The Conformist (film)
Encyclopedia
The Conformist is a 1970 political drama
film 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 mentality and era: the middle-class drawing rooms and the huge halls of the ruling elite.
) in Paris
finalizing preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). It frequently returns to the interior of a car driven by Manganiello (Gastone Moschin
) as the two of them pursue the professor and his wife.
Through a series of flashbacks
, we see him discussing with Italo, a blind
friend, his plans to marry, his somewhat awkward attempts to join the Fascist secret police, and his visits to his morphine
-addicted mother at the family's decaying villa and his unhinged father at an insane asylum.
In one of these flashbacks we see him as a boy during World War I
, who finds himself isolated from society by his family's wealth. He is socially humiliated by his schoolmates until he is rescued by chauffeur Lino (Pierre Clémenti
). 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 apparently killing Lino.
In another flashback Marcello and his fiancee Giulia discuss the necessity of his going to confession
in order for her parents to allow them to marry, even though he is an atheist. He agrees, and in confession admits to the priest to having committed many sin
s, including his homosexual experience with Lino, the consequent murder
, 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 — apparently more by Marcello's homosexuality than the murder — but quickly absolves Marcello once he hears that he is currently working for the Fascist secret police.
Now married, Marcello finds himself ordered to assassinate his old friend and teacher, Professor Quadri, an outspoken anti-Fascist intellectual now living in exile
in France
. Using his marriage as a convenient cover he takes Giulia on their honeymoon to Paris where he can carry out the mission.
While visiting Quadri he falls in love with Anna - the professor's young wife - and actively 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 seems to accept his advances, as well as forming a close attachment to Giulia who she appears to make sexual advances toward as well, possibly for Marcello's benefit. 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 pursuing Marcello for some time and is doubtful of his intentions. Marcello returns the gun that he has been given and secretly gives Maganiello 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 that she should leave her husband and stay with him she does make the car journey. On a deserted woodland road Fascist agents conspire to stop Quadri's car with a false accident. When he attempts to help a stricken driver he is attacked and stabbed to death by several men who appear from the woods. Anna sees her husband murdered and realising the danger to herself runs to Marcello's car for help. When Anna sees that the passenger in the rear of the car is Marcello, she begins to scream uncontrollably, then runs off into the woods. Marcello merely watches without emotion as she is pursued through the woods and finally shot to death.
The ending of the film takes place in 1943 during the fall of Benito Mussolini
and the fascist dictatorship, 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 and Marcello recognizes one of them as Lino, who attempted to seduce him when he was a boy. Marcello publicly denounces Lino as a homosexual, Fascist, and for participating in the murder of Professor Quadri and his wife. While in this frenzy he also denounces his friend Italo. As a crowd sweeps past taking Italo with them Marcello is left alone, unaccepted by the people of the new partisan political movement, and having spurned his former friend. He sits near a small fire and looks intently behind him at the man Lino was previously talking to.
dehumanised by a dysfunctional
middle class
family and a childhood sexual trauma
. 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 so-called "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."
and Paris
, France
; Sant' Angelo Bridge
and the Colosseum
, both in Rome
.
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
.
The drama was influential to other filmmakers: the image of blowing leaves in The Conformist, for example, influenced a very similar scene in The Godfather, Part II (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola
.
in June 1970. It opened on a wide release in Italy and the United States on October 22, 1970. The first American release of the film was trimmed by five minutes compared to the Italian release; the missing scene features a group of blind people having a dance. They were restored in the 1996 reissue.
The film was released in the United States on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on December 5, 2006. The DVD includes: the original theatrical version (runtime 111 minutes); The Rise of The Conformist: The Story, the Cast featurette; Shadow and Light: Filming The Conformist featurette; The Conformist: Breaking New Ground featurette.
, film critic for The New York Times
, liked Bertolucci's screenplay and his directorial effort, and wrote, "Bernardo Bertolucci...has at last made a very middle-class, almost conventional movie that turns out to be one of the elegant surprises of the current New York Film Festival
...It is also apparent in Bertolucci's cinematic style, which is so rich, poetic, and baroque that it is simply incapable of meaning only what it says...The movie is perfectly cast, from Trintignant and on down, including Pierre Clementi, who appears briefly as the wicked young man who makes a play for the young Marcello. The Conformist is flawed, perhaps, but those very flaws may make it Bertolucci's first commercially popular film, at least in Europe
where there always seems to be a market for intelligent, upper middle-class decadence."
