The nonconformist known as Bertolucci

LACMA’s felicitously titled “Dreaming Cinema: The Films of Bernardo Bertolucci” is a comprehensive retrospective of the Italian director, whose work is marked by a bold, passionate romanticism. The series will take place Fridays and Saturdays for the next five weeks.

The highlight of this opening weekend will be Saturday’s screenings of “The Conformist.” Paramount has struck a brand-new 35-millimeter print for this retrospective.

Restored to its original length and rich color under cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s supervision, “The Conformist” seems every bit as superb as it was when first released in 1971. Bertolucci combines the bravura style of Fellini, the acute sense of period of Visconti, the political commitment of Elio Petri (“An Investigation of a Citizen Under Suspicion”) -- and, better still, a total lack of self-indulgence.

Adapted by Bertolucci from an Alberto Moravia novel, “The Conformist” is a study of one man and an entire society. A traumatized product of a decayed aristocratic family, Jean-Louis Trintignant’s Marcello, whom we meet at 30 in 1937, is a professor of philosophy. He’s also a repressed homosexual so determined to maintain his respectability that he is ripe for recruitment by a fascist espionage organization. It sends Marcello on a deadly mission that he believes will let him atone for a terrifying youthful incident.

Bertolucci has told the story so well that its culminating scene is devastatingly ironic, even though it incorporates outrageous theatricality and bald coincidence. “The Conformist,” which memorably costars Dominique Sanda as a sexually ambiguous beauty, is not merely an indictment of fascism -- with some swipes at ecclesiastical hypocrisy too -- but also a profound personal tragedy.

The 1964 “Before the Revolution” (screening Friday) is as bold and emphatic an announcement that a major director has arrived as has ever been made. Bertolucci brings a profound poignancy to a young man’s painful journey of self-discovery.

He gets away with dazzling techniques by making them form the structure of his story and by using them to probe the psyches of his characters, principally the 18-year-old scion (Francesco Barilli) of an upper-middle-class family and his beautiful, comforting aunt (Adriana Asti).

Bertolucci’s 1962 debut feature, “The Grim Reaper,” which screens after “Revolution,” is another matter entirely. Bertolucci had just worked as an assistant to Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the older director came up with a five-page outline for “Reaper.” An experiment in style rather than a straightforward investigation of the last day in the life of a murdered prostitute, “The Grim Reaper” reveals from its first shot the commanding, sweeping camera movement that is Bertolucci’s signature.

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Screenings

‘Dreaming Cinema: The Films of Bernardo Bertolucci’

* “The Conformist,” 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Saturday

* “Before the Revolution” and “The Grim Reaper,” 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

Contact: (323) 857-6010