wexner center for the arts


Film/Video

The Conformist images courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Mafioso images courtesy of Rialto Pictures


The Conformist images courtesy of Paramount PicturesMafioso images courtesy of Rialto Pictures
The Conformist images courtesy of Paramount PicturesMafioso images courtesy of Rialto Pictures

A Summer Abroad: Cinema italiano

Most of us won't be sunning on the Amalfi coast or dining near the Trevi Fountain this summer, but this series helps you imagine a splendid Italian holiday. Made by Italian filmmakers and/or filmed in Italy, the selection of classics and new releases features such outstanding directors as Fellini, Visconti, and De Sica and spectacular scenery from Rome, Venice, and the Italian countryside.

Ticket Package
Save when you buy 10 tickets to use at any indoor Cinema italiano screening.
$60 general public
$40 members, students, and senior citizens

The Conformist

(Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)

Mafioso

(Alberto Lattuada, 1962)

// Double Feature

Thu, July 29, 2010  |  7:00PM
Film/Video Theater

"Not just a politically engaged film but also a stylish thriller.... One of the most influential of postwar films."—Stuart Jeffries, Guardian (U.K.) on The Conformist

Among the most acclaimed art-house hits of the 1970s, The Conformist stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as a repressed intellectual who becomes a flunky for Mussolini's Fascists in the 1930s. Ordered to assassinate his old college professor in Paris, he combines that trip with his honeymoon and finds himself in the midst on an unsettling sexual triangle (or quadrangle). Vittorio Storaro's captivating cinematography was a major influence on the look of The Godfather. With Dominique Sanda and adapted from a novel by Alberto Moravia. (111 mins., 35mm)

The dark comedy Mafioso follows a Milanese factory manager who returns to his hometown in Sicily for a family vacation only to be asked by the local crime boss to perform a hit for the mob. Alberto Lattuada, a popular and eclectic filmmaker who codirected Variety Lights with Federico Fellini, is less known to U.S. audiences than many of his compatriots. According to critic Andrew Sarris, he has been a "grossly underappreciated directorial talent," whose work deserves wider viewing and reassessment. Phillip Lopate (in an excellent essay as part of the Criterion Collection’s Online Cinematheque) praises the many "delicious touches" he brings to this film, as well as the "vivacity" of his direction. (105 mins., 35mm)

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