In 1967 Bertolucci took part in the collective film Vangelo ’70 with the episode Agonia, distributed in 1969 with the new title of Amore e rabbia. The director was inspired by an evangelical parable and relied on a famous theatre guru, the charismatic and magnetic Julian Beck. Showing that he appreciated the work system and technical solutions of the Living Theatre, Bertolucci clearly chose sides and recalls: «I stayed shut up with them and my crew for twelve days in a studio in Cinecittà. (...) They were happy to see themselves in 35 mm, in scope and in colour, well in focus and without constant shaking. They were used to underground filmmakers who deluded themselves into mimicking the movements of the actors of the Living Theatre by moving the camera with which they filmed them». Some young people in multicoloured clothes ask an old man, dying in his bed, what good he has done in life and if he can somehow justify his existence. The anguishing interrogation ends with the protagonist’s death: some religious men come forward and dress him in sacred vestments, revealing that the deceased was a prince of the Church. The encounter with the Living, an extraordinary ensemble of interpreters-mimes-dancers – disciplined and athletic like a paramilitary formation, with an unshakable and serene anti-bourgeois faith – fascinates the director and recharges him with enthusiasm. The episode, critical and provocative, substantially “alternative”, is in line with the common project of Love and Anger but Bertolucci reveals, more than others, a clear stylistic awareness and a precise narrative economy. Giulio Cesare Castello, Milena Vukotic and Adriano Aprà also belong to the curious “family” that makes Agonia. If we take into account that this experimental short film, where cinema and theatre verify their different methods, is inserted between episodes signed by Pasolini, Godard, Lizzani and Bellocchio-Tattoli, we see that the family expands to include a defined artistic and cultural milieu, where the three "terrible boys" of the Sixties stand out: precisely Pasolini, Godard and Bellocchio.
