The Conformist (Il conformista) Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Tritignant), an inscrutable civil servant in Mussolini's Italy, attempts to quell a conflicted sub-conscious by assuming an implacable veneer of conventionality. The will to conform leads Clerici down a dangerous path to moral dissolution when he volunteers to spy on a former mentor, the anti-Fascist Professor Quadri, who is living in Paris with his wife Anna (Dominique Sanda).
Under cover of a honeymoon trip with his model middle-class wife Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), Clerici is engulfed in a vortex of desire and betrayal. He is forced to confront disquieting truths about his nature and the lengths to which he will be prepared to go to expiate his sense of shame.
New 35mm print.
"Luxuriates in striking Art Deco production design and Vittorio Storaro's impossibly lush cinematography. An opulent palimpsest of Freud and Marx, Godard and Vogue, The Conformist signalled Bertolucci's shift to the baroque style that he would take even further in 1900 and The Last Emperor" - Toronto International Film Festival
