The Passion of Pierre Clémenti: European cinema's christ-devil child 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

"Back then, politics was personal and collective at the same time. I was a little old -- I was 27 in 1968 -- but I was still infected. My lead actor, Pierre Clémenti, went to Paris every weekend. He came back with these wonderful slogans: 'It's forbidden to forbid.' And 'Be Realistic, Ask for the Impossible.'"³

In Partner, Clémenti plays two lead characters: a drama teacher, Giacobbe, and his doppelganger or alter-ego - "You and I are on different paths." He brings the double home with him, and through him finally begins to grow stronger in his commitment to acts of anarchy, acts which the double performs for him. In one scene there is a sartorial allusion to his character in Belle de jour. Petrushka (Sergio Tofano), his landlord, helps him prepare to elope with Stefania Sandrelli, and criticises his socks: "how can you elope in socks with holes in them?" Giacobbe uses the double to perform anarchic shows with his drama students, and shows them how to manufacture a Molotov cocktail. The double continues unnoticed until both of them confront Tina Aumont, a soap-salesgirl who is emotionally lost and self-confrontational at the same time, and who engages in a hyperpop scene with Clémenti, dancing around in a bath of soap suds flowing from an open washing machine. Aumont (the daughter of screen legends Maria Montez and Jean-Pierre Aumont) and Clémenti were close friends offscreen too, and they lived close to one other in Rome. At the time, although still married to actor Christian Marquand, she was living with the painter Frédéric Pardo, a lifelong close friend of Philippe Garrel. It was at Pardo and Aumont's house that Garrel's longterm relationship with singer/actress Christa Paffgen, aka Nico, began.

In one scene in Partner, there is a panoramic shot of Rome, and in which Clémenti preaches May '68 slogans to students played by members of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, before repeating "A man of theatre's only duty is to make theatre" as the students disperse through Rome's ancient ruined columns. This scene is the most public expression of Giacobbe's political discontent. The students from the Centro Sperimentale had already committed to political theatre a year earlier, and because of this commitment Bertolucci used them not only in their capacity as actors, but also his assistant director, set designer and script supervisor all came from their group. La sua giornata di gloria (Bruno, 1968) was also shot in Rome that year. Director Edouardo Bruno was being influenced by many of the same cultural currents as Bertolucci, though he was also strongly influenced by Guy Debord and the Situationiste Internationale.

"In order to do this film we had to possess at least some of the elements needed for an eventual distribution. In our militant fervour we thought about Pierre Clémenti, who we admired and esteemed. Bertolucci guaranteed his presence. He came to Rome, but was really in the midst of that phase...Well, being a drug addict he actually spent more time in hospital than on the set. Bernardo had already gone crazy trying to manage him, though in the end he completed his film. I made him come over to Rome, but you see, whenever we had to get him for a shoot, we were told he wasn't available. 'He was taken into hospital, he felt sick yesterday . . .' This ordeal continued for days, until, out of desperation, I turned to Bernardo and asked 'What can I possibly do?' He said 'Look, I've got some raw, unedited footage.' . . . By sheer chance, those sequences featured not only Clémenti, but also the same kids I employed in my film. So I gave it a try. I spent an entire day going through these rushes. I found a sufficient amount of footage, so I covered the segment I desired and most of all had to do because of the contract I signed with Cormons Film! So we declared on the opening credits that some of the footage was taken from a film made in 1968. Bernardo didn't want to be mentioned on the credits."⁴

The film was taken to the Berlin Film Festival where it made its debut in competition.

Next page: "Pierre is beauty in its purest state"