What Is The Zoom In The Conformist

From the beginning, the title of the film, The Conformist, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1970, becomes very significant in demonstrating how Marcello “conforms” to society, in order to achieve normality, and deny his true identity throughout the film. In this particular scene, the use of long shot and zoom signifies Marcello’s distance from normality and the struggle to achieve it. In this short scene, Marcello is walking behind the facists, as he is going to see the minister. When he is walking begin them, the use of the camera zoom helps show how he is almost trapped in this world of facism and also trapped in his own mind and thoughts. He is meeting with the minster to begin his work with the Facists, and specifically, they are using him to get information about his former teacher, Professor Quadri. Marcello originally enjoyed Professor, Quadri, but later blames him for the transition to joining the
The face of the woman we see is Anna Quadri, wife of the professor. However we know that considering the circumstances, there is no way that can be Anna. The zoom in this scene is also very significant. We see a zoom into the woman’s face as well as Marcello’s after they make eye contact. Here we see Marcello with a troubled look on his face, confused by his mind and his thoughts. Anna is troubling to Marcello because represents everything Marcello aims to hide about himself throughout the film in terms of his sexuality. However, she is also intriging to him because of this aspect because she is very open with herself and her sexuality, and this is why he finds himself attracted to her in a strange way. In contrast to Anna, Marcello denies his sexuality throughout the entire film. This is another key reason for him to join the Facists and get married to a woman as a cover up to what we suspect to be his