ABSTRACT
Figure 1.1 A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971. Credit: Warner Bros. Cour-
tesy of the Ronald Grant Archive).
In Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 film The Conformist, the protagonist, Marcello Cler-ici (Jean Louis Trintignant), joins the Italian Fascist movement and develops a plan to assassinate his former mentor, a philosophy professor. This man, who has
become the leader of an anti-Fascist movement, is living in Paris as an exile. In one
key scene, Clerici goes to visit the professor in his study. The professor reminds
him that Plato’s cave was the subject of his unfinished thesis. As they talk, Clerici
recalls that when the professor entered the lecture room, he would always close
the windows to keep out the light and noise. Clerici now goes to the window and
closes the shutters himself, leaving only a shaft of light. He then recounts how the
professor used to lecture on Plato’s cave and begins to recite the myth. So why does
Clerici close the shutters? What is Plato’s cave doing in Bertolucci’s film? What is
its significance for this tale of Fascist delusion? And what does this appearance of
the cave in the film tell us about the cave story itself? We will come back to these
questions shortly, but in order to answer them it is necessary for us to pay a visit
to Plato’s cave itself.
