sin

I watched Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist recently. I first saw it at the Uniondale Mini Cinema on Long Island with my boon college companion, Franklin, sometime after its American release in 1971.

I was a little too young and unformed to grasp the film at that time. I suppose the trials of a self-loathing, self-fearing cipher in Fascist Italy were far from the aspirant experience of a post-hippie lamb such as myself.

One scene did stay with me, in which 13-year-old Marcello is seduced away by a chauffeur, taken to an abandoned villa. Once the boy cannot escape, the man takes off his cap to let his long hair fall around his shoulders. It's shocking against the masculine propriety of the chauffeur's uniform.

I don't think I again had such a sense that a movie character was in deep, deep trouble until I saw Blue Velvet, and we met Frank's idol, Ben - Dean Stockwell in face powder, lip-synching "In Dreams." (Face powder figures in the chauffeur's self-image as well, and for song, Madame Butterfly.)

Is it homophobia that makes both these characters so memorable, so dangerous? That's not something I think I'm much prey to. But after all, Marcello is a boy, and Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan's character) is an innocent, already deeply in danger. And exciting as it may be, the first pass a boy experiences from a man carries a charge of peril, no matter if the boy is excited, or queer, or not.

Marcello, who shoots the chauffeur with his own pistol and escapes, grows up terrified that he will be discovered as a murderer. His defense is to fit in, to conform, to become invisible, never to be distinguished from the crowd.

When his society turns murderous, his safest disguise is as a socially approved murderer, unquestionably a creature of his government. He volunteers to spy on and, likely, kill his old philosophy professor, who has escaped to Paris. He'll mask the old crime with a state-sanctioned murder.

The visual scheme of the film is astonishing. If I had a second life and a couple of years put aside, I'd love to do a scene-by-scene breakdown of the movie. For a taste, you can find a dance scene, featuring Marcello alone in a crowd, posted on YouTube.

I also saw something I thought plainly evident in the film, but not acknowledged by the action or the characters, and not referred to by Bertolucci in the DVD interview.

Marcello imagines that his sin was forced upon him by the chauffeur, that all would be different if not for that seducer. The action of the movie supports that belief. He would have been a normal man, a better man, a safer man, if not for that.

But immediately before the chauffeur finds him, we see a crowd of children bullying a boy lying on the ground, who turns out to be Marcello. "Take down his pants" (or something like that), one of them shouts. The children crowd around. Adults, perhaps even parents of some of the bullying children, watch without interfering, reinforcing the sense that there might be something proper in this singling out, this punishment previous to any crime.

I can only think of original sin. Marcello was marked long before his transgression. When he goes to confession (after decades without), the priest tells him, "You, my son, have always lived in sin." Yet this extremely conscious, very visual film doesn't (so far as I can tell) give us a different source for Marcello's actions, in the events of the film and its conclusion, or in his own mind.

It also works to think of Marcello's mark outside of a Catholic context - as a psychological or spiritual flaw sensed by the children and adults - or the kind of need that can draw an attentive child molester. (Marcello's parents are themselves spectacularly flawed.)

Perhaps original sin is so taken as a given by Bertolucci, and by Alberto Moravia, who wrote the book it's based on, that it would have been as gratuitous to point out as breathing or circulating blood. (The book ends differently than the movie, says Bertolucci.)

This sin of omission (if that is what it is) doesn't mar the film. I've given you no spoilers. You can watch it keeping original sin in mind or not, the experience doesn't suffer.

Roll

I've been on a roll lately.

I made an adjustment to my antidepressant regimen (if I keep up this blog and you keep reading it, you will be hearing more about chronic depression) and it seems to be working. The cycle of depression every three or four weeks has abated, for about three months now.

What a relief this is. It's like having the boot lifted from the back of your neck. It was such a slog working up momentum and enthusiasm again after every crushing, knowing that no matter what the boot would inevitably come down again.

It's disorienting. I have had to convince myself that what I was experiencing was real. Nah, that's a weak way of putting it. I was scared as hell that I'd be happy and creative for a while and then even more unbearably miserable when, if, when I got crushed again.

About six weeks ago I began to act as if I believed I would be able to maintain. I put together a second book of photographs, I wrote an afterword for it, I had more ideas for writing and pix, I started working on the websites I'd claimed during good times and then not had the ability to keep at.

Blah blah blah, me me me. The end of this post will not be all about me. Trust me.

I had plans the Friday before last to have dinner (dumplings) with my friend Karen, who I have not seen in a very long time. I was glad to be seeing her and in a groove where a night off would be lovely and not disruptive. Unfortunately, she was needed late at her job and we had to postpone. We resched'ed for Wednesday.

The weekend was a productive one for me. The momentum continued into the week - when I wasn't at my job, I spent a lot of time working for myself.

I felt torn between having dinner with Karen or feeding this streak. It was much on my mind Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I decided I had to give myself the chance to maintain, not fall into an "if only I had" situation.

I also had a stubborn realization: Goddamit, it's OK for Karen, me, everybody I know who has to work for a living (everybody I know) to have to postpone the social for the sake of moneywork. We all understand. Am I really going to rank the work I do that makes living worthwhile lower than the work I do to make a living? Goddamit, no.

And it was a good choice. Karen understood, thank you, Karen. And I'm still on the roll. Did lots of writing and planning the rest of the workweek. Today I took the camera out for a walk. My eye was feeling fired up for the first time in a long time.

So, very nice for me, but here's the part that's not about me, me, me.

I (excuse the pronoun) read somewhere recently that a creative life is like a range with four burners: Money, Art, Family, Friends. And there's only enough gas for three of the burners to keep lit.

Money and Art are cooking along very nicely for me now. F and F, tho? The remaining gas I divvy up to keep those two flickering, at best warm.

In the last couple of weeks I haven't set eyes on a single one of my friends. I've had one phone conversation with my friend Patricia and spent some time mourning our mutual friend, Mary. I've had one email exchange with my brother and one phone conversation with my mother. That's it. Every face I faced was to earn money or spend some.

I can't believe I've written a "life is like a box of..." post. But there's a lot of truth in the Parable of the Four Burners.