Essays on Il Conformista?

November 27, 2011 2:20 PM

I am working on a short persuasive paper (about 1000 words) for a Narrative in the Novel and Film class, in which I must argue for the inclusion of a film of my choosing in a future iteration of the class. The film about which I have chosen to write about is Il Conformista, which would (theoretically) be used in a section of the class called "Terror, Surveillance, and Human Rights". I've been having trouble finding critical essays about the film that specifically look at the film's portrayal of Fascist Italy. What are some good sources for essays on this film, or on the portrayal of WWII-era Italy in cinema? (I am not looking for reviews of the film, of which I have plenty.)
posted by pxe2000 to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

The Google Scholar results for "Il Conformista" + "fascist" look promising, though you'll probably have to pull minor observations from papers that are only tangentially related.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 3:11 PM on November 27, 2011

Assuming you are in college/uni, take a look at your library's website and see if they have a research guide for film, cinema, film studies, etc. Off the top of my head, I'd recommend taking a look at MLA International Bibliography (which I see, on a quick glance, has 19 items mentioning both Bertolucci and Conformista), and maybe in JSTOR. Good luck!
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:55 PM on November 27, 2011

Best answer: Ye gods, I studied this very topic 10+ years ago. I can't help you with specific articles, but I can promise you there is lots of writing about il Conformista and fascism. My old lecturer, Gino Moliterno, will have written about it for sure in his book The Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema.
posted by smoke at 4:32 PM on November 27, 2011 [1 favorite]