The film that made Bernardo Bertolucci's international reputation, THE CONFORMIST (based on Alberto Moravia's novel) is equal parts film noir, Freudian melodrama, and political commentary. The hero, Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), joins Italy's fascist party, marries a simpering bourgeois woman, and agrees to assassinate the university professor who once acted as his mentor, all to become a "normal" member of society. As his psyche unravels--a homosexual encounter at age 13, his father's illness, his desire for the professor's wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda)--Bertolucci gradually shows that Clerici wants to become a robot in order to forget the messiness of life. But Clerici is moral enough at heart to begin putting off the murder in true Hamlet fashion. Bertolucci evokes the antiseptic fascist bureaucracy, the charming circle of the professor, and the bloody outcome of moral bankruptcy with equally arresting visuals. The narrative is nonlinear, but the arc is clear; as Clerici's smug, self-satisfied air comes undone, Bertolucci wants every Italian to answer for their own behavior when the fascists came.
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Synopsis
Product Description
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Review
Los Angeles Times, 07/15/2004, p.E13, "Bertolucci combines the bravura style of Fellini, the acute sense of period of Visconti, the political commitment of Elio Petri..." Rolling Stone, 11/30/2006, p.100, "[A] gritty and gorgeous 1971 masterpiece, THE CONFORMIST is a cause for celebration." Entertainment Weekly, 12/08/2006, p.66, "Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is exquisite..." -- Grade: A- Sight and Sound, 04/01/2007, p.89, "[T]he real stars are behind the camera. Bertolucci, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and editor Franco Arcalli achieve a well-nigh perfect balance of form and content." Empire, 03/01/2008, p.53, 5 stars out of 5 -- "A visual masterpiece thanks to Storaro's keen eye....[An] affecting cautionary tale..." Sight and Sound, 04/01/1994, p.53-4, "...An Oedipal story of enormous complexity, both thematically and stylistically..." New York Times, 09/16/1994, p.C10, "...Extravagant and haunting....[A restored print] shows why Bertolucci is a master of extravagantly visual and resonant storytelling..." -- Critic's Choice Chicago Sun-Times, 11/18/1994, p.34, "...Through the swirling steps of its intricate flashback structure, THE CONFORMIST sustains its evasive, downbeat and sometimes absurdist mood with a remarkable intensity..."
Title Note
Gaffe in the film: a radio tower is seen in a flashback to 1917.
Release Note
DVD Features:
Product Notes
A man named Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) attempts to escape his emotional past by subscribing to totalitarianism in Bernardo Bertolucci's masterpiece of Italian cinema. But when Clerici is asked to kill a leftist professor to show his loyalty, he finds that the decision to become a "conformist"--to live by society's rules--requires him to ignore his morals.
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