The Conformist (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the novel see The Conformist.
| The Conformist | |
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 Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| Produced by | Giovanni Bertolucci Maurizio Lodi-Fe |
| Written by | Bernardo Bertolucci Story: Alberto Moravia |
| Starring | Jean-Louis Trintignant Stefania Sandrelli |
| Music by | Georges Delerue |
| Cinematography | Vittorio Storaro |
| Editing by | Franco Arcalli |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 22, 1970 (USA and Italy) |
| Running time | 107 minutes (Edited) 111 minutes (Director's Cut) |
| Country | Italy France West Germany |
| Language | Italian |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) (1970) is a political film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The screenplay was written by Bertolucci based on the novel The Conformist (1951) by Alberto Moravia. The film features Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, among others.[1]
The picture was a co-production of Italian, French, and West German film companies.
The drama serves as an analysis of the Fascist mentality which explores a sexual motivation. Marcello Clerici is an Italian coward who spends his life accommodating others and joins the Italian Fascist party as a way of disappearing into the crowd so that he can "belong." 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.[2]
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[edit] Plot
The movie opens with Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) in Paris finalizing preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio).
Through a series of flashbacks we see him discussing his plans to marry with a blind friend, his somewhat awkward attempts to join the secret police, his visit to his morphine-addicted mother at the family's decaying villa and to 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 has it better than the other children because he is regularly chauffeured to school. Still, he is sexually 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 before apparently killing Lino.
Another features a heated discussion over whether it is necessary to go to confession in order to get married. He reluctantly agrees, and it is there that he admits to having committed many sins, including the single homosexual experience with Lino, killing him, premarital sex and not having confessed for 15 years or so. The priest is shocked - apparently more by the homosexuality than the murder but reminds Marcello that everything is alright so long as he goes to confession.
As a man in fascist Italy, Marcello finds himself a cog in a great machine that keeps Italy going. Although he has gotten married, and gets to go to Paris for his honeymoon, he is also ordered to secure the assassination of his old friend and teacher, now an exile living in France.
The duty to follow orders becomes more urgent now that his teacher is a famed opponent to the fascist movement in 1930s Italy. When his superior officer Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) hands him a gun to make sure the job gets done, Marcello replies that he does not want to carry a gun but does not explain why. The conflict between marital love and political duty is made more pronounced here because it is a conflict between his duty to the woman he has married, a lower-middle class woman, his own cultural background, and party loyalty, which is responsible for his salary, his sabbaticals, and his paychecks.
Since he was having a hard time pulling off the assassination at a big party that was thrown, more operatives are brought in from Italy to get the job done. This leads to a meandering auto drive through some snowy mountain peaks, with Marcello in a car closely trailing the professor's.
As he looks on, the operatives lure the professor from his stopped car and gang-stab him to death in a scene alluding to the murder of Julius Caesar. In an even more traumatic scene, the professor's wife Anna - whom Marcello has developed sexual feelings for - is chased through the woods and finally shot.
If there are any deep-seated feelings of guilt or remorse for killing the man who tried to rape him when he was a teenager, a surprise ending turns everything around, and gives the viewer reason to reflect; Marcello recognizes a person that he encounters in 1943 during the fall of the fascist dictatorship as Lino and loudly accuses him of the assassination of Professor Quadri.
[edit] Background
The film is a case study in the psychology of fascism: Marcello Clerici is a bureaucratic man deformed by a dysfunctional middle class family and a childhood sexual trauma. He accepts an assignment from Mussolini's secret police to assassinate his former mentor, living in exile in Paris. In Trintignant's characterization, you can see Alberto Moravia's portrait of a man willing to sacrifice his values in the interests of building a so-called "normal life."[3]
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. According to film critic and author Robin Buss, the cinematography suggests Clerici's inability to conform with "normal" reality: the reality of the time is "abnormal."[4] Also, Bertolucci's cinematic style synthesizes expressionism and "fascist" film aesthetics. Its style can be compared with classic German films of the thirties, such as in Leni Riefenstahl's The Triumph of the Will and Fritz Lang's Metropolis.[5]
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 by Francis Ford Coppola (1974).[6]
[edit] Filming locations
The filming locations included: Gare d'Orsay and Paris, France; Sant' Angelo Bridge and the Colosseum, both in Rome.[7]
[edit] 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
[edit] Distribution
The film premiered at the Berlin 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. 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; The Rise of The Conformist: The Story, the Cast featurette; Shadow and Light: Filming The Conformist featurette; The Conformist: Breaking New Ground featurette.
[edit] Critical reception
Vincent Canby, film critic for The New York Times, liked Bernardo 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]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 30 reviews. [11]
[edit] 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.
[edit] References
- ^ The Conformist at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Buss, Robin. Italian Films, Il conformista, page 120. London: Anchor Press Ltd. ISBN 071345900 X.
- ^ Scott. A.O. The New York Times, film review, Arts Section, July 31 - Aug. 6, 2005.
- ^ Buss, Robin. Ibid.
- ^ Klein, Jessi. Vassar College Department of Italian, 1996.
- ^ Visions of Light at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ The Conformist, IMDb, ibid.
- ^ Erickson, Hal. All Movie Guide web site.
- ^ Canby, Vincent. The New York Times, film review, September 19, 1970. Last accessed: December 22, 2007.
- ^ Berardinelli, James. Reel Views, film review, 1994.
- ^ The Conformist at Rotten Tomatoes. Last accessed: December 23, 2007.
[edit] External links
- The Conformist at the Internet Movie Database.
- The Conformist at Allmovie.
- The Conformist film review by Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times.
- Il conformista at RAI International.
- The Conformist at DVD Beaver (includes images).
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