It features technical breakdowns of color schemes, camera movement, lensing, and editing, plus extended interview clips with Bertolucci on production history, Alberto Moravia’s source novel, casting decisions, and script origins. The content centers on cinematic artistry, historical context of 1960s-1970s Italian filmmaking, and formal analysis using graphs and film clips—entirely traditional film criticism without contemporary framing. The documentary limits its cast to Aprà and Bertolucci, using a format that prioritizes auteur discussion and formal technique over any social messaging.

No modern identity politics, DEI casting, or activist themes appear at any point, keeping the analysis strictly within the bounds of 1970s production details and visual style. This approach delivers a focused historical and technical study that avoids injecting later ideological lenses into the material.