The Conformist (a.k.a. Il conformista; 1970)

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci; produced by Maurizio Lodi-Fe

Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) has joined Italy’s Fascist Party and is ready to prove himself to his bosses. To do so, he is ordered to kill his former university professor. As he prepares for the task, he recalls his earlier life, visits with his drug-addicted mother and his insane father, and the people who shaped the man he has become.

The Conformist has been praised as one of the greatest movies ever made. While it is certainly very good, I cannot agree with such a rating. There are a number of outstanding elements to the film but I find it flawed in a significant way, which inhibits its completeness.

The acting is first-rate. Trintignant is excellent in the title role. He never strives to make Clerici likeable, but does give him depth and a kind of complexity that makes him understandable. He is a villain, and meant to be a villain in a kind of banal, every-day fashion. But if one cannot understand a villain, he becomes little more than a cartoon character. Certainly Clerici is understandable - perhaps too much so.

The direction complements the acting, and there are some scenes that are tense and frightening in a realistic manner. In particular, an assassination sequence is almost horrifying in the mundanity of the killers and their behaviour.

What was very visually noticeable was the look of the film, the responsibility of production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and art director Nedo Azzini. They recreated an atmospheric 1930s look and feel (perhaps accentuating the styles of the times), as well as the monumental architecture and décor beloved of Fascism. The giant, stony offices in which the Italian government officials work is reminiscent of the genuine productions of Mussolini’s regime and its attempts to portray itself as an immense entity, but they also emphasise the emptiness of the Fascists and their beliefs.

What I found to be less than these elements was the writing and the story. This may be surprising, as they were adapted from the acclaimed novel by Alberto Moravia. I thought the obviousness of the story a factor in dulling its effectiveness. Clerici wishes to join the Fascist secret police, and the man to whom he applies lists the reasons why people want to join, but expresses puzzlement over not being able to fathom Clerici’s motives. This scene is intercut with another in which Clerici explains to a friend that he craves ‘normality’. Everything is laid out for the viewer.

It may be that the intention is to demonstrate that Clerici doesn’t understand the difference between normalcy and conformity, between being contentedly ordinary and following the crowd to fit in. If so, then the movie damages its own argument, since becoming a Fascist would be normal - for the time and place - but joining the secret police would not be. No one associated with a totalitarian police force could claim normalcy.

The dénouement is a brief scene set in 1943, when Mussolini has fallen. Clerici accepts this event blandly, which doesn’t seem right, considering what he had become, and his actions toward an old friend, while fitting, are predictable.

While I can recommend The Conformist for its look and sympathies, the story is neither exciting nor demanding enough for the scale of the production or its intention.