IL CONFORMISTA (1970)
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
111 minutes
In Italian with English subtitles
Over the years this film has been acknowledged as one of the key films of Italian cinema from the 70s. Based on the novel by Alberto Moravia, this cinematic gem concerns one of Bertolucci\'s dominant themes--the duality of sex and politics--in telling the story of Marcello (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant of TROIS COLOR ROUGE), a 30-year-old man haunted by the memory of a sexually traumatic childhood experience. As an adult he feels abnormal, and therefore Marcello wants nothing more than to fit in and conform in every way he can to Italian society. So he marries the dim-witted, petit-bourgeois Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), and willfully joins the Italian Fascist movement.
Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. And that is to look up an old professor Quadri who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. As he grows attracted to Quadri's bisexual wife Anna (the lovely Dominique Sanda), who is in turn attracted to Giulia, Marcello's path of duplicity parallels that of Mussolini's downfall.
The Conformist is known as a dazzling stylistic breakthrough, with sweeping camera movements, oblique angles, and innovative editing brilliantly applied to Bertolucci\'s theme of sexual-political conflict. Technically, The Conformist\'s brilliant cinematography, directed by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Last Tango in Paris), combines some of the finest low budget set decorations in film history to poetically evoke a 1930s setting that seems simultaneously real and surreal. With Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dominique Sandra and Pierre Clementi.
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OLD NEW
Directed by Pierre Clementi
63 minutes
Clementi\'s experimental/poetic autobiography, a diary-like chronicle that flashes from the Nazi occupation of Paris straight through the riots of Mai 68 into the punk scene. With small appearances of Viva (from Warhol\'s scene), Klaus Kinski and Udo Kier. This film will be screened after the feature film.
CINEMA DERIVE
OVERTOOM 301 20:30
Membership 4 Euros for the evening
Location
Overtoom 301, Amsterdam
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