In Mussolini’s Italy, repressed Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant), trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode – and murder – joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in, flashing back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) and lover Anna (Dominique Sanda) dancing the tango in a working-class hall – just some of the many anthology highlights of Bertolucci’s masterpiece and first international hit.
The Conformist is a lavishly produced Freudian political melodrama, a portrait of the psychological need to conform and be “normal” at the social level in general and the political level in particular. The screenplay is based on Alberto Moravia’s 1951, with a score by the great Georges Delerue (Contempt, Jules et Jim, etc.) and breathtaking color cinematography by the Oscar-winning Vittorio Storaro.
The first American release (1970) was trimmed by 5 minutes compared to the Italian release. The missing scene, which features blind people dancing, was restored in the 1996 reissue. The restored version is the original theatrical version. In 2011, the Cineteca di Bologna commissioned a 2K restoration of The Conformist, supervised by Storaro himself (and approved by Bertolucci), which screened in the Cannes Classics series on May 11, 2011, in conjunction with the presentation of honorary Palme d’Or to Bertolucci.