Ah, The Conformist, after all these years

Watching Il conformista (The Conformist) the other night on Criterion Channel took me back to the early Seventies and my glorious (or not so, ha) university days. This 1970 classic, possibly Bernardo Bertolucci’s best film, was released at a time when colleges were still in their post-1960s student ferment. And so a film by a Marxist film director on an anti-Fascist theme, shown by the weekend campus film society, was all the rage. But of course the film transcends mere two-dimensional politics. And one doesn’t have to be a Red to see the utter villany of Benito Mussolini’s wartime regime. Take for instance, the score by Georges Delerue, with its beautifully mournful opening to its ironically sprightly juxtapositions at key dramatic turns in the story. Then there are the characters. A very young-looking Jean-Louis Trintignant as the lead Marcello Clerici, a shrouded in mystery Humphrey Bogart type with long coat and fedora. He’s on a mission to assassinate, in Paris, an exiled anti-Fascist professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). The film is not just a political tract but a psycho-sexual and sociological one, with various explanations for Marcello’s affinity to Fascism and his desire to be “normal.” There is a homosexual overture by an adult in his youth, which initially entices but repels him. A scion of a rich family with a frivolously indifferent mother and father in an asylum, he seeks ordinariness. So much so that he pursues forgiveness by the Roman Catholic Church and marries a very average, dimwitted, girl, Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli). Then there are the scenes I remember best: the professor’s bi-sexual wife Anna (Dominique Sanda) trying to initiate an affair with Giulia, the group of acolytes like bodyguards – other obvious intellectuals – guarding professor Quadri. The film’s opening sequence of Marcello lying in a hotel room cast in violent red as the neon sign outside blinks on and off, the lesbian-inspired nightclub scene where both wives lead a crowd of dancers cheerfully encircling the alienated and morose Marcello. Then there is Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography: the angled camera shots from above as Marcello walks the dark Paris streets on the way to his mission, his diminution by towering monuments in Rome’s Piazza Augusto Imperatore, the beautifully stark art deco interiors. And, again, the characters, almost iconic, after all these years: the utter frivolity of Marcello’s wife Giulia who speaks in cliches and giggles inappropriately. And, in the end, Marcello’s ultimate cowardice who, after Mussolini’s downfall, turns colors and denounces even his best friend as a Fascist, a stand-in for himself.

It's that severe black chin wave cut

 Constantly disappointed by Netflix offerings – I know I know – I did discover - surprisingly - that Netflix offers back episodes of Rod Serling’s famed 1960s TV series The Twilight Zone. I almost fell out of my chair.....Also on Netflix I started watching a British TV series Behind her Eyes which is a good psychological drama of a threesome set in contemporary London. The only problem is that the creator (Steve Lightfoot) had to fit the story into the full six

episodes. In doing so dragged it out incrementally into a slogging bore. I stopped watching after episode four. But speaking at that series the woman who plays the wife Adele (Eve Hewson, top photo) bares an uncanny resemblance to another woman in a movie I watched yesterday, Diane Baker (bottom photo) in Hitchcock’s 1964 Marnie (TCM). She also had that jet black severely cut chin hair wave and that malevolent “behind her eyes” look. In Marnie Baker plays Lil, Mark's (Sean Connery) former sister-in-law who has designs on the spendthrift entrepreneur but daggers for his new wife Marnie (Tippi Hedren)…..I’ve taken a pass on the HBO series Allen vs Farrow, a reportedly harrowing account of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s relationship and Allen’s alleged sexual abuse of adopted daughter Dylan. It’s a one-sided doc told from Dylan and Farrow’s POV. Those who’ve seen it say it’s totally convincing and you’ll never watch an Allen film or think of him again in the same way.  A few months ago I read his memoir Apropos of Nothing (the title isn’t about the controversy) in which he contributes about 75 pages to the allegation and his highly controversial love affair and marriage to Farrow’s other adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. And I thought that was the final word on the matter. But no. The HBO doc is one-sided since Allen didn’t participate and he has denounced it as full of fabrications. Ok, I realize the book is also one-sided and I remain to be convinced otherwise. But, as with virtually all highly controversial and charged subjects of this nature, I come down on the side of the law. And two investigations found Allen not to be at fault……And, yes, speaking of Woody, I can see where his humor comes from, at least in part. In his book he talks of how Bob Hope was such an influence. I watched two Hope films yesterday - My Favorite Brunette (Elliott Nugent, 1947) and The Iron Petticoat (Ralph Thomas, 1956) and I see the same type of witty zingers. Told he has an old face Hope's character replies "It comes with the body, it's a set," and facing the gas chamber, "This is the worst last meal I've had"..... Interesting, I subscribe to the remarkable Criterion Channel but I find myself more inclined to watch TCM. And the only thing I can conclude from that is that TCM dictates a schedule. Criterion allows me freedom to choose. Obviously I can’t handle the freedom! 

