"Adapted from the Moravia novel about the `30s, this is Bertolucci's most ambitious and complex film. Victim of an homosexual assault in his youth, Marcello develops an overpowering thirst for normality, which leads him to become a Fascist. Stefania Sandrelli plays his frivolous wife, Dominique Sanda the wife of the man he is sent to Paris to kill. Visually splendid and dramatically exciting, the film achieves an electrifying integration of psychology and politics." --N.Y. Film Festival, 1970
"Jean-Louis Trintignant has transformed his face as Marcello into a bland mask that is all but impenetrable; it is neutral.... It is that mask that he helps people to read as the face of a most gravely serious and sincere person.... Bertolucci...has fashioned an eerily beautiful and chilling work...." --Film Folio, 1981