The Spider's Stratagem

Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 masterpiece expands upon the short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Thirty years after his father, a leader in the anti-fascist movement, is assassinated, a young man returns to the provincial town where the event occurred. From the distinctively atmospheric opening to the Twilight Zone ending, the hero is enveloped in tantalizing beauty. Wherever he goes, he is met with hostility and whispers; mystery cloaks the village like a spider’s web. Bertolucci’s film is one of the most successful cinematic adaptations of a literary work in the history of film—he uses Borges’s text as a foundation and constructs upon with an additional layer of narrative and meaning. A rare opportunity to experience a 35mm copy from the Cinecitta archives.