The line of Bernardo Bertolucci's career is beginning to look as wretched as Robert Altman's. Bertolucci, too, began with something more than promise (Before the Revolution, even Partner). Very soon he began to swamp that promise with self-intoxicating dexterity and egocentric artiness, which is the only kind of artiness actually (The Spider's Strategy and The Conformist). Then, like Altman, he peaked with a film that was more bulk than weight. (Last Tango in Paris can now be seen as Bertolucci's Nashville.) Not surprisingly, the same critical pumping stations that later inflated Altman also blew Bertolucci. Then, inevitably, came the shrinking into mannerism and derivation (1900), while the laurelers were left holding their oversize laurels. Now comes Luna, a picture so ludicrously bad that one is almost tempted to pity Bertolucci. But no, he is a monstrous and disgusting artist, not a failed authentic one, and for the sake of...