Bernardo Bertolucci’s mesmerizing political thriller about Europe’s troubled past and the desire to «be like everyone else.» A surrealist and stylistically precise adaptation of Alberto Moravia’s novel.
In late 1930s Italy, under Mussolini’s fascist regime, Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who was abused as a child, struggles to «be like everyone else» and fit in with the current state of affairs. To this end, he marries petty bourgeois Giulia and, to prove his loyalty to the regime, becomes a government spy. His first assignment is to track down his former mentor, the anti-fascist professor Quadri. Marcello finds the professor with his young wife in Paris, where he goes on his honeymoon trip. The couples spend time together, the relationship between them full of mutual seduction and suspicion. The professor and his wife begin to realize that Marcello has something on his mind.
The narrative in Bertolucci’s film is non-linear. The film begins when Marcello learns that the professor and his wife are trying to leave Paris in a hurry, fearing for their lives. All that precedes this moment are memories and dreams. This jump-cut and anachronistic narrative structure conveys the human experience with greater accuracy and emphasizes the surrealism of what is happening. With vast deserted spaces, red neon lights, a colorless background, and contrasted light, Vittorio Storaro’s camerawork and editing add to the abstractedness and psychological realism of The Conformist.
The film will be screened in Italian, French, Chinese, and Latin with Russian subtitles.
A shortened version of the film will be screened due to the removal of a number of scenes that are in contravention of Russian law.
The Conformist
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Italy, France, Germany, 1970. 111 min.
18+