Beyond [their] basic theme, the obvious similarities [between Bertolucci's Before the Revolution and The Charterhouse of Parma,] Stendhal's rich and sprawling novel of courtly intrigue, are few. Only the names of the principal characters, the Parmesan locale, and a shadowy outline of the novel's plot remain, primarily in the love of Gina for her young nephew Fabrizio. Yet, it is Bertolucci's willingness to depart from the most familiar elements of this classic novel—the famous Battle of Waterloo, the melodramatic courtly intrigues, the imprisonment in the tower, and even its Nineteenth Century setting—that allows his film to come so close to its literary source. This particular fidelity does not involve the attempt to be Stendhal's novel, but rather, to establish a contemporary and parallel relation to its basic theme. Thus, Bertolucci does not try to render all the novel's twists and turns of plot and subplot, but...