The Masks of Conformity: Sadism, Bisexuality, and Oedipal Threats in Bertolucci’s the Conformist”
Presenter: Bruce H. Sklarew, MD
Friday, April 24, 2015, 7:30-10:00pm
We will view the film “The Conformist” and immediately following Dr. Sklarew will lead us in a discussion. Adapted from a novel by Alberto Moravia, Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Conformist” (1970) tells the story of Marcello (Jean Louis Trintignant) who as a young adolescent shoots his homosexual chauffeur during an attempted seduction. In 1938, he joins the Fascist party in a yearning for normality and protection identifying with the establishment. He volunteers to inform on Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), his former professor, now an anti-Fascist leader in Paris. Meanwhile, he coolly decides to marry Guilia (Stefania Sandrelli), a petty bourgeoisie girl and, as a cover for his mission, he honeymoons in Paris. He and his bisexual wife, Anna (Dominique Sandra), are assassinated by the Fascists with brutal, visual splendor.
The complicated structure of flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, without chronological coherence, presents a surrealistic, dreamlike montage. Bertolucci spoke of a “chaotic fusing of my memories and my fantasies…all mixed up together.” “The Conformist” was written and shot when Bertolucci at age 30 began a long analysis. Collation to follow.
Bruce H. Sklarew, MD Film editor of The American Psychoanalyst (TAP) and the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, editorial board of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, editorial board and co-originator of Projections: The Journal of Movies and Mind; Chair of the Forum on Psychoanalysis and Film; Film Programmer for meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association; Co-Editor of four books—Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor: Multiple Takes, Bernardo Bertolucci: Interviews, Analysts in the Trenches: Streets, School, War Zones, A Journey of Child Development: Selected Papers of Joseph D. Noshpitz; Issue editor of two volumes of Psychoanalytic Inquiry—The Community Analyst in Troubled Worlds and Holocaust Films (in press); visitor to many Bertolucci film sets and organizer of three programs of his work with him present; published 50 papers on film and the psychoanalyst in troubled communities; Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Howard University School of Medicine; taught classes at the Baltimore-Washington Institute for Psychoanalysis; graduate of Yale University School of Medicine, Psychiatric Residency at Harvard, and Clinical Associate at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Location:
Mt. Sinai Medical Center
Hatch Auditorium
Madison Avenue @ 100th St.
Admission:
No fee, however, donations to “CFS” are much appreciated.
Limited seating. RSVP required.
Please RSVP to Connies3@aol.com. You will receive a confirmation email. Please bring this confirmation to the meeting.