The Conjugal Bed

A man of forty with a business of his own decides to marry and takes a young woman who seems quiet and devout. After the wedding her single concern is having a child, and she pursues it like a duty. The man is pleased at first, then tired, and finally worn out. The film tells the relationship not as a love story but as a process of consumption. Marco Ferreri's film attacks marriage in the Italy of the sixties, and the weight of the church upon it, head on. It was heavily censored when it was made; Ferreri was charged with blasphemy and had to add a moralising note to the film. Marina Vlady took the best actress award at Cannes in 1963. Ugo Tognazzi would go on working with Ferreri many times over the following years. The queen bee of the Italian title is the narrative itself.