OK, so, I try very hard to stay as nonpolitical as possible when I write here. My audience is small to the point of nonexistent, and I don’t think anyone is reading these Stacker Countdown entries anyway, but the point stands. Political ideas can lead to, well, let’s say unpleasant interactions with strangers and leave it at that. But this particular film is about a Fascist, as in a member of the Italian Fascist party under Mussolini during the 1930s and early 1940s. To that end, I’ll say a little right here about what I believe fascism is, and then I will move on: fascism, as I understand it, at its most basic level is a reaction against socialism as a political and economic philosophy. Whenever socialism starts to look like a viable option to enough people, fascism pops up to oppose it. There’s no hard and fast definition to fascism because, unlike pretty much every other political or economic system, there’s no actual fascist philosopher. The most serious thinkers on the subject, none of whom adhere to fascism, tend to point out a few basic things: it’s often rooted in the fear of the other or the outsider; it’s often concerned with an ill-defined, mythical past; it puts great emphasis on strength as a concept; and while it is possible to keep democracy under fascism, there is a great deal of emphasis put on a single, theoretically charismatic strongman leader. Fascism is known more by its symptoms than anything else.
That said, about all anyone needs to know with The Conformist is that director Bernardo Bertolucci was inspired in part by the work of Leni Riefenstahl during the 30s to give his film a certain look that, well, screams fascism without actually defining it. As I see it, fascism is something that is hard to define, but you may know it when you see it, at least as an outsider.
The Conformist, based on a novel of the same name, is the story of Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant). He’s a Fascist party bureaucrat tasked with the assassination of his former mentor, Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), a vocal anti-fascist living in exile in Paris. Marcello is able to go to Paris by using his honeymoon to the beautiful, fun-loving Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) as cover. With that basic set-up, it would be easy to assume the drab, overly serious Marcello is a true believer in the Fascist cause. Except, well, he isn’t, and even his superiors seem to know that. No, the one thing Marcello really wants is the appearance of normalcy. As he asks his blind friend Italo (José Quaglio) about his upcoming marriage to Giulia, complete with a “dowry” that includes a well-endowed young maid, he’s mostly concerned with the appearance of normalcy. In fact, he seems outright disinterested in fooling around with his fiancé, despite what he told Italo, when he is visiting her. It was enough to make me wonder if Marcello was gay or something. He wasn’t, and that might have been asking too much for a film made in 1970 (at least it would have been in the United States since Italy might have been cool with a gay lead character for all I know), but my assumption was part of Marcello’s interest in normalcy was his attraction to other men.
By the by, I wouldn’t say this film is entirely humorless, but it seems as if the most humorous joke, if you can call it that, is to have the blind Italo say how he notices how some things are the same only for Bertolucci’s camera then to pan down and reveal the man is wearing mismatched shoes.
With all that in mind, why might Marcello value normalcy? There are some clues. He did grow up in an aristocratic household. His mother seems to be a morphine addict with a whole lot of dogs in their palatial estate, getting the drugs from a chauffeur known as “Trees”. He may also be using her for her body. His father is in a mental institution suffering from the long term effects of what is possibly syphilis (he doesn’t want to say in the one scene he appears in when Marcello asks), and these sorts of things seem more embarrassing than anything else. As for Marcello himself, he believes that, at the age of 13, he murdered a man named Lino (Pierre Clémenti), another chauffeur who had picked the boy up, taken the lad to see his gun, and possibly sexually abused him, prompting Marcello to take the gun, fire numerous shots around the room, and possibly kill Lino. Lino’s shooting takes place off-screen, and Marcello, thanks to the duel trauma of the assault and killing a man, seems to have become the withdrawn individual that he is.
Seriously, chauffeurs are not to be trusted in this film. That includes Marcello’s assistant/handler Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) since he seems to be there to keep Marcello on the proper path while driving him everywhere. Though Manganiello is the reason Trees goes away, so chauffeurs may be most dangerous to each other.
Regardless, the monochrome, monotone Marcello marries Giulia, his opposite in every way, and heads off to Paris to take out Professor Quadri. This seems open and shut. Marcello has no deep objection to Quadri’s death, but an opening sequence, one showing Marcello in his Parisian hotel room taking a phone call while Giulia sleeps next to him, suggests that he wants a woman to not be harmed. What woman might that be? Quadri’s much-younger wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), a ballet teacher who Marcello takes a shining to, largely because he thinks he’s seen her before. He sort of has: Sanda played a prostitute servicing Marcello’s superior earlier in the film. Regardless, Anna is the sort of woman that can beguile Marcello. She seems to beguile Giulia too, making advances on both parties. Quadri, meanwhile, isn’t fooled for a minute when Marcello looks him up after many years. He knows his former pupil threw his lot in with the Fascists. And in the end, the only life Marcello cares about saving is Anna’s. Too bad there had to be no witnesses, and he doesn’t seem moved enough to help her when she realizes he’s sitting in the car observing her husband’s death as the killers come to finish her off.
Except, the irony at the end is that Marcello’s desire for normalcy means he’ll outlive the party. After the death of the Quadris, the film skips forward a few years. Marcello and Giulia are living in Rome with a young daughter. Mussolini has fallen, and pro-monarchists are celebrating in the streets. In fact, I think the only time Giulia complains about anything in the entire film is here when she wishes the happy celebrants would turn down the noise a bit. Marcello, going out with Italo, discovers the most unexpected thing: Lino, the chauffeur Marcello believed he had murders years earlier, is alive and well and chatting up another young man. The revelation allows Marcello to do something he hasn’t done in the entire film: show a lot of emotion. And it isn’t pleasant either since it involves denouncing Lino as the murderer of Professor Quadri, a gay man, and a pedophile to a pro-monarchist crowd. And heck, he’ll denounce poor blind Italo while he’s at it.
Yeah, apparently, when the only thing you want is normalcy, it’s really easy to switch sides. And when your whole reason to support obvious bad guys is no longer relevant, it’s probably even easier. And yet, the conformist still got at least two innocent people killed, particularly Anna. His marriage looks to be a lot less fun. And he just denounced his only friend to a mob. I think it’s safe to say he may not have learned that many lessons in the end. Quite frankly, that also sounds pretty normal for far too many people.
NEXT: A wise man once said that there are three things you should never discuss in polite society: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin. I just covered politics. I don’t think there is a film about the Great Pumpkin. So, how about a film that I absolutely loved the one time I saw it about the use and misuse of religion? Be back soon for the entry on the 1955 thriller (or horror film depending on whom you ask) The Night of the Hunter.
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