“HIS STORY REFLECTED THE NATURE OF OUR CIVILIZATION...”: FROM THE “SHAME OF ONE’S OWN OPINION” TO CINEMATIC CHARACTERS WITHOUT QUALITIES IN A TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY

Abstract

The article examines the representation of authoritarian and conformist characters in European and American cinema of the second half of the twenti- eth century, focusing on Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Louis Malle’s Lacombe Lucien, and Woody Allen’s Zelig. The analysis takes its starting point from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons and the concept of “shame of one’s own opinion”, which is interpreted as a lack of reflection, independent ideol- ogy, and stable identity. Unlike sociological and psychological studies of the authoritarian personality (Adorno, Fromm, Arendt), cinema offers a distinct mode of visualizing inner emptiness and the opacity of characters who become ideal material for totalitarian ideologies. Special attention is paid to techniques of “negative representation”: the rejection of psychological motivation, the use of glass barriers, chiaroscuro composition, and the casting of non-professional actors. The article concludes that cinematic form enables the articulation of what escapes verbal expression – the absence of character as a persistent an- thropological feature.