Opens Friday 29 February
"Bertolucci's audacious mixture of politics, philosophy and Freud"
"A sumptuous, emotionally charged experience"
"A visual masterpiece" **** A powerful psychological thriller and riveting exploration of Italy's Fascist past, The Conformist (Cert 15) is one of the most breathtakingly stylish films ever made and one of the most influential, paving the way for the likes of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Schrader. Adapted from a novel by Alberto Moravia, Bertolucci's masterpiece centres on Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a repressed young man desperate to appear normal to the outside world, who joins the Fascists as an undercover agent and undertakes to assassinate his former professor. The emotionally expressive lighting of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro has attracted much comment and acclaim. Storaro - who would go on to win Academy Awards for Apocalypse Now, Reds and The Last Emperor - describes thus his approach to the scenes set in Fascist Rome: "I wanted to show through light the idea of claustrophobia, of being caged. I used the idea that light could never reach the shadows, so that there was a distinct separation between the shadows and the light." The re-release of The Conformist is the centrepiece of Twilight and Treachery: The Postwar European Film Noir at BFI Southbank, from 29 February to 31 March. For further information and venues visit www.bfi.org.uk/conformist Opens Friday 29 February at
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