Episode 237: THE CONFORMIST (1970)

A self-sentenced prisoner in Plato’s cave, Marcello Clerici thinks he chooses the shadows. Marcello doesn’t want to be a fascist. He doesn’t want to be an anti-fascist, either. He doesn’t want to be an academic, an assassin, a husband, son, straight, or gay. He wants to be normal. He wants to be nothing. THE CONFORMIST is a dizzying psycho-political thriller that digs into the motivations that lead worms like Marcello to follow fascist ideology (or any ideology). Watch THE CONFORMIST for free on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/the.-conformist.-1970.-italian.-1080p.-blu-ray.-h-264.-aac-vxt Use IMDb Collaborations, the tool Cody uses in this episode’s Cody’s Noteys segment: https://www.imdb.com/search/common/ “Animula Vagula Blandula: (Un)Masking Clerici in The Conformist” by Chris Ryba-Tures for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/07/21/animula-vagula-blandula-unmasking-clerici-in-the-conformist/ “The Conformist: Finding Purpose in a Fascist State” by Eli Holm for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2023/07/21/the-conformist-finding-purpose-in-a-fascist-state/ Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trylovepodcast and email us at [email protected] to get in touch! Buy tickets and support the Trylon at https://www.trylon.org/. Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music: "Chi è più felice di me" composed by Cesare A. Bixio and arranged by Georges Delerue from the THE CONFORMIST soundtrack. Timestamps 0:00 - Episode 237: THE CONFORMIST (1970) 2:34 - The episode actually starts 3:50 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary (under exclusive license from AG Enterprises, Ltd.) 5:41 - Adapting fascist ideology into daily society 14:09 - “The physical movement of a political movement” 18:47 - The hidden depth of the ‘allegory of the cave’ scene 26:36 - How Manganiello counters Marcello’s better angels 29:47 - The myth of the “new Italian” and complete self-erasure 46:13 - Anna and Luca in Paris 52:30 - The Junk Drawer 56:32 - Good Grief, Give Me a GIF! 1:07:17 - Cody’s Noteys: The Common-formist (shared cast + crew trivia)