Great Directors: Bertolucci chews the scenery
***This is the third of five in-depth essays on great directors.***
The Conformist might not be Bernardo Bertolucci’s greatest film (it is in no way my favorite), but it fulfills the essence of what the famous director believes: challenge authority, topple the norm, be subversive at all costs. The incestuous, riot-provoking teens of The Dreamers obliged to this mantra, as did Paul and Jeanne in that steamy apartment in Last Tango in Paris. Even to a certain extent did Lucy Harmon, the tattered soul in search of resolution in one of Bertolucci’s tamer films, Stealing Beauty. His films deal with moral corruption at the basest levels, on levels that are so human and so simple that to even question them is in its own right a subversive act. Notice in The Conformist how Marcello, during his confession, argues with the priest so vehemently the priest must stop and correct him — “You are talking to a priest,” the man of the cloth says. Marcello waves it off, as if no priest will hold his beliefs hostage. He talks about his “carnal sin” and a murder and then rails on the priest when he wants to know more about one and less about the other. “You don’t care that I murdered, only that I never went to confession,” he says. I think this scene is evocative of Bertolucci’s style because confession is a rather simple act, but because his characters deal in truth — or just subverting the truth — a simple confession can turn into a hateful rage fueled by a man’s lust for self-worth, which is maybe why Marcello was a cog in a very large Fascist machine. The confessional scene is also very funny to me: all Marcello had to do was complete a confession for his wife, but he makes it this big argument, this massive revelation of his character. It signals his uncompromising position in the film’s landscape.
Every time I see The Conformist it reminds me more and more of three movies. The first one is Jean-Luc-Godard’s Breathless, which was released a decade earlier. More on the other two later. Breathless, the film that sparked the powder keg called French New Wave, was told utilizing a technique I call Abstraction Interaction: it broke the fourth wall, it featured a staccato composition of jump cuts and other camera trickery, and frequently did nothing at all inside its story — yet nothing at all, of course, is very much something. The Conformist, which is also set in Paris like Breathless, rolled forward (literally, too, as Marcello drives to the assassination) on a series of flashbacks, utilizing a hard-to-follow story structure, allowing room for his characters to vent and mull over their lives. Occasionally the film would jump between points with such sharp precision, and to jarring effect, that it would unseat the viewer inside its time loop. Notice the way Marcello gets out of the car at the beginning and begins walking in the mist and fog. The scene cuts quick to the tree-lined street where Marcello, as a young boy, meets the chauffer. Then back to the mist and fog, and finally back again to the boy and his first homosexual experience. Or notice in the scene when Marcello agrees to go to confession that there is an obvious jump cut, or maybe just a continuity error (which is unlikely). One moment he’s leaning against a wall, the next he’s away from it embracing his wife who is happy he has agreed to talk to a priest. Are we seeing a subjective perspective of Marcello’s life? I think we are and Bertolucci utilizes an almost New Wave-like style to hammer it home.
The other two movies it reminds me greatly of are rather strange comparisons to make: The Godfather and Star Wars, both because they share interior space. Bertolucci gave his Conformist interesting rooms to work in. They’re large spacious halls, marble-lined antechambers, padded green rooms and the claustrophobic professor’s homes. With each, though, they have character. That’s what reminds me of The Godfather, with its large offices and meeting rooms with darkened corners. The settings don’t serve the story so much, but they become great because great things are discussed in them. And even though the characters barely interact with furniture, lamps or fixtures in the room, they are memorable and full of character and personality. That’s the way I feel about The Conformist and its various interiors. There’s also another element, the Fascist element to the interior designs and the architecture. This is what reminds me of Star Wars, which had numerous empire sets designed to look cold and evil, fascist to a certain degree. The echoing chambers of the Ministry of the Interior, the colorless Greek-like insane asylum, the large waiting areas where men with falcons and busts criss-cross the halls … these are rooms that bolster the fascist elements of this film. I find humor in the way George Lucas borrowed camera angles and setups from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of Will, a film that chronicled Hitler’s ascent to power at Nuremberg in 1934. Maybe Triumph of the Will, through Star Wars and The Conformist, was the film that told us large, stone rooms with high ceilings and cold surfaces made for fascist imagery.
It’s not just the rooms, though, it’s the way Bertolucci and his cinematographer move through them. Some things are framed slightly askew, or completely crooked, while others are just framed in a very unorthodox manner, using Camera Thirds (divide a frame horizontally and vertically into thirds and then center subjects on the intersections of those lines). Watch the blind party — as large a metaphor you can make without venturing into parody — how the camera hangs above people’s heads, making things almost out of frame completely. Then also watch the scene in the park as Marcello’s assassin comrade walk in the park talking to himself; watch as he sits down and the camera pans so the man is behind a tree. Through all these devices, Bertolucci was showing us the shifty perspective of Marcello’s narrative. As a whole I don’t much care for The Conformist, but the details, like the cinematography and the interiors, have always intrigued me. They’ve also shown how subversive Bertolucci can be with his filming style. He really does provoke us to think outside of what we already know and understand.