Recently, critic James Berardinelli
wrote a review and heralded the film's look. He wrote, "Storaro and Bertolucci have fashioned a visual masterpiece in The Conformist, with some of the best use of light and shadow ever in a motion picture. This isn't just photography, it's art — powerful, beautiful, and effective. There's a scene in the woods, with sunlight streaming between trees, that's breathtaking to behold — and all the more stunning because of the brutal events that take place before this background."
More recently, Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
staff writer, said, "In this dazzling film, Bertolucci manages to combine the bravura style of Fellini, the acute sense of period of Visconti and the fervent political commitment of Elio Petri — and, better still, a lack of self-indulgence...The Conformist," which memorably costars Dominique Sanda as a sexually ambiguous beauty, is not merely an indictment of fascism — with some swipes at ecclesiastical hypocrisy as well — but also a profound personal tragedy.
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
reported that 100 percent of critics gave the film a positive review, based on thirty-nine reviews.
Ranked #85 in Empire
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Nominations
Political cinema
Political cinema in the narrow sense of the term is a cinema which portrays current or historical events or social conditions in a partisan way in order to inform or to agitate the spectator...
film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
. The screenplay was written by Bertolucci based on the 1951 novel The Conformist
The Conformist
The Conformist is a novel by Alberto Moravia published in 1951, which details the life and desire for normalcy of a government official during Italy's fascist period. It is also known for the 1970 film adaptation by Bernardo Bertolucci....
by Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
. The film features Jean-Louis Trintignant
Jean-Louis Trintignant
Jean-Louis Trintignant is a French actor who has enjoyed an international acclaim. He won the Best Actor Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.-Career:...
and Stefania Sandrelli
Stefania Sandrelli
Stefania Sandrelli is an Italian actress, famous for her many roles in the commedia all'Italiana, starting from 1960s. She was 15 years old when she starred in Divorce, Italian Style, as Marcello Mastroianni's cousin, Angela.She was born in Viareggio, Tuscany. She had a long relationship with...
, among others. The film was a co-production of Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
film companies.
Bertolucci makes use of the 1930s art and decor associated with the Fascist mentality and era: the middle-class drawing rooms and the huge halls of the ruling elite.
Plot
The film opens with Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis TrintignantJean-Louis Trintignant
Jean-Louis Trintignant is a French actor who has enjoyed an international acclaim. He won the Best Actor Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.-Career:...
) in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
finalizing preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). It frequently returns to the interior of a car driven by Manganiello (Gastone Moschin
Gastone Moschin
Gastone Moschin is an Italian actor.Born in San Giovanni Lupatoto , he began his career in the 1950s as theatre actor, first with the Stable Theater in Genoa and then with the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In the same period Moschin also began to play in feature films, such as La rivale and L'audace...
) as the two of them pursue the professor and his wife.
Through a series of flashbacks
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
, we see him discussing with Italo, a blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
friend, his plans to marry, his somewhat awkward attempts to join the Fascist secret police, and his visits to his morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
-addicted mother at the family's decaying villa and his unhinged father at an insane asylum.
In one of these flashbacks we see him as a boy during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, who finds himself isolated from society by his family's wealth. He is socially humiliated by his schoolmates until he is rescued by chauffeur Lino (Pierre Clémenti
Pierre Clémenti
Pierre Clémenti was a French actor.Born in Paris, Clémenti studied drama and began his acting career in the theatre. He secured his first minor screen roles in 1960 in Yves Allégret's Chien de pique performing alongside Eddie Constantine...
). 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 apparently killing Lino.
In another flashback Marcello and his fiancee Giulia discuss the necessity of his going to confession
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
in order for her parents to allow them to marry, even though he is an atheist. He agrees, and in confession admits to the priest to having committed many sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
s, including his homosexual experience with Lino, the consequent murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, 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 — apparently more by Marcello's homosexuality than the murder — but quickly absolves Marcello once he hears that he is currently working for the Fascist secret police.
Now married, Marcello finds himself ordered to assassinate his old friend and teacher, Professor Quadri, an outspoken anti-Fascist intellectual now living in exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Using his marriage as a convenient cover he takes Giulia on their honeymoon to Paris where he can carry out the mission.
