Movie Review – The Conformist

The Conformist (1970)
Written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Time and again, people in the States seem to conflate fascism with iconography. Yes, that is undoubtedly a piece of the ideology, but its believers are clever enough to know that continuing to wear swastikas and black leather while goosestepping isn’t going to sow seeds anymore. The danger of fascism is how much like the mundane & ordinary it can appear. This is where “I was just following orders” emerges from. You can be a mild-mannered civil servant, just signing the papers across your desk and filing them correctly. Nothing wrong with that, right? If those papers are in connection to greenlighting death camps or murdering political dissidents, then it doesn’t seem like you are “just doing your job.” You are carrying water for a type of thought that seeks to annihilate every last atom of humanity in us.

Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is just such a person. He was a civil servant for the Italian government during Mussolini’s regime. Through flashbacks, we learn about his troubled upbringing: his father is in an insane asylum, his mother is addicted to morphine, and a man named Lino sexually assaulted Marcello as a child. As an adult, Marcello is engaged to Giulia, whose strict Catholic upbringing means the couple must go to confession before the church will marry them. 

Marcello admits that he doesn’t really love his soon-to-be bride. He wants normalcy and calmness, and he believes marriage can provide that. Upon hearing of Marcello’s work for the Fascists, the priest works past his initial qualms and forgives our protagonist. Eventually, Luca, a former university professor, returns to Marcello’s life with his wife, Anna. This rekindling of an old friendship sends Marcello hurtling down a dark path that will end his life, crumbling into a nightmare.

As this is the start of a series looking at selected neo-noir films, we need some background on this sub-genre. Noir was a popular genre of literature and film that started in the 1920s. It focused on stories of human frailty in the face of a cruel world. They were often presented as mysteries or crime movies but ultimately had nihilistic views of humanity. It’s generally considered that the noir genre ended in 1959 and that everything that came after has been neo-noir. There’s no strict definition for this, but they are films that tell stories similar to classic noir but either transplanted to a culture outside of the standard locales like Los Angeles or making commentary on tropes of the genre. Goddard’s Breathless is one of the earliest neo-noirs and not his only attempt at the genre.

The Conformist is included in the genre because its central character goes on a long night’s journey of the soul, complete with betrayal, sex, murder, and a descent into madness. Bertolucci uses Marcello to comment on the reactionary desire for “normalcy.” The conclusion here is that a “normal life” is bought by doing obscene things. In this instance, Marcello is commissioned to murder someone he cares about to prove himself to the Fascists. To have the life he so desperately desires, he must trade in pieces of his humanity and connections with others. This, in turn, forces us to question what exactly is normal about such a horrific thing.

In many ways, Bertolucci is attempting psychoanalysis of your average fascist. He’s driven by profound internal shame. He’s ashamed of his parents, whom he can’t show to the world. Then there’s his sexual assault, which caused him to question his sexuality, something he’s refused to deal with or come to terms with. Marcello already believes he’s committed murder when we are introduced to him, and that is an additional suffocating layer of shame. 

This doesn’t excuse Marcello’s descent into fascism, but it does inform us as to how people get pulled into the quicksand. Shame leads to a sense of inferiority, and fascism presents an opportunity to punch down and, therefore, declare yourself as superior. Marcello doesn’t desire to be a despot like Mussolini; he wants the kind of life he imagines will “fix him,” which is a potent lure to get someone to do horrible things.

Now, look at the ghouls that infect online media these days, particularly those speaking about masculinity. They present a fantasy for young men, a path to “normalcy.” They just need a wife who is a silent domestic sex slave. They need to hustle & grind to the point of mental collapse so they can afford shit they don’t need. They need to submit to the hierarchy of capitalism and help by punching down or punching to death anyone they deem as “below them.” 

This type of hyper-individualism never results in peace & tranquility. If you can turn against this group of people, you’ll learn how easy it is to turn against every group of people. By the end of The Conformist, as the Mussolini regime is slaughtered, Marcello runs through the streets, knowing he has no friends anymore. It’s every man for himself. The ultimate capitalist endgame. When we refuse to heal our inner pain, it will almost always result in external violence.

Beyond the rich storytelling happening in The Conformist, it is also a visual pleasure. I suspected while I was watching, only to have it confirmed after, that this film significantly influenced the look of The Godfather and Miller’s Crossing. Like Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7, each scene feels like Bertolucci and his cinematographer Vittorio Storaro picking a technique or two and doing the work to make them perfect on screen. Coppola was impressed as he employed Storaro as the DP on Apocalypse Now nine years later. 

At every instant, the filmmakers deliver some of the most gorgeous, well-designed film compositions I’ve ever seen. That takes The Conformist from being a crime story in Fascist Italy into a transcendent realm. The images tell the story far better than exposition could. I can’t stop thinking about the film’s concluding moments as Marcello attempts to stealthily slip through Rome while the hunt is on for fascists. Off-screen, dozens and dozens of flashlights sweep, and our main character is trying to go unseen. 

The Conformist’s most crucial aspect is that it clearly communicates that Marcello is not some unique exception. There are hundreds, thousands, maybe millions just like him. They just want to live quietly, undisturbed, and they have decided state-sponsored violence is a perfectly acceptable option to get there. They can only fully comprehend what they are once it is too late. Marcello is not a political creature in his mind; he doesn’t see this as tied to supporting one side or the other. It’s pure guile, and he thinks he is more cunning than those not choosing this path. Chilling and horrifyingly still relevant, The Conformist is one of the great film treatises on this mindset.