Jean-Louis Trintignant in Il conformista 156
formista the son, Trintignant, betrays Professor Quadri (the father figure), while in Strategia del ragno Athos the father is the traitor. Both, however, deal with parricide based on a past and a memory. In Il conformista the memory is of French and American film from the ‘30s, while Strategia del ragno was fed by real childhood memories (…). I shot Il conformista leaving it open to the possibility of telling it chronologically, like the novel by Moravia. Right from the start I was fascinated by the possibility of using the car journey as the film’s “present”, a kind of vessel for the story. In other words, the main character travels in his memory as well. For this reason I shot a lot of material for Trintignant’s trip. With a great e<strong>di</strong>tor like Kim [Arcalli], bit by bit you can see the structure of the film materialize as it is created. A film’s structure is only outlined by the screenplay. It begins to exist and manifest itself during filming. But it is during the e<strong>di</strong>ting phase that it takes shape definitively. Bernardo Bertolucci, in Enzo Ungari, Scene madri <strong>di</strong> Bernardo Bertolucci, Ubulibri, Milan 1982 Non è il caso <strong>di</strong> analizzare minutamente come e in che misura il giovane Bertolucci abbia mo<strong>di</strong>ficato, con una libertà che sfiora la sana insolenza e nel quadro <strong>di</strong> una obbligata potatura, figure e fatti che affollano le quattrocento pagine del romanzo moraviano per ridurle a una durata inferiore alle due ore. Basti <strong>di</strong>re che le ottanta pagine del prologo (…) sono risolte in una breve sequenza, frammentata dal montaggio secondo quella <strong>di</strong>storsione allucinata della visione che è una delle cifre stilistiche dominanti del film. (…) Il sesso e il fascismo sono i due poli del Conformista. O, se si preferisce, la polpa e la buccia. Il conformista Marcello ha sete <strong>di</strong> normalità per coprire la propria inconfessata e temuta anormalità sessuale. È fascista perché vede nel fascismo il mito collettivo cui immolare, nel miraggio dell’or<strong>di</strong>ne, il proprio <strong>di</strong>sor<strong>di</strong>ne, quel che lo fa <strong>di</strong>verso dagli altri. In nome del fascismo uccide, nell’illusione <strong>di</strong> riscattare un delitto precedente con un’azione criminosa, ma legalizzata. Risulta piuttosto chiaro che in Marcello il fascismo è l’accidente, il conformismo è la sostanza: questo conformismo è fascista, ma po- trebbe essere altro in <strong>di</strong>verse circostanze storiche. Sarebbe comodo ridurre Il conformista a un film “sul” fascista, cioè in costume, trascurandone la carica critica <strong>di</strong> una classe e <strong>di</strong> una generazione. Morando Moran<strong>di</strong>ni, Il conformista, da In viaggio con Bernardo. Il cinema <strong>di</strong> Bernardo Bertolucci, a cura <strong>di</strong> Roberto Campari e Maurizio Schiaretti, Marsilio, Venezia 1994 This is not the place to meticulously analyze how and to what extent young Bertolucci – between a freedom bordering on healthy insolence and trimming that was necessary – changed the figures and facts filling the four hundred pages of Moravia’s novel and reducing it to less than two hours. Suffice it to say that the eighty pages of the prologue (…) are turned into a short sequence, interspersed with hallucinatory, <strong>di</strong>storted visual effects, one of the dominant stylistic features of the film. (…) Sex and fascism are the two extremes of Il conformista. Or, if one prefers, the pulp and the skin. Conformist Marcello thirsts for normality to cover his unspoken, feared sexual abnormality. He becomes a fascist because he sees in fascism a collective Jean-Louis Trintignant e Dominique Sanda in Il conformista myth to which he can sacrifice his own <strong>di</strong>sorder, what makes him <strong>di</strong>fferent from the others, in a mirage of order. He kills for fascism under the illusion of redeeming a previous crime with a criminal but legalized action. It is evident that Marcello is a fascist by chance, in reality he is a conformist: his conformism is fascist, but it could be another kind in <strong>di</strong>fferent historical circumstances. It would be easy to reduce the film Il conformista to being a film “about” the fascist, as a costume, neglecting its powerful criticism of a class and of a generation. Morando Moran<strong>di</strong>ni, Il conformista, in In viaggio con Bernardo. Il cinema <strong>di</strong> Bernardo Bertolucci, e<strong>di</strong>ted by Roberto Campari and Maurizio Schiaretti, Marsilio, Venice 1994 157
Change language