The Conformist (film)

The Conformist
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bernardo Bertolucci
Produced by	Giovanni Bertolucci Maurizio Lodi-Fe
Screenplay by	Bernardo Bertolucci
Story by	Alberto Moravia
Starring	Jean-Louis Trintignant Stefania Sandrelli Dominique Sanda Enzo Tarascio Gastone Moschin
Music by	Georges Delerue
Cinematography	Vittorio Storaro
Editing by	Franco Arcalli
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	October 22, 1970 (1970-10-22) (US and Italy)
Running time	107 minutes (Edited) 111 minutes (Director's Cut)
Country	Italy France West Germany
Language	Italian

The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The screenplay was written by Bertolucci based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia. The film features Jean-Louis Trintignant and Stefania Sandrelli, among others. The film was a co-production of Italian, French, and West German film companies.

Bertolucci makes use of the 1930s art and decor associated with the Fascist mentality and era: the middle-class drawing rooms and the huge halls of the ruling elite.^[1]

Plot

The film opens with Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) in Paris finalizing preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). It frequently returns to the interior of a car driven by Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) as the two of them pursue the professor and his wife.

Through a series of flashbacks, we see him discussing with Italo, a blind friend, his plans to marry, his somewhat awkward attempts to join the Fascist secret police, and his visits to his morphine-addicted mother at the family's decaying villa and his unhinged father at an insane asylum.

In one of these flashbacks we see him as a boy during World War I, who finds himself isolated from society by his family's wealth. He is socially humiliated by his schoolmates until he is rescued by chauffeur Lino (Pierre Clémenti). Lino offers to show him a pistol and then makes sexual advances towards Marcello, which he partially responds to before grabbing the pistol and shooting wildly into the walls and apparently killing Lino.

In another flashback Marcello and his fiancee Giulia discuss the necessity of his going to confession in order for her parents to allow them to marry, even though he is an atheist. He agrees, and in confession admits to the priest to having committed many sins, including his homosexual experience with Lino, the consequent murder, premarital sex, and his absence of guilt for these sins. Marcello admits he thinks little of his new wife but craves the normality that a traditional marriage with children will bring. The priest is shocked — apparently more by Marcello's homosexuality than the murder — but quickly absolves Marcello once he hears that he is currently working for the Fascist secret police.

Now married, Marcello finds himself ordered to assassinate his old friend and teacher, Professor Quadri, an outspoken anti-Fascist intellectual now living in exile in France. Using his marriage as a convenient cover he takes Giulia on their honeymoon to Paris where he can carry out the mission.

While visiting Quadri he falls in love with Anna - the professor's young wife - and actively pursues her. Although it becomes clear that she and her husband are aware of Marcello's Fascist sympathies and the danger he presents to them she seems to accept his advances, as well as forming a close attachment to Giulia who she appears to make sexual advances toward as well, possibly for Marcello's benefit. Giulia and Anna dress extravagantly and go to a dance hall with their husbands where Marcello's commitment to the Fascists is tested by Quadri. Manganiello is also at the dance hall, having been pursuing Marcello for some time and is doubtful of his intentions. Marcello returns the gun that he has been given and secretly gives Maganiello the location of Quadri's country house where the couple plan to go the following day.

Even though Marcello has warned Anna not to go to the country with her husband and has apparently persuaded her that she should leave her husband and stay with him she does make the car journey. On a deserted woodland road Fascist agents conspire to stop Quadri's car with a false accident. When he attempts to help a stricken driver he is attacked and stabbed to death by several men who appear from the woods. Anna sees her husband murdered and realising the danger to herself runs to Marcello's car for help. When Anna sees that the passenger in the rear of the car is Marcello, she begins to scream uncontrollably, then runs off into the woods. Marcello merely watches without emotion as she is pursued through the woods and finally shot to death.

The ending of the film takes place in 1943 during the fall of Benito Mussolini and the fascist dictatorship, Marcello now has a small child and is apparently settled in a conventional lifestyle. He is called by Italo, his blind friend and former Fascist, and asked to meet on the streets. While walking with Italo, they overhear a conversation between two men and Marcello recognizes one of them as Lino, who attempted to seduce him when he was a boy. Marcello publicly denounces Lino as a homosexual, Fascist, and for participating in the murder of Professor Quadri and his wife. While in this frenzy he also denounces his friend Italo. As a crowd sweeps past taking Italo with them Marcello is left alone, unaccepted by the people of the new partisan political movement, and having spurned his former friend. He sits near a small fire and looks intently behind him at the man Lino was previously talking to.

Cast

• Jean-Louis Trintignant as Marcello Clerici
• Stefania Sandrelli as Giulia
• Gastone Moschin as Manganiello
• Enzo Tarascio as Professor Quadri
• Fosco Giachetti as Il colonnello
• José Quaglio as Italo
• Dominique Sanda as Anna Quadri
• Pierre Clémenti as Lino
• Yvonne Sanson as Madre di Giulia
• Giuseppe Addobbati as Padre di Marcello
• Christian Aligny as Raoul
• Carlo Gaddi as Hired Killer
• Umberto Silvestri as Hired Killer
• Furio Pellerani as Hired Killer

Themes

The film is a case study in the psychology of fascism: Marcello Clerici is a bureaucrat dehumanised by a dysfunctional middle class family and a childhood sexual trauma. He accepts an assignment from Benito Mussolini's secret police to assassinate his former mentor, living in exile in Paris. In Trintignant's characterization, Clerici is willing to sacrifice his values in the interests of building a so-called "normal life."^[2]

According to the political philosopher Takis Fotopoulos "The Conformist" (as well as "Rhinoceros" by Ionesco) is "a beautiful portrait of this psychological need to conform and be 'normal' at the social level, in general, and the political level, in particular."^[3]

