The Conformist, Part 1

Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone, to embrace in beliefs that may be contentious to others? Are you feeling desperate just to fit into the picture? Are you aiming for a form of flatness in life, which is not subject to any form of perturbations? These appear to be confrontational questions, yet they were exactly the questions Bernardo Bertolucci wanted his audience to think about in one of his most famous films – ‘The Conformist’ (1970)!

‘The Conformist’ was the film that has led Bertolucci to international stardom as a filmmaker in the early 1970s. Having won a number of awards around the world and an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, the film is memorable for being one of the most visually brilliant films in the history of cinema. I can say that is already pleasant by simply looking at the film images alone – the vibrant images constitute an organic unity of visual poetry that prove to be rare in cinema. Other than Bertolucci’s genius, the effort and creativity offered by the director of photography, Vittorio Storaro, was also essential for bringing ‘The Conformist’ to such a status. In fact, ‘The Conformist’ could be considered one of Storaro’s most iconic works, and Storaro is the rare sort of cinematographer that has its own photographic style, which I will discuss in the later passages of this article. No matter which filmmaker he has worked with, you can likely detect his presence through his signature style. Again, ‘The Conformist’ is a beautiful film one can easily fall in love with – and what is the problem if that is a really great one?

The story concerned Marcello, who lived in the Fascist era of Italy. He became a correspondent of Fascism, and his mission was to assassinate Professor Quadri, his teacher during his college years. Quadri, currently living in Paris, was involved in some political resistance against Fascism, and therefore was marked as a target for termination. The story was told in flashbacks, which explored the social, cultural and psychological reasons why Marcello became a Fascist and has developed an attitude of extreme Conformism to the political setting around him.


When one watches ‘The Conformist’, how can one not notice the stunning visual aspect of the film? While Bertolucci has been largely responsible for delivering such an impressive mise-en-scene, the achievement would not be possible without the hard work and vision of Vittorio Storaro, the director of photography who has collaborated on numerous occasions with Bertolucci. Storaro can be considered as the rare sort of cinrmatographer who has developed a unique and recognizable visual style as original as any filmmakers. Indeed, ‘The Conformist’ can be seen as one of Stararo’s major achievements, and the film can serve as a textbook example of how to do brilliant cinematography.



Storaro’s camera style has a few notable characteristics. First, that is the fluid and mobile camera movement, and that is so smooth that it appears as if the camera is dancing, and that gives the audience a flowing and liberating feel. He is also known for a narrative use of lighting effect, and often uses high contrast lighting effect to enhance the atompshere. His choice of colour and light usually led to expressive effects that contributed to the narrative and atmosphere of the scene. Storaro was particularly noted for a combination of colour tune consisting of cold blue/warm yellow, giving very contrasting and expressive results. Having a sound understanding of colour temperature, he has been able to make a number of beautitul Technicolor films with directors including Bertolucci.

Bertolucci and Storaro have drawn influenced from the artistic style most associated with Fascist Italy, in order to lead the audience into that particular political climate in the 1930s. Notice that the preferences were not merely visual gimmicks. The visual and camera or lighting style also served a narrative purpose. It illustrated the exaggerated situation of Marcello and the Fascist beliefs he attempted to embrace and conform to, much like the decors of Expressionism were used to externalize the madness of someone’s mind.

The film has a unique style of having contrasting light and dark/shadow often in the same shot, rather than a balanced or natural arrangement. This style was deliberate from the filmmakers likely because they tried to show the co-existence of conflicting ideologies, and most of all, good and evil that fought for control in the world.



The filmmakers have used light and dark to represent the Freudian conscious and unconscious respectively. They have decided to shoot the Italian scenes in a more claustrophobic way, and the color tone was dry and institutional, to show Marcello’s entrapment in the Fascist regime. In contrast, the French scenes were more balanced with light and dark, and the space was more open, as if offering Marcello an opportunity to escape – which of course he failed to grasp.

Before we finish here, I also want to divert a bit from ‘The Conformist’ and talk about Storaro’s impressive work in 2 other films, ‘Last Tango in Paris’ and also Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’. Of course, a common element between the two classics is the presence of Marlon Brando, and both films include a our-of-this-world monologue respectively – the one about Paul’s recollections in ‘Last Tango’, and Colonel Kurtz’s ‘Horror’ monologue in ‘Apocalypse’. Storaro seemed to have been using a similar style when he shot these two scenes, with an emphasis on the contrast of light and shadow, so that at some point Brando’s almost close-up face were in the dark, and then reappeared at the next moment, giving that a ghost-like quality. This approach seemed nicely with the message the directors were trying to convey, namely, the difficulty to access one’s mind in ‘Last Tango’, and the duality of Man in ‘Apocalypse’ - which, is very much the theme of 'The Conformist'.

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by Ed Law

Film Analysis