Partner

Inspired by Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Jean-Luc Godard (and beating FIGHT CLUB to the punch by 30 years), Academy Award winner Bernardo Bertolucci’s third feature is the schizophrenic parable of Jacob, a would-be revolutionary (Pierre Clmenti) whose lonely existence is shattered by the appearance of his exact double at the moment he contemplates suicide. While his doppelganger urges Jacob towards a greater commitment to protest against the Vietnam War, the young teacher falls in love with the daughter (Stefania Sandrelli academic predecessor, forging a romance that defies the revolutionary ideals of his alter-ego.

Bernardo Bertolucci was heavily influenced by psychoanalysis when he adapted Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1846 story THE DOUBLE as a reaction to the political unrest of 1968. Scripted with Gianni Amico (BEFORE THE REVOLUTION), PARTNER reflects Bertolucci’s struggle to reconcile the use of cinema as a political tool with the gloss and spectacle of Hollywood filmmaking. Alternating uninterrupted Dogme-style takes with canted angles, process shots paintings and the bracing Techniscope photography of Ugo Piccone, PARTNER was Bertolucci’s last art house film before his crossover successes with THE CONFORMIST and LAST TANGO IN PARIS established him an A-list international filmmaker.

Released by New Yorker Films in 1974 but largely ignored in the wake of Bertolucci’s subsequent achievements, PARTNER is a neglected title in the director’s long and distinguished career. NoShame Films is proud to present the film’s DVD debut as a 2-disc collector’s edition, remastered from the original source materials and loaded with exclusive supplementary materials that include Edoardo Bruno’s long lost Italian Nouvelle Vague feature film LA SUA GIORNATA DI GLORIA (His Day of Glory), unseen since its 1969 debut at the Berlin Film Festival and Italian theatrical release