The Conformist (Extended Edition)
starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio, Fosco Giachetti
directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
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Product Description:
Studio: Paramount Home VideoRelease Date: 12/05/2006Rating: Ur
Amazon.com:
With The Conformist, Bernardo Bertolucci delivered one of his signature masterworks and joined the ranks of world-class directors. Based on the acclaimed novel by Alberto Moravia (who greatly admired Bertolucci's adaptation), this milestone of cinematic style concerns one of Bertolucci's dominant themes--the duality of sexual and political conflict--in telling the story of Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a 30-year-old Italian haunted by the memory of a sexually traumatic childhood experience. As an adult with repressed homosexual desires, Marcello wants nothing more than to conform to the upper-crust expectations of Italian society, so he marries the dim-witted, petit-bourgeois Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), and willfully joins the Italian Fascist movement, traveling from Rome to Paris with an assignment to assassinate his former academic mentor, Prof. Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). As he grows attracted to Quadri's bisexual wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), who is in turn attracted to Giulia, Marcello's path of duplicity parallels that of Mussolini's inevitable downfall. He's on an irreversible course of self-destruction, on which his troubled past and morally corrupted present will collide in a soul-crushing heap of personal contradictions.
While the psychosexual aspects of Bertolucci's Oscar®-nominated screenplay remain dramatically compelling, The Conformist is now better known as a dazzling stylistic breakthrough, with sweeping camera moves, oblique angles, and innovative editing brilliantly applied to Bertolucci's rich themes of internalized conflict. In close collaboration with master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci crafted one of the greatest films of the 1970s, offered here with its richly relevant "Dance of the Blind" scene fully intact. This five-minute scene was cut from the original American release, then restored for the film's 1994 re-release. It's a welcome enhancement of the film's suspenseful historical context, which is fully explored in three bonus featurettes in which Bertolucci and Storaro discuss the story, production, and innovative style of The Conformist in fascinating detail. For serious collectors of important films, The Conformist is absolutely essential. --Jeff Shannon
Studio: Paramount Home VideoRelease Date: 12/05/2006Rating: Ur
Amazon.com:
With The Conformist, Bernardo Bertolucci delivered one of his signature masterworks and joined the ranks of world-class directors. Based on the acclaimed novel by Alberto Moravia (who greatly admired Bertolucci's adaptation), this milestone of cinematic style concerns one of Bertolucci's dominant themes--the duality of sexual and political conflict--in telling the story of Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a 30-year-old Italian haunted by the memory of a sexually traumatic childhood experience. As an adult with repressed homosexual desires, Marcello wants nothing more than to conform to the upper-crust expectations of Italian society, so he marries the dim-witted, petit-bourgeois Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), and willfully joins the Italian Fascist movement, traveling from Rome to Paris with an assignment to assassinate his former academic mentor, Prof. Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). As he grows attracted to Quadri's bisexual wife Anna (Dominique Sanda), who is in turn attracted to Giulia, Marcello's path of duplicity parallels that of Mussolini's inevitable downfall. He's on an irreversible course of self-destruction, on which his troubled past and morally corrupted present will collide in a soul-crushing heap of personal contradictions.
While the psychosexual aspects of Bertolucci's Oscar®-nominated screenplay remain dramatically compelling, The Conformist is now better known as a dazzling stylistic breakthrough, with sweeping camera moves, oblique angles, and innovative editing brilliantly applied to Bertolucci's rich themes of internalized conflict. In close collaboration with master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci crafted one of the greatest films of the 1970s, offered here with its richly relevant "Dance of the Blind" scene fully intact. This five-minute scene was cut from the original American release, then restored for the film's 1994 re-release. It's a welcome enhancement of the film's suspenseful historical context, which is fully explored in three bonus featurettes in which Bertolucci and Storaro discuss the story, production, and innovative style of The Conformist in fascinating detail. For serious collectors of important films, The Conformist is absolutely essential. --Jeff Shannon
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- I didn't know
what to expect from this film. My expectations were quite modest. But after watching it's first 10 min I realized that it is something special. Towards the end I thought it is masterpiece.
Rating: 
- Tepid suspense at best in this simple morality tale
The story does begin in an engaging fashion with a distorted timeline and brillant cinematography. However, the overall malaise and idle philosophising of the story soon drag it down. Yes, it is a condemnation of fascism (how novel), but there is little riveting in the story, and the interal operations of the secret police are clownish as well. Not overly convincing or emotionally involving as the characters are shallow and little developed. Pass.
Rating: - Speaks directly to the psyche.
I came to my first viewing of The Conformist totally without preparation, having read no reviews nor even a synopsis. The only conditioning I had was a negative bias generated by the cover picture of a man in a business suit pointing a gun, as it suggested a theme about organized crime -a genre in which I have little interest. For those who like to be surprised and awestruck by imagery that delivers much more than expected, I recommend coming to this film without a lot of research, but its probably ... Read More
Rating: - Simply one of the best film ever made
I cannot do much to elaborate on the fine prior reviews here, except to say that Georges Delerue's spare score is integral and haunting.
It may be cinematographer Storaro's crowning achievement as a lense-man, Dominique Sanda's best outing, the classiest incorporation of Art Nouveau and Deco into a film,and, moreover, might be Bertolucci's most cohesive, unified work. It's simply, forgive an abused word, stunning on every darned level.
Rating: 
- Early Bertolucci
This is a movie that could be made in any era due to its timeless theme.Fascist Italy, however, is a perfect setting for "The Conformist" where as in all totalitarian states conformity is required, not an option.Jean-Louis Trintignant is perfectly cast as Marcello Clerici, a fascist assassin sent to Paris on a covert mission. Trintignant's slight figure, his humorless, unsmiling demeanor, and his consciously formal dress, including a hat that he cannot do without, project him as the perfect wannabe ... Read More
- I didn't knowwhat to expect from this film. My expectations were quite modest. But after watching it's first 10 min I realized that it is something special. Towards the end I thought it is masterpiece.
- Tepid suspense at best in this simple morality taleThe story does begin in an engaging fashion with a distorted timeline and brillant cinematography. However, the overall malaise and idle philosophising of the story soon drag it down. Yes, it is a condemnation of fascism (how novel), but there is little riveting in the story, and the interal operations of the secret police are clownish as well. Not overly convincing or emotionally involving as the characters are shallow and little developed. Pass.
- Speaks directly to the psyche.I came to my first viewing of The Conformist totally without preparation, having read no reviews nor even a synopsis. The only conditioning I had was a negative bias generated by the cover picture of a man in a business suit pointing a gun, as it suggested a theme about organized crime -a genre in which I have little interest. For those who like to be surprised and awestruck by imagery that delivers much more than expected, I recommend coming to this film without a lot of research, but its probably ... Read More
- Simply one of the best film ever madeI cannot do much to elaborate on the fine prior reviews here, except to say that Georges Delerue's spare score is integral and haunting.
It may be cinematographer Storaro's crowning achievement as a lense-man, Dominique Sanda's best outing, the classiest incorporation of Art Nouveau and Deco into a film,and, moreover, might be Bertolucci's most cohesive, unified work. It's simply, forgive an abused word, stunning on every darned level.
- Early BertolucciThis is a movie that could be made in any era due to its timeless theme.Fascist Italy, however, is a perfect setting for "The Conformist" where as in all totalitarian states conformity is required, not an option.Jean-Louis Trintignant is perfectly cast as Marcello Clerici, a fascist assassin sent to Paris on a covert mission. Trintignant's slight figure, his humorless, unsmiling demeanor, and his consciously formal dress, including a hat that he cannot do without, project him as the perfect wannabe ... Read More
