[The] elaborate, oblique style of The Spider's Stratagem works better in its parts than as a whole (which is usually true of Bertolucci's films). Like Pasolini's Teorema, which also in its final images goes beyond naturalism into surrealism, its strength lies in its use of metaphoric images rather than in its dramatic power or suspense. (p. 14)

For Bertolucci, the romantic "hero" is more absorbed in giving the appearance of being one than in taking effective action. In a key image of the film, a flashback, the elder Magnani, after having been revealed as an informer, takes his fellow conspirators up to a high place—like Satan tempting Christ—and with his arms outstretched and silhouetted against the sky like a spider's, tells them of his plan to pay with his life for having betrayed them; they will assassinate him at the very performance of Rigoletto to which Mussolini...