The Conformist – Bernardo Bertolucci (1970)

“The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama film written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, based on the 1951 novel of the same title by Alberto Moravia. It stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda and Gastone Moschin. Set in 1930s Italy, The Conformist centers on a mid-level Fascist functionary (Trintignant) who is ordered to assassinate his former professor, an antifascist dissident in Paris. His mission is complicated after he begins an affair with the professor’s wife (Sanda). An international co-production between Italian, French and West German companies, The Conformist opened at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. It received widespread acclaim from critics, and appeared on several lists of the best films of 1970. Among other accolades, it won the David di Donatello for Best Film, the Sutherland Trophy, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The cinematography, by Vittorio Storaro, was also highly-praised and launched his international career. Retrospective reviews have been equally positive, both towards the film’s cinematic merits as well as its political content. … In 1938 Paris, Marcello Clerici finalizes his preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri, leaving his wife Giulia in their hotel room. After receiving a call, Marcello is picked up in a car driven by his subordinate, Special Agent Manganiello. A series of flashbacks depict Marcello discussing with his blind friend Italo his plans to marry, his 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 father at an insane asylum. In a flashback, Marcello is a boy who is humiliated by his schoolmates until he is rescued by Lino, a chauffeur. Lino shows him a pistol and then makes sexual advances towards Marcello. He partially responds to them before grabbing the pistol and shooting into the walls and into Lino. He then flees, believing he committed a murder. … 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. …”
Wikiedia
American Cinematographer – Shadows of the Psyche: The Conformist
Indiana University: The Exquisite Visuals and Murky Morality of The Conformist (1970)
YouTube: “The Conformist” – Cinematography (& Film) Tribute, Close-Up: Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), Aesthetics of The Conformist – A Video Essay