The Conformist

Bernardo Bertolucci graduated from modest, politically-inflected dramas like Before the Revolution (1964) to expansive art house fare: Last Tango in Paris (1972), 1900 (1976), The Last Emperor (1987). The Conformist (1970) is considered a masterpiece, yet I found it rough sledding. It showcases Bertolucci's fascinations with Marxist politics and sexual promiscuity, but seems more interested in crafting bizarre imagery than storytelling.

Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant) has no greater ambition than being a bureaucrat. He joins Mussolini's secret police, marries ditzy bourgeoisie Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) and joins with enforcer Manginello (Gastone Moschin) to assassinate a leftist professor (Enzo Tarascio) living in Paris. Marcello becomes attracted to the Professor's wife (Dominique Sanda), seduced by Parisian decadence and increasingly ambivalent towards his mission.

The Conformist works best satirizing middle class values. Mussolini's regime was never universally loved, most Italians quietly acquiescing to Fascist rule. Marcello epitomizes this attitude: he sublimates his foibles, from his assorted friendships to implied homosexuality, to reinvent himself as a "respectable" middle class functionary. His confession to an irate priest is a comic highpoint, Marcello admitting his failures but praised for wanting to fit in. Conformity is key, even if it means marrying a drip like Giulia or murdering state enemies.

The Conformist's middle section sags. The movie remains on an ostensibly comic level but its message proves shallow and repetitious. Marcello and Giulia find Paris's bourgeois lifestyle more appealing than totalitarian Italy, losing any sense of mission (or plot) as they shop, flirt and putter around. Rather than deal with their complicity in Fascist crimes, Bertolucci cuts straight to war's end, for a bizarre scene where Marcello confronts a long-lost friend - and a traumatic past incident. 

Bertolucci's direction is annoyingly showy. He splashes off-kilter color schemes, narrative shifts, Dutch angles and handheld camerawork like a proto-Oliver Stone. Bertolucci even stages a Visconti-lite dance, the surest sign of artistic pretension. In some scenes it works, like Marcello's trips to his boss's cavernous offices or the bizarrely ritualized assassination. But too often Bertolucci achieves a Tom Hooper level of self-conscious artiness; in one scene, Professor Quadri explains Plato's myth of the cave before opening a window and dissipating Marco's shadow. Such obviousness proves annoying rather than profound.

Jean-Louis Trintingant (Z) scores with a low key, quietly anguished turn. Gastone Moschin (The Godfather, Part II) plays Marcello's more committed associate with comic menace. Dominique Sanda makes an impression as Anna, but Stefania Sandrelli's Giulia is even better. Her transformation from scatter-brained materialist to beaten-down housewife is powerfully effective.

The Conformist is a mixed bag. Admittedly, it comes down to personal taste: most fans love Bertolucci's showy direction, where it mostly gave me a headache.