The Conformist
The Conformist
Blu-ray
Raro Video USA Ltd.
1970 / 113 Mins. / 1.66:1
Starring Jean Louis Trintignant, Dominique Sanda
Written by Bernardo Bertolucci
Photographed by Vittorio Storaro
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
While a would-be dictator dominates the breakfast bar of a Palm Beach golf club, Bernardo Bertolucci reminds us of a glamorous time—1938 to be exact—when more subtle monsters plotted to rule the world. One of these conspirators is represented by Jean-Louis Trintignant, his mistress is played by Dominique Sanda, and each are photographed by Vittorio Storaro, the George Hurrell of cinematography. In Bertolucci’s The Conformist the rise of fascism is given the nostalgic glow of an Astaire-Rogers musical.
The nostalgia is also a trap. Bertolucci’s direction is hypnotic, inviting you into a beautiful dream palace before pulling the trigger. That palace is real, it’s the Palazzo Venezia, ground zero of Mussolini’s rule for near 21 years. Beautiful but oppressive, the edifice is a monument to the director’s visual scheme; while Astaire and Rogers danced in vast ballrooms, Bertolucci’s movie has a claustrophobic aura—Ferdinando Scarfiotti’s opulent production design suffocates the characters while Storaro paints the walls with oblique shadows that look like the bars of an art deco prison cell.
Everyone is under the gun, this is fascist Italy after all, but few are more vulnerable than Marcello Clerici (Trintignant) one of il Duce’s more eager sycophants—he’s been ordered to murder his former college professor, a pro-democracy dissident named Luca Quadri and Marcello complicates an already thorny proposition by striking up an affair with the professor’s wife (played by Sanda).
Marcello is already engaged to Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), a woman seemingly oblivious to his double life. The blandly approving mask he wears during their courtship keeps his fiancée in a feather-brained state of bliss—a quality fascists appreciate in their mates, but that disguise drops when he settles into a church stall to confess his ideas about marriage and Giulia in particular: “I intend to construct my normality… I’m marrying a petit bourgeois, full of petty ideas and petty ambitions—she’s all bed and kitchen.” Marcello is obsessed with fitting in and being “normal”—if that means genocide, so be it.
Once Marcello is given a gun for Quadri’s murder he prepares for the role by posing like Cagney—he assumes the same stiff-backed gait, the hunched shoulders, and of course, the long trench coat and fedora. He’s modeled himself after a movie star because real life is too disconnected from the machismo image he cultivates; his mother, a helpless morphine addict and his father, wasting away in an asylum, are mere props in their family portraits.
Marcello remains haunted by the memory of the family chauffeur who molested him when he was 13. He responded to that assault by shooting the driver in the face—poisoning Marcello’s sexual awakening with memories of fear, desire and violence. So he’s made repression a way of life—the murder of Quadri is just another day at the office, Marcello is even unmoved by bloody demise of his own mistress. His blank-faced indifference to suffering remains unchanged, the perfect fascist.
In 1970 Francis Ford Coppola called The Conformist “the first classic of the decade” and its influence on his Godfather films can’t be overstated. Coppola’s work is even more nakedly nostalgic, mobsters cook family dinners between murders and a day spent shopping for Christmas presents might end in fratricide—for a movie about the dissolution of the American family, The Godfather can be positively heartwarming.
No one in Bertolucci’s film indulges in such simple pleasures, whether it’s cooking spaghetti or window shopping, and the movie will never show up on a list of holiday classics. But both films end the same way, the anti-hero lives in isolation, his moral compass smashed. The Conformist would not have the staying power it has without Trintignant’s performance—Marcello never betrays a single emotion, he’s all calculation and it’s impossible to know if he —Marcell0—is a master actor or just dead inside. It’s easy to know what kind of actor Trintignant was, a great one.
Raro’s new Blu ray release is a two-disc affair featuring a new 4K restoration by Cineteca Di Bologna and Minerva Pictures on Disc One and Cineteca’s 2011 HD restoration (assisted by Bertolucci and Storaro) on Disc Two. Some internet controversy swirls around these restorations and there are very slight differences in color timing for the new release. That said, they both look gorgeous and it comes down to a taster’s choice experience—either version works like gangbusters.
Extras include a new audio Commentary by film critic Bilge Ebiri and a newly recorded interview with Valentina Ricciardelli, president of the Bernardo Bertolucci Foundation. There is also an archival documentary, In the Shade of the Conformist, an hour-long essay from Italian critic Adriano Apra, and the U.S. Theatrical Trailer.
Current events collide with The Conformist and if one is wondering about the relationship between mobsters and fascism, look no further than this fascinating article about Mussolini’s attitude toward the Mafia.
Here’s Dan Ireland on The Conformist:
There are two real 4K versions one from Japan with no English titles ,I got this and it’s clearly better than the last Blu ray ,even with a few color choices that a better on earlier version,there’s also a Italian 4K disc that I am told has English titles,I don’t have that