Kick-Back Friday: #14

From 1970, Bernardo Bertolucci's Il Conformista (The Conformist) is the story of a 1930s Italian assassin who simultaneously courts and abhors the bourgeoisie. For the average American viewer, the film may languish a bit too long in the gorgeous cinematography of Vittorio Storaro,* and its Fascist symbolism (such as blindness) may be heavy handed; but it is Italian cinema, after all. 

Be sure to note the actor Gaston Moschin, who plays the thug Manganiello; he shows up 4 years later in The Godfather: Part II as the Black Hand, Don Fanucci.

*Storaro went on to win DP Oscars for Apocalypse Now, Reds, and Bertolucci's The Last Emperor.