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Il Conformista (The Conformist)



cast :

Jean-Louis Tritignant, Dominique Sanda, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio

crew :

Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
Written by: Bernardo Bertolucci (from the novel by Alberto Moravia)
Produced by: Maurizio Lodi-Fé
DOP: Vittorio Storaro
Editor: Franco Arcalli
Music Score by: George Delerue

release date :

1970

The most succinct explanation of Bernardo Bertolucci's 1970 masterpiece The Conformist would be to say that it concerns the pivotal moment in the life of a man in 1930s Italy forced to choose between rescuing the woman he loves from certain death or turning his back on Fascism. This is how it is established at the very beginning of the film, yet as the narrative unfurls into a sporadic series of flashbacks it is soon made clear that this is not a straightforward polemic between romanticism and ideology, but rather a sinister insight into the mind of an individual desperate to reconcile himself to a seemingly hostile society.


Marcello Clerici (Jean Louis Trintignant), the eponymous conformist, feels an all-consuming urge to achieve normality and convinces himself he can achieve this by joining the Fascist party. In order to secure the favour of his superiors he volunteers himself on a mission to ensnare Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), his onetime mentor now living as a dissident in Paris, a trip which he manages to combine with his honeymoon. The situation is complicated when Marcello develops an instant infatuation for Quadri's wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), who in turn develops an infatuation of her own for his young bride Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli). Marcello fulfils his original obligation and arranges Quadri's assassination but learns at the last minute that Anna will be with him when it happens. He rushes to save her but remains passive at the crucial moment and impotently watches the couple be killed. The film could be read equally convincingly from either a political or psychological perspective, yet to separate them entirely or preference one over the other would be to miss the heart of Bertolucci's film, which dwells in the place where the two concepts meet.


Except for a number of flashbacks concerning Marcello's childhood, the film spans a large part of the Italian Fascist era, beginning with its rise well under way and ending abruptly with its fall. Correspondingly, Marcello's career as a conformist takes definite shape with his belief that the Fascist regime can provide the means to attain normality and collapses when the news of Mussolini's defeat forces him to realise how futile his sacrifices were. Nevertheless, though Marcello's fate is indisputably - and by his own design - intertwined with that of the Fascists, there is some ambiguity in the film as to whether or not his character is intended to represent that of the average Fascist supporter. At several points in the film it is commented that Marcello does not reason like a true Fascist, or rather, like a normal Fascist, defined in the film by a ministry official as being motivated by either fear or greed. Trapped in a paradoxical cycle, Marcello is continually made to stand out precisely because of his very desire to conform. In effect his existence runs parallel to that of the rest of society, the fundamental point of departure being his own self-awareness. As Giulia remarks, the majority of churchgoers and even priests don't believe in God, but the only person troubled by this hypocrisy is Marcello. What he seeks is an unquestioning, inherent conformity, something which is impossible to achieve with rationalised intent. This is essentially the core of what the Fascists were to trying to achieve on a mass scale, as such Marcello is not representative of a Fascist supporter, but of Fascism itself, both historically and conceptually: Marcello's story is not an only exemplary product of his own era, but a metaphor of that same era.


This duality of meaning is heavily supported in the film's intricate construction and mise-en-scene.


As mentioned, the narrative is composed a series of almost stream of consciousness-like remembrances which keep jumping between the fateful car journey in pursuit of Anna and the events leading up to it, though not necessarily in chronological order. It is explicit from the start that what the audience is shown is coming straight from the inner workings of Marcello's mind, an impression which is strengthened by occasional surreal deviations from the logical progression of the plot. One notable example of this occurs when Marcello accidentally peers behind a curtain in the minister's office to find a bureaucrat at a desk cavorting with a woman identical to Anna. Within this brief episode the establishment of space is constantly shifted from a series of apparently point-of-view close ups to longer panning shots, until it eventually becomes clear that Marcello is actually at the end of an immense hall containing nothing but the desk in question at the far end, and which Marcello should not be able to see clearly enough to distinguish the woman. The dreamlike atmosphere created in this scene reminds the viewer that this is of the allegorical and psychological nature of the film, and also provides one of the first clear indications that the entire architecture of the film is actually a manifestation of that of its protagonist's subconscious as he reflects back on the events which lead him to his current predicament.