While visiting Quadri he falls in love with Anna - the professor's young wife - and actively 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 seems to accept his advances, as well as forming a close attachment to Giulia who she appears to make sexual advances toward as well, possibly for Marcello's benefit. 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 pursuing Marcello for some time and is doubtful of his intentions. Marcello returns the gun that he has been given and secretly gives Maganiello 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 that she should leave her husband and stay with him she does make the car journey. On a deserted woodland road Fascist agents conspire to stop Quadri's car with a false accident. When he attempts to help a stricken driver he is attacked and stabbed to death by several men who appear from the woods. Anna sees her husband murdered and realising the danger to herself runs to Marcello's car for help. When Anna sees that the passenger in the rear of the car is Marcello, she begins to scream uncontrollably, then runs off into the woods. Marcello merely watches without emotion as she is pursued through the woods and finally shot to death.
The ending of the film takes place in 1943 during the fall of Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
and the fascist dictatorship, 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 and Marcello recognizes one of them as Lino, who attempted to seduce him when he was a boy. Marcello publicly denounces Lino as a homosexual, Fascist, and for participating in the murder of Professor Quadri and his wife. While in this frenzy he also denounces his friend Italo. As a crowd sweeps past taking Italo with them Marcello is left alone, unaccepted by the people of the new partisan political movement, and having spurned his former friend. He sits near a small fire and looks intently behind him at the man Lino was previously talking to.
Cast
- Jean-Louis TrintignantJean-Louis TrintignantJean-Louis Trintignant is a French actor who has enjoyed an international acclaim. He won the Best Actor Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.-Career:...
as Marcello Clerici - Stefania SandrelliStefania SandrelliStefania Sandrelli is an Italian actress, famous for her many roles in the commedia all'Italiana, starting from 1960s. She was 15 years old when she starred in Divorce, Italian Style, as Marcello Mastroianni's cousin, Angela.She was born in Viareggio, Tuscany. She had a long relationship with...
as Giulia - Gastone MoschinGastone MoschinGastone Moschin is an Italian actor.Born in San Giovanni Lupatoto , he began his career in the 1950s as theatre actor, first with the Stable Theater in Genoa and then with the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In the same period Moschin also began to play in feature films, such as La rivale and L'audace...
as Manganiello - Enzo Tarascio as Professor Quadri
- Fosco Giachetti as Il colonnello
- José Quaglio as Italo
- Dominique SandaDominique SandaDominique Sanda is a French actress and former fashion model.Sanda was born as Dominique Marie-Françoise Renée Varaigne in Paris to Lucienne and Gérard Varaigne...
as Anna Quadri - Pierre ClémentiPierre ClémentiPierre Clémenti was a French actor.Born in Paris, Clémenti studied drama and began his acting career in the theatre. He secured his first minor screen roles in 1960 in Yves Allégret's Chien de pique performing alongside Eddie Constantine...
as Lino - Yvonne Sanson as Madre di Giulia
- Giuseppe Addobbati as Padre di Marcello
- Christian Aligny as Raoul
- Carlo Gaddi as Hired Killer
- Umberto Silvestri as Hired Killer
- Furio Pellerani as Hired Killer
Themes
The film is a case study in the psychology of fascism: Marcello Clerici is a bureaucratBureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
dehumanised by a dysfunctional
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
family and a childhood sexual trauma
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
. He accepts an assignment from Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
to assassinate his former mentor, living in exile in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In Trintignant's characterization, Clerici is willing to sacrifice his values in the interests of building a so-called "normal life."
According to the political philosopher Takis Fotopoulos
Takis Fotopoulos
Takis Fotopoulos , born , is a political philosopher and economist who founded the inclusive democracy movement. He is noted for his synthesis of the classical democracy with the libertarian socialism and the radical currents in the new social movements...
"The Conformist" (as well as "Rhinoceros"
Rhinoceros (play)
Rhinoceros is a play by Eugène Ionesco, written in 1959. The play belongs to the school of drama known as the Theatre of the Absurd...
by Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
) is "a beautiful portrait of this psychological need to conform and be 'normal'
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
at the social level, in general, and the political level, in particular."
Production
The filming locations included Gare d'OrsayGare d'Orsay
Gare d'Orsay is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans . It was the first electrified urban rail terminal in the world, opened 28 May 1900, in time for the...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
; Sant' Angelo Bridge
Ponte Sant'Angelo
Ponte Sant'Angelo, once the Aelian Bridge or Pons Aelius, meaning the Bridge of Hadrian, is a Roman bridge in Rome, Italy, completed in 134 AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian, to span the Tiber, from the city center to his newly constructed mausoleum, now the towering Castel Sant'Angelo...
and the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...
