“The Conformist” Excessive stylistic beauty that highlights The Truth of humanity *Note! Contains spoilers.

Plato's "Prisoner of the Cave"

In the aforementioned scene where Marcello and Quadri meet for the first time, Marcello suddenly talks about ``The Prisoner of the Cave,'' which was his university The Graduate thesis. In fact, this is an extremely important scene that overlaps with the theme of "The Conformist".

"Imagine a large underground cave. There are people inside who have lived there since childhood. They are chained together and can only see the depths of the cave. Behind them is a bright flame burning. There is a wall between the flames, like a partition in a puppet theater. Outside the partition wall, there are other people holding statues made of wood and stone. The statues are placed behind the partition wall. is expensive.”

"Plato's Prisoner of the Cave, huh?"

“It’s just like us.”

I have no idea what's going on just from the dialogue in the movie, so I'll add a little bit of information. Suppose there is a prisoner whose head is fixed in one direction. There is a flame behind it, and another person is holding a statue made of wood and stone. The prisoner then believes that the shadow of the "image" reflected on the wall is a real person. Once they realize this, even if the prisoner is released, they will still believe that the "image" is more The Truth than the real person.

This is a famous parable told by Plato in Book 7 of his work The Republic . The prisoner in the cave who believes that the shadow is The Truth is Marcello, who blindly believes in fascism. I want you to remember the last scene. The time is just after the end of the war, when Mussolini was overthrown and fascism came to an end. Marcello turns his back to the other side of the grate as the flames burn nearby. The song that comes from the gramophone is ``Come l'ombr,'' or ``Like a Shadow.'' Eventually, he slowly turns his attention to the camera. It's like trying to determine The Truth.

The great thing about ``The Conformist'' is not that it is a direct translation of ``The Prisoner of the Cave'' into film. Beyond its meaning, the power of the images themselves lies in their ability to capture and hold on to the audience. Bernardo Bertolucci and Vittorio Storaro bring out The Truth of humanity amidst the excess of stylistic beauty.

Finally, I would like to conclude this article by introducing a line that probably expresses the movie itself. A scene where Anna and Julia dance tango with each other. The bewitching and sensual dance between the two is one of the highlights of this work, but Marcello can't help but say, ``Let's stop it!'' due to their homosexual behavior. To this, Quadri replies:

"Why? Isn't it beautiful?"

Text: Rui Takeshima

A pop culture writer who wants to be kicked by Hit Girl. Host of the web magazine "POP MASTER".

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