera opens on a trio of college students at a café. Naturally, we assume we are watching the protagonists of the film, but these students are just extras. The camera then cuts to where we need to be. Niessen identifies this moment as “emphasis of the fact that the characters we are supposed to fall in love with are mere fantasies.” Even as we may begin to believe in the power of the horizontal relationship effecting change in both Matthew and the viewer, the film asserts its dominance over everybody involved, and renders any search for progressive politics meaningless as a result.
Irish filmmaker Maximilian Le Cain offers a differing perspective on Bertolucci’s treatment of the body, viewing it never as fetishization but always as “part of his vision of a looped moment of Utopian possibility.” This reading makes sense in conjunction with Bertolucci’s creation of a 1968 Paris remembered, but breaks down once one considers who exactly this Utopia is for. The Dreamers may set out to craft a Utopia free of strife and politicizing, but its own dominance and narcissism leaves most of us on the bottom. Bertolucci has created a world that feigns equality, but ultimately establishes him as a singular power. Worse, the end of the film further fractures any political hope the film could have built over its 109-minute runtime. Theo—the most political of the bunch throughout the film—is also a pacifist. But when a brick comes flying through their apartment window and the students are lured into the riots on the streets below, Theo loses his pacifist mindset entirely. He picks up a Molotov cocktail and runs towards the police, throwing the weapon in what is essentially a suicide mission. Matthew tries to stop him, explaining that violence is not the answer—a confusing assertion as Matthew has spent much of the film defending American intervention in Vietnam—but Matthew’s attempts are futile. He stands back as rioters push past him. Isabelle, being pulled ahead by Theo, is torn between her two friends but is more importantly stripped of any agency in this moment. Her political environment up above convinced her that she had a great deal of power and control. Here, where real change is allegedly supposed to be happening, Isabelle is powerless. Without cinema or her body, Isabelle has no weapons at her disposal. But if these weapons were all Isabelle was ever afforded in the film, therein lies an issue with the treatment of her character. Bertolucci’s narcissistic creation almost succeeds in at least avoiding mistreatment of its female lead, but ultimately falls into a familiar trap. While Isabelle seems to have gained agency via her sexuality and her body throughout the film, this ending forces one to consider Bertolucci’s previous depictions of women, such as 1972’s Last Tango in Paris in which actress Maria Schneider was anally raped by Marlon Brando in an unannounced scene so as to get “her reaction as a girl, not as an actress” (Beattie). Bertolucci’s personal politics, and perhaps his Utopia, do not fully account for the female experience, and that is felt clearly by the end of The Dreamers.
And for as much as Bertolucci tries to inject The Dreamers with optimism, it is ultimately unsurprising that the film suggests little capacity for change. A poem written by Bertolucci in 1958, entitled A Pasolini, includes the following line: “Those youths whose sharp sensual disposition / only seemed salvation” (Halberstadt, Ilona, Bertolucci). Bertolucci’s own experiences in his youth led to his own political beliefs, particularly a strong opposition to fascism. As I pointed out early on in this paper, Bertolucci felt a disconnect to the revolutions of ’68, as he had already experienced his own political transformation years prior. But this 1958 poem suggests a sort of frustration with the fight for change. Young people all over the world may believe in their respective causes and fight for them nobly, but Bertolucci suggests such efforts are illusory. With The Dreamers, he has crafted a film separated from revolution, and stamped with the mark of a dictator more so than an author. Izod points out that horizontal relationships often fail “in political terms because siblings grow up and become their parents, losing their radical edge.” It seems Bertolucci has suffered this same fate, and so any attempts to render a viewing of The Dreamers as hopeful can only come out as hopeless. Worse, Bertolucci seems to have fallen victim to the very “thing” that Foucault warns us against.
2003 saw the irresponsible decision of the United States to intervene in Iraq, and so a reflection upon 1968 was certainly appropriate for Bertolucci. But the film can only recall ’68 in its nostalgic, romanticized fashion—a particular issue considering most references were likely lost upon young audiences in 2003—and so it ultimately deceives and limits both its viewers and its characters, dangerously suggesting progress is even further from our grasp than it may truly be. The film’s conservatism may be read according to Le Cain’s notion of a “looped vision of Utopian possibility” but even that actively lowers the consciousness of an audience, permitting them to ignore the plights of the underprivileged and remain content in what remains nothing more than a fantasy. Therefore, The Dreamers empowers ignorance, and diminishes the constant push for a better world.
Beattie, Debra. "The Potential for Excess in the Toxic Nature of Gendered Power in the Production of Cinema." Hecate, vol. 42, no. 2, 2016, pp. 128-139,161. ProQuest.
Bertolucci, Bernardo, director. The Dreamers. 2003.
“Bertolucci Tangos with Paris '68.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 Feb. 2002, www.theguardian.com/film/2002/feb/06/news1.
Cavaliere, Patrick Anthony. Contemporary Italian Cinema and Fascism: Memory, History, and Politics in the Films of Bernardo Bertolucci. Post-Scriptum. 2004.
Halberstadt, Ilona, and Bernardo Bertolucci. “A Pasolini.” Pix 2, British Film Institute, 1997.
Hargreaves, Scott. “The Long March since Paris 1968.” Institute of Public Affairs Review, vol. 70, no. 1, May 2018, pp. 34–37. EBSCOhost.
Izod, John. Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003): Politics of Youth Remembered. Kinema.
Le Cain, Maximilian. Before the Revolution: Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. Senses of Cinema, vol. 32, July 2004.
Niessen, Niels. “Cinematic Narcissism: Bertolucci’s The Dreamers and Post-Neorealist Love.” Studies in European Cinema, vol. 9, no. 2/3, Sept. 2012, pp. 143–153.
Rédei, Anna. (2006). Rhetoric in film: a cultural semiotical study of Greta Garbo in Ninotchka. Film International. 4. 52-61.
Serra, Silvana. Emotion and Cognition in the Films of Bernardo Bertolucci. Troubador Publishing, 2013.
Thompson, David (director/ producer). “Cinema, Sex, Politics: Bertolucci Makes The Dreamers.” BBC 4. 8 February 2004.