, both in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
According to the documentary Visions of Light
Visions of Light
Visions of Light is a 1992 documentary film directed by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, and Stuart Samuels. The film is also known as Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography....
the film is widely praised as a visual masterpiece. It was photographed by Vittorio Storaro
Vittorio Storaro
Vittorio Storaro, A.S.C., A.I.C. is an Italian cinematographer.In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild judged Storaro one of history's ten most influential cinematographers.-Biography:...
, 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
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
suggests Clerici's inability to conform with "normal" reality: the reality of the time is "abnormal." Also, Bertolucci's cinematic style synthesizes expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and "fascist" film aesthetics. Its style has been compared with classic German films of the 1920s and 1930s, such as in Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
's Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of...
and Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
.
The drama was influential to other filmmakers: the image of blowing leaves in The Conformist, for example, influenced a very similar scene in The Godfather, Part II (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
.
Distribution
The film premiered at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival20th Berlin International Film Festival
The 20th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 26 to July 7, 1970. However, the competition was cancelled and no prizes were awarded, over controversy surrounding Michael Verhoeven's film o.k.-Jury:* George Stevens...
in June 1970. It opened on a wide release in Italy and the United States on October 22, 1970. The first American release of the film was trimmed by five minutes compared to the Italian release; the missing scene features a group of blind people having a dance. They were restored in the 1996 reissue.
The film was released in the United States on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on December 5, 2006. The DVD includes: the original theatrical version (runtime 111 minutes); The Rise of The Conformist: The Story, the Cast featurette; Shadow and Light: Filming The Conformist featurette; The Conformist: Breaking New Ground featurette.
Critical response
Vincent CanbyVincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
, film critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, liked Bertolucci's screenplay and his directorial effort, and wrote, "Bernardo Bertolucci...has at last made a very middle-class, almost conventional movie that turns out to be one of the elegant surprises of the current New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
...It is also apparent in Bertolucci's cinematic style, which is so rich, poetic, and baroque that it is simply incapable of meaning only what it says...The movie is perfectly cast, from Trintignant and on down, including Pierre Clementi, who appears briefly as the wicked young man who makes a play for the young Marcello. The Conformist is flawed, perhaps, but those very flaws may make it Bertolucci's first commercially popular film, at least in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
where there always seems to be a market for intelligent, upper middle-class decadence."
Recently, critic James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
wrote a review and heralded the film's look. He wrote, "Storaro and Bertolucci have fashioned a visual masterpiece in The Conformist, with some of the best use of light and shadow ever in a motion picture. This isn't just photography, it's art — powerful, beautiful, and effective. There's a scene in the woods, with sunlight streaming between trees, that's breathtaking to behold — and all the more stunning because of the brutal events that take place before this background."
More recently, Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
staff writer, said, "In this dazzling film, Bertolucci manages to combine the bravura style of Fellini, the acute sense of period of Visconti and the fervent political commitment of Elio Petri — and, better still, a lack of self-indulgence...The Conformist," which memorably costars Dominique Sanda as a sexually ambiguous beauty, is not merely an indictment of fascism — with some swipes at ecclesiastical hypocrisy as well — but also a profound personal tragedy.
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 100 percent of critics gave the film a positive review, based on thirty-nine reviews.
Ranked #85 in Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Awards
Wins- Berlin Film Festival20th Berlin International Film FestivalThe 20th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 26 to July 7, 1970. However, the competition was cancelled and no prizes were awarded, over controversy surrounding Michael Verhoeven's film o.k.-Jury:* George Stevens...
: Interfilm Award - Recommendation and Journalists' Special Award, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1970. - David di Donatello Awards: David; Best Film, Maurizio Lodi-Fe; 1971.
- National Society of Film CriticsNational Society of Film CriticsThe National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
Awards: NSFC Award; Best Cinematography, Vittorio Storaro; Best Director, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1972. - Satellite AwardsSatellite AwardsThe Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
: Satellite Award: Best Classic DVD; 2006.
Nominations
- Berlin Film Festival: Golden Berlin Bear, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1970.
- Academy AwardsAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
: Oscar; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another MediumAcademy Award for Writing Adapted ScreenplayThe Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
, Bernardo Bertolucci; 1972. - Golden Globes: Golden Globe; Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film Italy; 1972.
External links
- The Conformist (1960) at DBCult Film Institute
- The Conformist at RAI International
- The Conformist film clip at You Tube (scene discussed in documentary Visions of LightVisions of LightVisions of Light is a 1992 documentary film directed by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, and Stuart Samuels. The film is also known as Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography....
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