The Conformist

Il conformista

Trailer

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Italy, France, 1970

Crime, Thriller, History

113
Italian, French
English

Synopsis

An Italian man is drawn into the fascist party when he’s instructed to assassinate his former college professor, a vocal anti-fascist living in exile in France during the 1930s. Based on the 1951 novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia.

Our take

It doesn’t get better than Bertolucci’s stunning masterpiece (shot by the great Vittorio Storaro), one of the most influential films. It rabidly pursues unresolved tendrils of Italian wartime history with the stylized aplomb of the preceding French New Wave and the American movie brats to come.

The Conformist Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

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Awards & Festivals

Cannes Film Festival

2011

Berlin International Film Festival

1970 | 2 wins including: Interfilm Award - Recommendation

1990

Academy Awards

1972 | Nominee: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium

Locarno International Film Festival

1993

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Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

Critics reviews

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One of the greatest-looking movies ever made, it’s easily the most important revival screening in town this week. It remains a career best for cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who also shot Apocalypse Now and Warren Beatty’s Reds. The Conformist features rich, deep colors and lots of gorgeous and precise camera movement; you could watch it with the sound off and it would be no less impressive.

Ben Sachs

October 13, 2017

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Bertolucci presents Alberto Moravia’s tale in a complex flashback structure full of Ophulsian lighting and some borrowed camera movements from Welles… Marcello’s repressed and displaced homosexual energy is the highlight of the spontaneous ideas appearing as oneiric, intercut flashbacks.

Samantha Vacca

June 08, 2016

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If Trintignant portrays Marcello with purposeful banality, Bertolucci uses elaborately stylized composition and cutting to tell the protagonist’s story. Compositions regularly marginalize characters against vast backdrops, shoving heads down to the bottom of the frame to lend greater importance to cavernous, fascist architecture and classical Italian décor. This produces innumerable great shots, most strikingly in the depictions of the rotting wealth of Marcello’s family.

Jake Cole

November 24, 2014

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What are people saying?

Nick Potter's rating of the film The Conformist
Nick Potter

There's a reason that Bernardo Bertolucci is considered one of the greats, and The Conformist is a terrific legacy. Terrific surreal story that doesn't go so far that it becomes entirely ridiculous. Mesmerizing cinematography that feels just like a painting. The humor is just subtle enough that you almost forget the presence of it in between moments that are borderline screwball. A true classic.
March 07, 2019 01:00
- 6
- 0
jamesey's rating of the film The Conformist
jamesey

It's beautiful to watch. You could watch it without subtitles or sound, and be mesmerized by what's on screen. As a bonus for watching you get a great, complex story too!
March 07, 2019 01:00
- 3
- 0
Brian Marks's rating of the film The Conformist
Brian Marks

Bertolucci's film is one of the best designed films ever made. Italy's imposing fascist architecture is used to amplify the oppressiveness of Mussolini's regime. Jean-Louis Trintignant has one of his best roles as a government operative desperate to hide the effects of a history of sexual abuse and complicated sexual attractions. Only by volunteering to commit crimes for the fascists is he able to hide his true self.
March 07, 2019 01:00
- 5
- 0
Kurt Öhrström's rating of the film The Conformist
Kurt Öhrström

A masterpiece! One of the best films I have ever seen. Trintignant, Sanda and Sandrelli are also fantastic.
November 14, 2012 12:33
- 3
- 0
Stephen Campbell's rating of the film The Conformist
Stephen Campbell

Probably my favourite Bertolucci film and the one which bought him to international fame. All the performances are spot on and Vittorio Storao's camera work gives the film a high gloss sheen . One to saivour
March 03, 2019 20:54
- 3
- 0
High Contrast's rating of the film The Conformist
High Contrast

The fact this was conceived in a linear fashion and then only broken up into the disruptive narrative shape we see in the finished film during the editing stage, just kinda blows my mind. One of the most gorgeously shot films. And Dominique Sanda is crushingly beautiful.
March 19, 2010 02:04
- 1
- 0
francisca bacon's rating of the film The Conformist
francisca bacon

such a waste of time. why attempt carve the rushmore with the spoon? for the sake of it. that is what bertoluuci does in this movie. all the mobilised efforts fall somewhere in a void where useless spectacle strides in an airless aquarium. less unbearable than novecento though.
January 24, 2019 16:37
- 4
- 2
josé neves's rating of the film The Conformist
josé neves

DCP, Cineteca di Bologna's digital restoration, rewatched,re-rating. A bit of personal history: at age 19, this film and Bertolucci were my nec plus ultra-the beginnings of cinephilia can carry indefinable shame-, and this film held a very special place. Now, in spite of some brilliant moments- brilliance is intrinsic to it -, and some good scenes, stand out, above all, a heavy and demonstrative formalism for praise.
March 10, 2019 22:50
- 5
- 0