I went to see The Conformist last night – though it was released in 1970, I have never seen it. It follows the story of a man named Clerici who becomes involved with the fascist regime in Italy and has the job of trying to assassinate his old college professor. One of the stand-out things for me was the use of light and colour in the film – this is lush and stagey and dramatic and gorgeous.
Scenes worth a mention just for the way they are filmed include:
Scenes worth a mention just for the way they are filmed include:
- When Clerici arrives at his fiancee’s flat and has lunch with her and her mother - see the YouTube clip
- The hunting scene (hunting Dominique Sanda) in the forest in France – One critic noted how many film makers had since been inspired by this scene including the makers of the Sopranos
-Clerici visiting his father in the lunatic asylum – a critic described this scene as:
There are excesses in the film, but they are balanced by scenes of such unusual beauty and vitality that I couldn't care less. I think particularly of a scene in which Marcello and his mother
visit his father in the courtyard of a mental hospital that looks very much like
a surreal Greek market- place. It could be Oedipus and Jocasta come to call on a
crazy Laius. Vincent Canby in the New York Times
He nails sensuality – the scenes of Sanda and Clerici’s wife (Stefania Sandrelli), of Clerici and his wife on a train caressing as she tells him about her first sexual experience (the content of which should be shocking but Bertolucci transgressively uses the material, of the women dancing. Lush, lush lush.
The story itself – of a weak man trying to find a place in the world – a fascist world – vaguely interesting – but the way it's told – very seductive.
In 1970 - two years before The Godfather's Oscar validated the approach - Bertolucci took a brave step in making a film where every character is unlikeable and pathetic, even the protagonist. Ben Sillis in Eye for Film
