In the late seventies Italy was being torn apart from within, racked by a succession of politically motivated kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations; from this tumultuous environment arose Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man, Bertolucci's cerebral, questioning portrait of terrorism, economics, and the divide between generations. Loafing around his industrial estate with a little sea captain's hat, the cheese tycoon Primo Spaggiari witnesses his adult son being kidnapped by anticapitalist radicals. Demands for ransom and threats of murder follow, but after a while Primo's concern seem to switch from his son's survival to his own, and especially to that of his business. As wary of the state as he is of terrorists, uncertain whether the young should be befriended, protected, or imprisoned, the ever-vain Primo reflects, for Bertolucci, “the ambiguousness I feel to be typical of Italian society. There are no certainties left. No one knows any longer what the truth is.” Bathed in paranoia and suspicion, Tragedy is an engrossing time capsule of Italy during the Red Brigade era.