“TO BE OR NOT TO BE… A FASCIST”

By Raymond Benson

The film classic that put director Bernardo Bertolucci on the map outside of Italy was 1970’s The Conformist, hailed by the arthouse cinema circuit as one of the masterpieces of international filmmaking in that decade.

An Italian-French-West German co-production, The Conformist was filmed in Italy and France and stars celebrated French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, who made several pictures in Italy along with the many in his native country. Although Trintignant could speak Italian, he was almost always dubbed by an Italian actor in these pictures; in fact, all Italian movies of the era were usually dubbed in post-production. Luckily, the dubbing here is quite good because at least Trintignant is mouthing the correct Italian language dialogue.

This is a gorgeous-looking movie, often cited as a groundbreaker in cinematography. Vittorio Storaro made his name with the picture, just as Bertolucci did. Francis Ford Coppola allegedly used The Conformist as the “look” he was going for when he made The Godfather. Storaro is one of only three people who have won the Best Cinematography Oscar three times (he won for Apocalypse Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor, another Bertolucci title).

This is reason alone to view the film today. The content is perhaps a little too attached to the time period in which it was made, in that the editing and narrative flow of the movie is somewhat experimental with its use of flashbacks and time-jumping that filmmakers liked to play with in those days. As a result, the first half of The Conformist takes some getting used to (and is, at first, difficult to follow), but the second half is riveting. The subject matter is also extremely political in that it is a psychological character study of a man torn between the desire to fit in and to do what is right within the context of the socio-political climate of his time.

It’s 1930s Italy, during Mussolini’s reign. Trintignant is Marcello, a wannabe social climber… but to do so, he must during those years be a member of Mussolini’s party and, well, a fascist. Most of his friends are members of the party, as is his closest pal, a blind man named Italo (José Quaglio). In 1938, Marcello accepts the assignment to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), a staunch anti-fascist living in Paris with his wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda). Marcello marries Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), a pretty girl who is naïve and rather common, in an attempt to be “more like ‘normal’ people.” Marcello disguises his true purpose on the trip to Paris by bringing along Giulia, and he is shadowed by his handler, Agent Manganiello (Gastone Moschin, recognizable to Western audiences as Don Fanucci from The Godfather Part II). Once in Paris, Marcello and Giulia enjoy social gatherings with the Quadris, and there is some eyebrow-raising hanky-panky that occurs between Anna and not only Marcello, but also Giulia! (The seductive dance between Anna and Giulia at a party is a highlight of the movie, and stills from the sequence dominated its marketing.) In the meantime, Marcello is struggling with his assignment. Thrown into his head torment is the trauma he suffered back in 1917, when as a boy he was molested by a young man.

There is a lot going on within the characters’ psyches in The Conformist. It is a rich, deeply layered motion picture that asks many questions and provides few answers. Some sequences were shocking in 1970 and are still disturbing today. This is potent cinema, providing the early evidence that Bertolucci was a formidable artist who would push the envelope.

The RARO Cinema Art Blu-ray edition (from RAROvideousa.com, distributed by Kino Lorber) is a 2-disk set. The first disk contains a new stunning 4K restoration from the original camera negative. This is accompanied by an audio commentary by film critic Bilge Ebiri. The second disk is the 2011 HD restoration that both Bertolucci and Storaro worked on. The inclusion of the second disk feature is curious since the new restoration is far, far superior and should be the go-to viewing. It appears that the second, older version is simply there for comparison.

Supplements spread over the two disks include an interview with Valentina Ricciardelli, the president of the Bernardo Bertolucci Foundation; an hour-long documentary, “In the Shade of The Conformist”; and trailers of the film from 1970, 2014, and 2023.

The Conformist is for fans of Bernardo Bertolucci, Vittorio Storaro, Jean-Louis Trintignant, international cinema, and political films.

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