The Conformist (1970)
"Il conformista" (original title)

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

Director:

Bernardo Bertolucci

Writers:

Alberto Moravia (novel), Bernardo Bertolucci (screenplay)

Stars:

Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 11 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jean-Louis Trintignant	...	Marcello Clerici (as Jean Louis Trintignant)
Stefania Sandrelli	...	Giulia
Gastone Moschin	...	Manganiello
Enzo Tarascio	...	Professor Quadri
Fosco Giachetti	...	Il colonnello
José Quaglio	...	Italo
Dominique Sanda	...	Anna Quadri
Pierre Clémenti	...	Lino
Yvonne Sanson	...	Madre di Giulia
Milly	...	Madre di Marcello
Giuseppe Addobbati	...	Padre di Marcello
Christian Aligny	...	Raoul (as Christian Alegny)
Carlo Gaddi	...	Hired Killer
Umberto Silvestri	...	Hired Killer
Furio Pellerani	...	Hired Killer

Storyline

This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello's mind.

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Plot Keywords:

fascist | italy | flashback | train | professor | 

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Taglines:

Bertolucci's Masterpiece about Sex and Politics [re-release]

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

Italy France West Germany

Language:

Italian French Latin

Release Date:

22 October 1970 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Conformist

Filming Locations:

Gare d'Orsay, Paris 7, Paris, France

Box Office

Budget:

$750,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mars Film, Marianne Productions, Maran Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min 106 min (first release) (international)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Finnish censorship visa # 80147 delivered on 21-10-1971.

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Goofs

When Manganiello and Marcello are talking in the kitchen of the restaurant, the swinging lamp slows, then obviously someone knocks it on two occasions to keep it swinging.

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Quotes

Giulia: He'll be a typical intellectual, disagreeable and impotent.

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Connections

Referenced in The Sum of All Fears (2002)

User Reviews

Brilliant film making

Brilliant adaptation (and improvement) of the Moravia work, with the entire structure revolving around Plato's Republic added by Bertolucci. As a meditation on both tyranny and the tyrannized, it is unsurpassed in cinema.

The center of the film explicitly discusses the cave image in the Republic (the topic of Marcello's abortive thesis when he was Quadri's student). But that is not all: a reading of the immediately relevant sections of the Plato will make it obvious that it provided Bertolucci with a stream of imagery for the film. A reading of the entire work will reveal an even greater stream, largely taken from the discussions of tyranny and the tyrannic man (who, like the philosopher, is the same both dreaming and awake). In turn, this all ties in nicely with both Spider's Stratagem and Before the Revolution, among others of his films.