Production

The filming locations included Gare d'Orsay and Paris, France; Sant' Angelo Bridge and the Colosseum, both in Rome.^[4]

According to the documentary Visions of Light the film is widely praised as a visual masterpiece. It was photographed by Vittorio Storaro, who used rich colors, authentic wardrobe of the 1930s, and a series of unusual camera angles and fluid camera movement. Film critic and author Robin Buss writes that the cinematography suggests Clerici's inability to conform with "normal" reality: the reality of the time is "abnormal."^[5] Also, Bertolucci's cinematic style synthesizes expressionism and "fascist" film aesthetics. Its style has been compared with classic German films of the 1920s and 1930s, such as in Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Fritz Lang's Metropolis.^[6]

The drama was influential to other filmmakers: the image of blowing leaves in The Conformist, for example, influenced a very similar scene in The Godfather, Part II (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola.^[7]

Distribution

The film premiered at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival in June 1970. It opened on a wide release in Italy and the United States on October 22, 1970. The first American release of the film was trimmed by five minutes compared to the Italian release; the missing scene features a group of blind people having a dance. They were restored in the 1996 reissue.^[8]

The film was released in the United States on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on December 5, 2006. The DVD includes: the original theatrical version (runtime 111 minutes); The Rise of The Conformist: The Story, the Cast featurette; Shadow and Light: Filming The Conformist featurette; The Conformist: Breaking New Ground featurette.

Critical response

Vincent Canby, film critic for The New York Times, liked Bertolucci's screenplay and his directorial effort, and wrote, "Bernardo Bertolucci...has at last made a very middle-class, almost conventional movie that turns out to be one of the elegant surprises of the current New York Film Festival...It is also apparent in Bertolucci's cinematic style, which is so rich, poetic, and baroque that it is simply incapable of meaning only what it says...The movie is perfectly cast, from Trintignant and on down, including Pierre Clementi, who appears briefly as the wicked young man who makes a play for the young Marcello. The Conformist is flawed, perhaps, but those very flaws may make it Bertolucci's first commercially popular film, at least in Europe where there always seems to be a market for intelligent, upper middle-class decadence."^[9]

Recently, critic James Berardinelli wrote a review and heralded the film's look. He wrote, "Storaro and Bertolucci have fashioned a visual masterpiece in The Conformist, with some of the best use of light and shadow ever in a motion picture. This isn't just photography, it's art — powerful, beautiful, and effective. There's a scene in the woods, with sunlight streaming between trees, that's breathtaking to behold — and all the more stunning because of the brutal events that take place before this background."^[10]

More recently, Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times staff writer, said, "In this dazzling film, Bertolucci manages to combine the bravura style of Fellini, the acute sense of period of Visconti and the fervent political commitment of Elio Petri — and, better still, a lack of self-indulgence...The Conformist," which memorably costars Dominique Sanda as a sexually ambiguous beauty, is not merely an indictment of fascism — with some swipes at ecclesiastical hypocrisy as well — but also a profound personal tragedy.^[11]

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100 percent of critics gave the film a positive review, based on thirty-nine reviews.^[12]

Ranked #85 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.^[13]

Awards

Wins

• Berlin Film Festival: Interfilm Award - Recommendation and Journalists' Special Award, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1970.
• David di Donatello Awards: David; Best Film, Maurizio Lodi-Fe; 1971.
• National Society of Film Critics Awards: NSFC Award; Best Cinematography, Vittorio Storaro; Best Director, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1972.
• Satellite Awards: Satellite Award: Best Classic DVD; 2006.

Nominations

• Berlin Film Festival: Golden Berlin Bear, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1970.
• Academy Awards: Oscar; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1972.
• Golden Globes: Golden Globe; Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film Italy; 1972.

References

1. ^ Buss, Robin. Italian Films, Il conformista, page 120. London: Anchor Press Ltd. ISBN 071345900 X.
2. ^ Scott. A.O. The New York Times, film review, Arts Section, July 31 - Aug. 6, 2005.
3. ^ Takis Fotopoulos, "Recent Theoretical Developments on the Inclusive Democracy Project, B. The Inclusive Democracy Approach on Globalisation and the Multi-Dimensional Crisis, 4. Cultural globalisation" in Global Capitalism and the Demise Of The Left: Renewing Radicalism Through Inclusive Democracy, edited by Steven Best (The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, Vol. 5, No. 1, special issue winter 2009), 472 pages, ISSN 1753-240X pdf
4. ^ The Conformist at the Internet Movie Database.
5. ^ Buss, Robin. Ibid.
6. ^ Klein, Jessi. Vassar College Department of Italian, 1996.
7. ^ Visions of Light at the Internet Movie Database. Additionally, the scene in which Dominique Sanda is chased through the snowy woods after her husband has been stabbed, is echoed with mood, lighting and setting in an episode of The Sopranos third season: "Pine Barrens" directed by Steve Buscemi.
8. ^ Erickson, Hal. Allmovie website.
9. ^ Canby, Vincent. The New York Times, film review, September 19, 1970. Last accessed: December 22, 2007.
10. ^ Berardinelli, James. Reel Views, film review, 1994.
11. ^ Thomas, Kevin. The Losgeles Times, "Calendar Section," November 25, 2005. Last accessed: November 29, 2009.
12. ^ The Conformist at Rotten Tomatoes. Last accessed: March 8, 2010.
13. ^ "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema". Empire. http://www.empireonline.com/features/100-greatest-world-cinema-films/default.asp?film=85. 

External links

• The Conformist at the Internet Movie Database
• The Conformist (1960) at DBCult Film Institute
• The Conformist at RAI International
• The Conformist film clip at You Tube (scene discussed in documentary Visions of Light)