Film Review: Conformista by Bernardo Bertolucci - Essay Example

?Film Review: II Conformista (The Conformist) by Bernardo Bertolucci Introduction If literature is the reflection of life then definitely reel life does evolve from the real life. Bernardo Bertolucci is one such director who makes cinema inspired from life. This Italian director directed many renowned films such as Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky and acclaimed film like The Dreamers. Bertolucci also received recognition and praises across the globe for his epoch making film The Conformist. Released in the year 1970, the film is based on the novel bearing the same title by Alberto Moravia published in the year 1951. Bertolucci adapted the plot from the novel and manifested his screenplay for the film. The film casts volley of stars including, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dominique Sanda, Stefania Sandrelli, Enzo Tarascio and Gastone Moschin. Set against the background of 1930s the film projects Fascist era displaying the cosy and shabby drawing rooms of the middle-class and the huge grand halls of the elite. The Conformist is a political drama which appeared before its audience with collaboration of the film companies from Italy, France and West Germany. The Conformist: The Review The film opens with a thrilling plan for the assassination of Luca Quadri played by Enzo Tarascio. Luca happens to be the professor of Marcello Clerici played by Jean-Louis. The scene shifts very fast to a sequence inside the car driven by Manganiello, a role played by Gastone Moschin. Manganiello and Marcello were seen trying to pursue the professor and his wife. The plot then takes an oscillation into a series of flashbacks where discussion with the blind friend Italo takes place regarding his plans of marriage, his awful and bizarre pursuit to engage himself with the fascist secret police and his adventurous and thrilling encounters with his mother addicted with morphine and his mad father at the asylum. And through these series of flashbacks Marcello’s life actually gets explored before the audience, his trajectory from a weak-willed man into a man mere puppet in the hands of fascists who goes to the limit of planning an assassination of his own one-time professor, now a political nonconformist who gives birth to the conformist manifested through the plot of the film. The film ends with the backdrop of fall of Benito Mussolini in the year 1943. Marcello is shown having a kid by that time and is settled in his life more or less. He claims Lino as a gay and his seducer. He calls him fascist as well. He calls him publicly a manipulator for the murder plan of his professor Quadri and his wife. He is in a fit and frenzy and by the time he attempts to denounce his blind friend Italo, he finds him swept off by a crowd belonging to a new party movement quite unknown to Marcello. The film ends with Marcello the hero and the protagonist sitting before a small fire. The light of the fire captures his intent emotions, his undisturbed gaze at the man sitting behind him was Lino with whom he was talking a couple of hours back. A deep delineation into the plot of the film, The Conformist one can easily confront the psychological insight with which Bertolucci presents a case-study for the rise and fall of fascism and mind set impacted and associated with the movement. The trajectory of dehumanised Marcello suffered by sexual abuse and trauma in the childhood to his attempt to get back into the general and normal trend of life is definitely a food for thought imbibed and percolated through this sensible film-making. Apart from this, a prolific presentation of human emotions in distress has been meticulously portrayed by the series of serious acting by the casts throughout. Music of a film is like the heat beat of a mammal. It alarms about life. The musical score for the film was delivered by Georges Delerue. The impact of the fascist movement on life and get back to a period of 30s through music was quite challenging. However, Delerue has done a definite justice to the film keeping in mind the time of the plot in which the movie was set against. The cinematography of the film is done by Vittorio Storaro and editing by Franco Arcalli. As a cinematographer Vittorio’s contribution in the development of the film, The Conformist is unparalleled. The sharp edge cuts and close shots of the characters where every facial action and emotion of the casts gets captivated are impeccable. As a political and psychological drama, the film The Conformist has gained acclamation. And the main credit to this definitely goes to the cinematographer of the film. As regards to the editing of the movie, there were a number of challenges involved in this area as well. The film captivates many flashbacks through which Marcello’s life gets unfold. The coherence and synchronization of the present and the past without any fragment was the credit of the fine and sharp editing of the film. With regard to the setting and costume of the film, The Conformist is definitely a period film as it is set against the backdrop of periods pertaining to 20s and 30s. Depiction of World War I, or the fascist movements, the elites and the bureaucrats of the time, all were clearly depicted through the sets and costumes of the film. All these were so well co-ordinated and cohesive with the plot of the film that it enabled to recreate the by-gone era of tyranny even after a gap of forty years. Conclusion The film The Conformist is generally appealing. Despite displaying a hard-core political content in the film, it is not very obscure for the general mass to comprehend the theme of the film. The play of music, light, shade and colour in the movie makes it a brilliant panorama on the silver screen and the acting and screenplay impart a poetic quality to the film which is a typical mark of a Bertolucci film. The only difficult area in the film is the continuous interplay of the intellectual plot enriched with political content in the film. It really takes a lot of understanding of politics and history at times to comprehend the latent plot within the main plot of the film. With a little bit of shortcoming and a lot of aesthetic inputs to cherish, the film The Conformist stands out with a rare combination of aesthetic and intelligent film making amalgamated at a single frame. Read More