The conjunction of set design and camerawork is one of the clearest methods Bertolucci uses to achieve this, and Marcello's relationship to his surroundings is almost always revelatory. Throughout the film it's possible to trace his transformation from the vast, linear, overbearing Fascist architecture of Rome which dwarfs him and emphasises his solitude, to the oppressively intimate environment of Paris, most notably in the famous scene where he becomes engulfed by a spiralling wave of dancers, his awkward position in the centre of the action highlighting his status as an outsider more poignantly than ever. The length and organisation of the shots also become correspondingly disordered, culminating with the traumatic murder scene in the forest shot jerkily with a hand-held camera.


This is furthered by Vittorio Storaro's sublime use of lighting, forcing the characters in and out of the darkness, as if pursued by it. The key to understanding the meaning of this is revealed midway through the narrative when Marcello is finally united with his former Professor, Quadri. The two discuss Plato's 'Myth of the Cave', in which the philosopher describes a situation in which a group of people who have spent their entire lives shrouded in the darkness of a cave watch the shadows of objects being carried past the cave entrance and mistake the shadows for real people. Quadri likens the allegorical prisoners to the citizens of 1930s Italy, who are incapable of seeing the Fascist dictatorship for what it truly is. Marcello, whose interest in the Fascist party only extends as far as it serves his selfish needs and not those of his country, is aware of the true nature of Fascism, and though he tries to block it out the 'light' of this knowledge dogs his every move. One of the moments which shows this most spectacularly takes place in the forest just as the Quadri’s are about to be murdered. Marcello has chased them to this point with the intention of rescuing them, yet as the light of dawn bursts through the trees he realises the futility of his predicament and lets Fascist justice take its course. Similarly, as he passes through the streets of Rome after the news of Mussolini's deposition, the city is flooded in darkness yet he is blinded by the harsh lights of passing vehicles as he is forced to acknowledge the gravity of his current situation and his previous actions.


Though the context of Fascism is obviously one of the central elements in 'The Conformist', it should not be considered the only theme. As a renowned, young left-wing intellectual, Bertolucci was greatly affected by the events of 1968, which took place only two years before the film was made. This is a question which continues to dominate recent works by Bertolucci such as 'The Dreamers' (2003), and as such its impact on 'The Conformist' cannot be ignored. The optimistically didactic ideologies which gradually infiltrated Italian film over the decades following World War Two inevitably biased any portrayal of either Fascists or Communists, but the failure of the student revolutions lead to a mass disillusionment that stopped this dead. 'The Conformist' is a prime example of the typically bleak depiction of a society without hope of redemption found in post 1968 European cinema. In condemning Fascism, Bertolucci isn't criticising Italians for their past but warning them of an equally unpleasant future. It is for this reason that it is significant that Marcello's desire to conform began before the advent of Fascism – Fascism flourished because of people's willingness to sacrifice their morals for personal gain.


The film ends when Marcello rediscovers a man that he believed he had killed in an act of self-defence against his sexual advances when only a young boy, an experience which he considers the key to explaining his need to conform. He explicitly blames him for the murders of the Quadri’s and denounces him as a Fascist to the crowds exulting in Mussolini's demise, and after working himself into a frenzy proceeds to also denounce his blind friend Italo (José Quaglio), who he abandons to carried away by the tide of marchers. In absolving himself of any culpability, Marcello has learned nothing and will simply re-adjust his belief system to suit the new consensus morality. Through this one character, Bertolucci manages to create a powerful symbol of Fascist, Italian and bourgeois society, poignantly reminding us how easily entangled the three can become, as well as how important it is to consider the human aspect of a dictatorship.


Watch


Country: Italy/France/West Germany
Budget: £
Length: 111mins


Filmography:
'The Dreamers' , 2003, Bernardo Bertolucci, Recorded Picture Company (RPC)


Pub/2008


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