***This is the third of five in-depth essays on great directors.***
The Conformist might not be Bernardo Bertolucci’s greatest film (it is in no way my favorite), but it fulfills the essence of what the famous director believes: challenge authority, topple the norm, be subversive at all costs. The incestuous, riot-provoking teens of The Dreamers obliged to this mantra, as did Paul and Jeanne in that steamy apartment in Last Tango in Paris. Even to a certain extent did Lucy Harmon, the tattered soul in search of resolution in one of Bertolucci’s tamer films, Stealing Beauty. His films deal with moral corruption at the basest levels, on levels that are so human and so simple that to even question them is in its own right a subversive act. Notice in The Conformist how Marcello, during his confession, argues with the priest so vehemently the priest must stop and correct him — “You are talking to a priest,” the man of the cloth says. Marcello waves it off, as if no priest will hold his beliefs hostage. He talks about his “carnal sin” and a murder and then rails on the priest when he wants to know more about one and less about the other. “You don’t care that I murdered, only that I never went to confession,” he says. I think this scene is evocative of Bertolucci’s style because confession is a rather simple act, but because his characters deal in truth — or just subverting the truth — a simple confession can turn into a hateful rage fueled by a man’s lust for self-worth, which is maybe why Marcello was a cog in a very large Fascist machine. The confessional scene is also very funny to me: all Marcello had to do was complete a confession for his wife, but he makes it this big argument, this massive revelation of his character. It signals his uncompromising position in the film’s landscape.
Every time I see The Conformist it reminds me more and more of three movies. The first one is Jean-Luc-Godard’s Breathless, which was released a decade earlier. More on the other two later. Breathless, the film that sparked the powder keg called French New Wave, was told utilizing a technique I call Abstraction Interaction: it broke the fourth wall, it featured a staccato composition of jump cuts and other camera trickery, and frequently did nothing at all inside its story — yet nothing at all, of course, is very much something. The Conformist, which is also set in Paris like Breathless, rolled forward (literally, too, as Marcello drives to the assassination) on a series of flashbacks, utilizing a hard-to-follow story structure, allowing room for his characters to vent and mull over their lives. Occasionally the film would jump between points with such sharp precision, and to jarring effect, that it would unseat the viewer inside its time loop. Notice the way Marcello gets out of the car at the beginning and begins walking in the mist and fog. The scene cuts quick to the tree-lined street where Marcello, as a young boy, meets the chauffer. Then back to the mist and fog, and finally back again to the boy and his first homosexual experience. Or notice in the scene when Marcello agrees to go to confession that there is an obvious jump cut, or maybe just a continuity error (which is unlikely). One moment he’s leaning against a wall, the next he’s away from it embracing his wife who is happy he has agreed to talk to a priest. Are we seeing a subjective perspective of Marcello’s life? I think we are and Bertolucci utilizes an almost New Wave-like style to hammer it home.
The other two movies it reminds me greatly of are rather strange comparisons to make: The Godfather and Star Wars, both because they share interior space. Bertolucci gave his Conformist interesting rooms to work in. They’re large spacious halls, marble-lined antechambers, padded green rooms and the claustrophobic professor’s homes. With each, though, they have character. That’s what reminds me of The Godfather, with its large offices and meeting rooms with darkened corners. The settings don’t serve the story so much, but they become great because great things are discussed in them. And even though the characters barely interact with furniture, lamps or fixtures in the room, they are memorable and full of character and personality. That’s the way I feel about The Conformist and its various interiors. There’s also another element, the Fascist element to the interior designs and the architecture. This is what reminds me of Star Wars, which had numerous empire sets designed to look cold and evil, fascist to a certain degree. The echoing chambers of the Ministry of the Interior, the colorless Greek-like insane asylum, the large waiting areas where men with falcons and busts criss-cross the halls … these are rooms that bolster the fascist elements of this film. I find humor in the way George Lucas borrowed camera angles and setups from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of Will, a film that chronicled Hitler’s ascent to power at Nuremberg in 1934. Maybe Triumph of the Will, through Star Wars and The Conformist, was the film that told us large, stone rooms with high ceilings and cold surfaces made for fascist imagery.
It’s not just the rooms, though, it’s the way Bertolucci and his cinematographer move through them. Some things are framed slightly askew, or completely crooked, while others are just framed in a very unorthodox manner, using Camera Thirds (divide a frame horizontally and vertically into thirds and then center subjects on the intersections of those lines). Watch the blind party — as large a metaphor you can make without venturing into parody — how the camera hangs above people’s heads, making things almost out of frame completely. Then also watch the scene in the park as Marcello’s assassin comrade walk in the park talking to himself; watch as he sits down and the camera pans so the man is behind a tree. Through all these devices, Bertolucci was showing us the shifty perspective of Marcello’s narrative. As a whole I don’t much care for The Conformist, but the details, like the cinematography and the interiors, have always intrigued me. They’ve also shown how subversive Bertolucci can be with his filming style. He really does provoke us to think outside of what we already know and understand.
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