Tag: Alberto Moravia

REVIEW: Il conformista [The Conformist] [1970]

Jared Mobarak

Slaughter and melancholy. At one point towards the end of Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Il conformist [The Conformist], Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) turns to Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) and relays a brief synopsis of a dream. He talks about how he was a blind man who needed an operation that only his former professor (Enzo Tarascio‘s Quadri) could perform. The procedure is a success and ultimately he’s left with the doctor’s wife (Dominique Sanda‘s Anna) in his arms. This scene is perhaps two minutes long and yet proves to be the key to…

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REVIEW: Le mépris [Contempt] [1963]

Jared Mobarak

“I love you totally, tenderly, tragically” Director Jean-Luc Godard has tested cinema’s boundaries throughout his career. So it’s hardly surprising his foray into CinemaScope color with a bigger budget would be as much an aesthetic exercise showing off the technology’s splendor as it is a scathing look at the industry with the money and ego to utilize it. Stories of behind the scenes strife on Le mépris [Contempt] rival the faux behind the scenes nonsense onscreen with Godard clashing against his producers (who wanted more sex appeal), alienating third lead…

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