Wednesday, March 08, 2006

#9: The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)


Because the film's vicious beauty is part of its psychology.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is it not on DVD? That makes me so angry..

tim r said...

In this instance they might actually be doing you a favour. It's worth waiting years just to see it on the big screen!

Y Kant Goran Rite said...

It had a cinema re-release not that long ago, surely the DVD will follow soon?

In the meantime, The Conformist is very much one of my favorite movies. I'd say it's among the 3 or 4 most gorgeously photographed films of all time.

NicksFlickPicks said...

Whoa! Both of your top 10 entries so far have really surprised me, only because I've never heard you invoke them so augustly before. I've had La Ronde on my yearly to-watch list for two years running, so your stamp is, as always, a great endorsement for me to hurry up with that one. And I just got to see The Conformist for the second time in 35mm last month, and though I don't like it nearly as much as you do, I agree that it is Quite Something To Behold.

tim r said...

Don't see this as an august canon of Important Movies, though! It's just my favourite flicks, when all's said and done. The higher up I get, the harder it is to explain why I love them, too. Do you find that?

PS. You're going to hate the next one.

NicksFlickPicks said...

@Tim: Yep, I find that, especially in my current list (which has been waylaid because, in revisiting #61 for the first time in a while, I found myself utterly bored with it, and I'm not sure what to do about this).

And how much am I going to hate the next one, exactly? Talk dirty to me.

@Ginger: Thanks for the compliments! I can only imagine what doleful American indie beta-males I've been caught admiring (say this, I do love the word "doleful"!), but I appreciate the kind words, and I admire your own voice in these blog-posts, too.

tim r said...

Yes, thanks Ginger! But you should really revisit The New World if you ever get the chance. It gains clothes, somehow.

Nick, I don't think you genuinely hate the forthcoming choice, or even dislike it as much as, say, The Apartment, but you've expressed a fairly brusque scepticism about it in the past, and I've generally kept mum whenever I've spotted that. This is my moment to say, sorry, but I love it! And that it's the pinnacle of a certain kind of Hollywood filmmaking, for me.

NicksFlickPicks said...

You are torturing me.

FilmFan said...

I'm enjoying the list too. I'm in awe of your picture choosing skillz.