The Conformist

The Conformist (Il conformista, 1971) is Bernardo Bertolucci's Italian psychological drama — watch it online on iFILM. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Marcello Clerici, a man so desperate to be ordinary that he signs up to murder his former professor, now a political exile living quietly in Paris. That's what fitting in costs under fascism.

Travelling to France on this errand, Marcello runs into Dominique Sanda, whose confidence and freedom expose exactly what he buried to become acceptable. Stefania Sandrelli plays his wife — chosen precisely because she doesn't ask hard questions. The whole film is a portrait of a man who made himself into nothing, then had to act on it.

Bertolucci adapted Alberto Moravia's novel, but the real co-author was cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, whose shadow-drenched frames here have been studied by filmmakers for fifty years. It's one of the most visually precise movies ever made about cowardice. Watch The Conformist (1971) online on iFILM.