The Conformist

Secrecy and silence are second nature to Marcello Clerici, the hero of The Conformist. He's a man with everything under control - a wife who loves him, colleagues who respect him, and the hidden power that comes with his secret work for the Italian political police during the Mussolini years. But his perfect life becomes a nightmare when he's ordered to kill his former professor to demonstrate his loyalty to the Fascist state. When he also falls in love with a strange woman, a chain of events occur whose repercussions none could foresee. First published in 1951, The Conformist equates the rise of Italian Fascism with the psychosexual life of a man for whom conformity becomes an obsession after a traumatic experience in his youth. In 1970, director Bernardo Bertolucci turned Moravia's classic into an acclaimed film starring Jean-Louis Tritignant.