The Conformist (1970 film)  

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"Th[e] psychological need to conform and be “normal” at the social level, in general, and the political level, in particular, was beautifully portrayed by playrights like Ionesco (Rhinoceros, 1959) and film directors like Bertolucci (The Conformist, 1970)."--Takis Fotopoulos

"Ten years ago, my father was in Munich. Often, after the theater, he told me that he'd go with friends to a Bierstube. There was a nutty man they thought a fool. He spoke about politics. He was quite an attraction. They'd buy him beer and encourage him. He'd stand up on the table making furious speeches. It was Hitler."--The Conformist

"It's funny, though, you know? Everyone would like to be different from the others, but instead you want to be the same as everyone else."--The Conformist

"Today, by virtue of their two leaders, these two peoples are rediscovering their ancient virtues. Virtues that embody similarity and reciprocity that have been long forgotten, that which Goebbels calls "the Prussian aspect" of Benito Mussolini, and that we call "the Latin aspect" of Adolf Hitler. Italy and Germany, bringing the world two great anti-parliamentarian and anti-democratic revolutions."--The Conformist

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The Conformist (Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama 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 era: the middle-class drawing rooms and the huge halls of the ruling elite.

It is the story of a weak-willed Italian man who becomes a fascist flunky and who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, who is now a political dissident.

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Plot

In Paris, Marcello Clerici finalizes his preparations in assassinating his former college professor, Luca Quadri. It frequently returns to the interior of a car driven by Manganiello as the two of them pursue the professor and his wife.

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

In another flashback, Marcello is seen as a boy during World War I, who finds himself in his family's wealth. He is humiliated by his schoolmates until he is rescued by Lino, a chauffeur. 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 into Lino, then flees from the scene of what he assumes is a murder.

In another flashback, Marcello and his fiancée Giulia discuss the necessity of his going to confession, even though he is an atheist, in order for her Roman Catholic parents to allow them to marry. Marcello agrees and, in confession, admits to the priest to have committed many grave sins, including his homosexual intercourse with and subsequent murder of Lino, 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 — and pruriently interested in Marcello's homosexual experience — but quickly absolves Marcello once he hears that he is currently working for the Fascist secret police, called Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism.

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

While visiting Quadri he falls in love with Anna, the professor's young wife, and 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 responds to his advances, as well as forming a close attachment to Giulia, towards whom she also makes sexual advances. 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 following Marcello for some time and doubtful of his intentions. Marcello secretly returns the gun that he has been given and gives Manganiello 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 to stay in Paris with him, she does make the car journey. On a deserted woodland road, Fascist agents conspire to stop Quadri's car with a fake accident scene. When Quadri attempts to help the apparently stricken driver, he is attacked and stabbed to death by several men who appear from the woods. Anna watches her husband being murdered with horror. When the men turn their attention to her, she runs to the car behind for help. When Anna sees that the passenger in the rear of the car is Marcello and realizes his betrayal, she begins to scream uncontrollably, before running into the woods to escape the men trying to kill her. Marcello watches without emotion as she is pursued through the woods and finally shot to death. Manganiello walks away from the car for a cigarette, disgusted with what he sees as Marcello's cowardice in not shooting Anna when she ran to their car.

The ending of the film takes place in 1943 as the resignation of Benito Mussolini and the fascist dictatorship is announced. 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 in the act of picking each other up, and Marcello recognizes one of them as Lino, the man who seduced him when he was a boy and whom he had thought he had murdered. Marcello publicly denounces Lino as a Fascist, homosexual, and for murdering Professor Quadri and his wife. In his frenzy, he also denounces his friend Italo as a fascist. As a monarchist political crowd sweeps past, taking Italo with them, Marcello is left alone, remaining behind and separate from the passing crowd of the new movement, and having spurned his former friend. He sits near a small fire and stares intently behind him at the young man Lino had been talking to.

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Cast

Dubbing voices (Italian version)

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Themes

The film is a case study in the psychology of conformism and fascism: Marcello Clerici is a bureaucrat, cultivated and intellectual but largely dehumanized by an intense need to be 'normal' and to belong to whatever is the current dominant socio-political group. He grew up in an upper class, perhaps dysfunctional family, and he suffered a major childhood sexual trauma and gun violence episode in which he long believed (erroneously) that he had committed a murder. 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 supposedly "normal life."

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."

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." 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.

In 2013, Interiors, an online journal concerned with the relationship between architecture and film, released an issue that discussed how space is used in a scene that takes place on the Palazzo dei Congressi. The issue highlights the use of architecture in the film, pointing out that in order to understand the film itself, it's essential to understand the history of the EUR district in Rome and its deep ties with fascism.

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See also


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