IN THE EARLY 1970s, ITALIAN DIRECTOR BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI WAS ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST EXCITING FILM-MAKERS, AND THE CONFORMIST—NOW RE-RELEASED IN A BEAUTIFULLY RESTORED VERSION—WAS AN ENORMOUSLY INFLUENTIAL MASTERPIECE THAT SEALED HIS REPUTATION AMONG CINEASTES.
Based on Alberto Moravia’s novel and set in the late 1930s, this incredibly stylish film works as a modern noir, a gripping psychological thriller and a tantalising exploration of Italy’s Fascist past. The central character, Marcello Clerici (Jean- Louis Trintignant), is so eager to be ‘normal’ that he marries the empty-headed Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) and volunteers to spy on his former philosophy professor, Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), an anti-fascist now exiled in Paris. Combining his honeymoon trip with the spying mission, the already confused Clerici proves incapable of taking decisive action. Seduced by Quadri’s beautiful wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), the hapless Clerici finds himself in a quandary when ordered to murder the professor. Clerici’s search for ‘normality’ is seen from the start as a comically pointless quest. Everyone he encounters is bizarre and contradictory, and the film’s complex series of flashbacks don’t allow the audience to make any easy judgements. The Conformist is a brilliant blend of thriller, psychological portrait and political parable, but what makes it a masterpiece is the artistry with which Bertolucci expresses his ideas in visual terms. Drawing on the cinema’s rich history of aesthetic devices, Bertolucci’s use of camera movement, lighting, colour, design and composition is breathtakingly beautiful and a marvel to behold. No wonder the likes of Francis Coppola and Martin Scorsese have acknowledged a debt to this most seductive of cinematic creations.—Peter Walsh.