The Conformist (Il Conformista)
Paramount Pictures (1970)
Drama, Foreign, Queer Themes/Interest, Thriller
In Collection
#594
7*
Seen ItYes
(1/25/2017 Home)
816018010890
IMDB   8.0
115 mins Italy / Italian
DVD  Region 1
Jean-Louis Trintignant Marcello Clerici
Stefania Sandrelli Giulia
Gastone Moschin Manganiello
Enzo Tarascio Professor Quadri
Fosco Giachetti Il colonnello
José Quaglio Italo
Dominique Sanda Anna Quadri
Pierre Clementi Lino
Yvonne Sanson Madre di Giulia
Jean Louis Trintignant
Milly Madre di Marcello
Director
Bernardo Bertolucci
Producer Giovanni Bertolucci
Maurizio Lodi-Fe
Writer/Composer Alberto Moravia
Bernardo Bertolucci
Cinematography Vittorio Storaro
Music Georges Delerue


Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist returns in a dazzling new restoration supervised by the director and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro! One of the enduring masterpieces of the 1970s, Bertolucci’s breakthrough film The Conformist is an elegant portrait of the death throes of Italian Fascism and a triumph of pure style. Adapted by Bertolucci (an Oscar-nominated screenplay) from Alberto Moravia’s 1951 novel, it chronicles the life of secret police functionary Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who is sent on a mission to assassinate his former teacher, Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), a leftist activist in exile in Paris. Clerici uses his honeymoon with new wife Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) as a cover for the job. But he soon becomes entranced by Quadri’s sensuous, haunted wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), and the Fascist tenets he once accepted without question begin to waver in his mind. Legendary cinematographer Storaro (Apocalypse now) and production designer Fernando Scarfiotti (Scarface, American Gigolo) make spectacular use of the Fascist-era brutalist architecture, its blandly symmetrical structures acting as another form of control. with a gorgeous score by Georges Delerue and incandescent performances by a star-studded cast, The Conformist is a towering accomplishment that for the past four decades has enraptured audiences and influenced filmmakers around the world. [Jacket]
Edition Details
Original Title Il Conformista
Release Date 2014
No. of Discs/Tapes 1

Notes
Normally, foreign language films with English subtitles do not present problems to me -- in fact I am a fan of many foreign films -- but in this film, the Italian dialogue was fast, and I was rarely able to read the entire caption -- This may have affected my rating a bit -- Otherwise, a very fine film -- The Confomist not only is a film important to the history of cinema, but especially to that of films with gay themes or interest -- See particularly the Guardian commentary "Why Bertolucci's The Conformist deserves a place in cinema history" in the "links" section.