Playing hooky for Dirk Bogarde's films

 

I played hooky last Tuesday this week because after all it isn’t every day I get a chance to watch seven Dirk Bogarde films in a row, courtesy of TCM. And Bogarde, hands down, is one of my favorite actors, perhaps my favorite. I always associate him with psychological thrillers, (The Servant, Accident, The Night Porter) having a persona evoking intelligence and sophistication hiding a malevolent nature. But as these films show – and he actually starred in more than 70 others – he had a kaleidoscopic range. Bogarde was also an intellectual having written several novels, a sweeping memoir, journalism, and he was a painter.....The first film was Cast a Dark Shadow (Lewis Gilbert 1955). It has Bogarde at his film noirish best, the killer of women – wives – for profit. Bogarde said he loved the “unwholesomeness of the hero.” See what I mean? The superb Margaret Lockwood plays opposite and “pound for pound” they are a dual who have met their match. The next film was Libel (Anthony Asquith 1959). Again we have Bogarde as the alleged nefarious character, an imposter concealing his true identity even from his wife (Olivia de Havilland). He also plays a dual role as a wartime buddy and an uncanny lookalike, the basis of the story’s plot. The flic also features a terrific courtroom drama and is a whodunit that will keep you guess right to the end. Next, The Angel Wore Red (Nunnally Johnson 1960) a very different kind of film where Bogarde plays, of all things (but then he

played a wide character variety) a Catholic priest. A rebel, he quits the Spanish church during that country’s civil war, finding himself on knife’s edge as he appeases the ruling Communists yet is constantly suspected of being a Franco rebel. It’s really a love story with his character surreptitiously becoming involved with a prostitute played by Ava Gardner. A bit draggy but still worth the watch. The next film was Victim (Basil Dearden 1961) in which Bogarde plays Melville Farr, an up-and-coming barrister investigating, with personal implications, a blackmail ring targetting London gay men during a time when homosexuality was outlawed. Here Bogarde’s is a character of high integrity employing some skullduggery against those – self-described moralists – who sought to do major harm to very innocent men. The fifth film The Password is Courage (Andrew L. Stone 1962) has to be a model for the 1960s hit TV sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, the similarities are just too many. Based on a true memoir of a Brit POW, this amusing take has Bogarde as the protagonist who leads a group of Stalig prisoners as they mock, undermine and sabotage various German works. The camp leadership appear as imbeciles as Bogarde (in the subsequent Hogan role) proves the real one in charge and yes there is even a heavy set model for the TV sitcom’s “I see nothing!” Sgt. Schultz. Sixth on the agenda was Our Mother’s House (Jack Clayton 1967), a dark drama of a group of children whose mother dies leaving them to run the house by themselves. Bogarde as Charlie Hook, their dad, estranged and a carousing

womanizer and gambler, haphazardly returns to take over the household, with mixed results. Finally, there was the sublime Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti 1971) an atmospheric piece based on the Thomas Mann story of a famed composer trying to recover his health in the Italian city. A study of fame, loneliness, art, homosexuality, beauty and longing, if you’re not swept away by the stunning visuals you will be by the Mahler score. Bogarde’s character is restrained with few words but these and his physical gestures are enough to define an aging artist coming to terms with his career and life.

You can catch more Bogarde when the Criterion Channel highlights several of his films March 28: The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), Victim (1961), The Servant (1963), Darling (1965), Accident (1967), The Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971), The Night Porter (1974).