Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo) An underrated film in the director's back catalogue, Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man is an intriguing, sardonic family drama inspired by Italy's Years of Lead (Anni di piombo), during which the Red Brigades terrorised the country with a ruthless militancy.
Ugo Tognazzi is Primo Spaggieri, a former partisan who has become an industrialist - a cheesemaker in the director's beloved Parma - and therefore a representative of the ruling power elite. His son becomes the target of a politically motivated kidnapping but Bertolucci reverses the standard-issue Oedipal drama that often afflicts his characters by implicating Primo in the fate of his heir.
Bertolucci cast Anouk Aimee - the French actress he had carried a torch for since first spying her in Fellini's La dolce vita (1960) - as Primo's elegant, emotionally opaque wife, Barbara.
Tognazzi, a respected character actor who wasn't above mocking his overt masculinity in roles such as the uber-virile (and hirsute!) Mark Hand in Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968), received the Best Actor prize at Cannes for his performance in Bertolucci's film.
