The Conformist (1970)

Original title

Il conformista

Directed by

Bernardo Bertolucci

Genre

drama film, neo-noir, LGBTQ-related film

Country

Germany, France, Italy

Runtime

1h 51m

Rated

R

Rating

7.6 of 10 from 772 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In 1930s Italy, a mid-level Fascist official is sent to Paris to kill his former professor who is an anti-Fascist activist. The mission gets complicated when he starts an affair with the professor's wife.

tensestylishmelancholicslow-burnunsettlingvisually lushcerebraldarkbrooding

What happens

The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama film written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, based on the 1951 novel by Alberto Moravia. It stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio, Fosco Giachetti, José Quaglio, Dominique Sanda and Pierre Clémenti. Set in 1930s Italy, The Conformist centers on a mid-level Fascist functionary (Trintignant) who is ordered to assassinate his former professor, an anti-Fascist dissident in Paris. His mission is complicated after he begins an affair with the professor's wife (Sanda). An international co-production between Italian, French and West German companies, The Conformist opened at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. It received widespread acclaim from critics, and appeared on several lists of the best films of 1970. Among other accolades, it won the David di Donatello for Best Film, the Sutherland Trophy, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The cinematography, by Vittorio Storaro, was also highly praised and launched his international career. Retrospective reviews have been equally positive, both towards the film's cinematic merits as well as its political content. The film was highly influential towards later works, including Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, and has been cited as one of the greatest films of all time. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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