The Conformist (film) - Plot

Plot

The film opens with Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) in Paris finalizing preparations to assassinate his former college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio). It frequently returns to the interior of a car driven by Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) as the two of them pursue the professor and his wife.

Through a series of flashbacks, we see him discussing with Italo, a blind friend, his plans to marry, his somewhat awkward attempts to join the Fascist secret police, and his visits to his morphine-addicted mother at the family's decaying villa and his unhinged father at an insane asylum.

In one of these flashbacks we see him as a boy during World War I, who finds himself isolated from society by his family's wealth. He is socially humiliated by his schoolmates until he is rescued by chauffeur Lino (Pierre Clémenti). Lino offers to show him a pistol and then makes sexual advances towards Marcello, which he partially responds to before grabbing the pistol and shooting wildly into the walls and into Lino, then flees from the scene of the murder.

In another flashback Marcello and his fiancee Giulia discuss the necessity of his going to confession in order for her parents to allow them to marry, even though he is an atheist. He agrees, and in confession admits to the priest to having committed many sins, including his homosexual experience with Lino, the consequent murder, premarital sex, and his absence of guilt for these sins. Marcello admits he thinks little of his new wife but craves the normality that a traditional marriage with children will bring. The priest is shocked — apparently more by Marcello's homosexuality than the murder — but quickly absolves Marcello once he hears that he is currently working for the Fascist secret police.

Now married, Marcello finds himself ordered to assassinate his old friend and teacher, Professor Quadri, an outspoken anti-Fascist intellectual now living in exile in France. Using his marriage as a convenient cover he takes Giulia on their honeymoon to Paris where he can carry out the mission.

While visiting Quadri he falls in love with Anna - the professor's young wife - and actively pursues her. Although it becomes clear that she and her husband are aware of Marcello's Fascist sympathies and the danger he presents to them she seems to accept his advances, as well as forming a close attachment to Giulia who she appears to make sexual advances toward as well, possibly for Marcello's benefit. Giulia and Anna dress extravagantly and go to a dance hall with their husbands where Marcello's commitment to the Fascists is tested by Quadri. Manganiello is also at the dance hall, having been pursuing Marcello for some time and is doubtful of his intentions. Marcello returns the gun that he has been given and secretly gives Manganiello the location of Quadri's country house where the couple plan to go the following day.

Even though Marcello has warned Anna not to go to the country with her husband and has apparently persuaded her that she should leave her husband and stay with him she does make the car journey. On a deserted woodland road Fascist agents conspire to stop Quadri's car with a false accident. When he attempts to help a stricken driver he is attacked and stabbed to death by several men who appear from the woods. Anna sees her husband murdered and realising the danger to herself runs to Marcello's car for help. When Anna sees that the passenger in the rear of the car is Marcello, she begins to scream uncontrollably, then runs off into the woods. Marcello merely watches without emotion as she is pursued through the woods and finally shot to death.

The ending of the film takes place in 1943 during the fall of Benito Mussolini and the fascist dictatorship, Marcello now has a small child and is apparently settled in a conventional lifestyle. He is called by Italo, his blind friend and former Fascist, and asked to meet on the streets. While walking with Italo, they overhear a conversation between two men and Marcello recognizes one of them as Lino, who attempted to seduce him when he was a boy. Marcello publicly denounces Lino as a homosexual, Fascist, and for participating in the murder of Professor Quadri and his wife. While in this frenzy he also denounces his friend Italo. As a crowd sweeps past taking Italo with them Marcello is left alone, unaccepted by the people of the new partisan political movement, and having spurned his former friend. He sits near a small fire and looks intently behind him at the man Lino was previously talking to.