Acclaimed Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci has died aged 77.
The director was best known for his controversial 1970’s film The Last Tango in Paris but film lovers also embraced The Dreamers, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha and Stealing Beauty.
His second last film The Dreamers was based on the novel The Holy Innocents by Gilbert Adair, was released in 2003. It followed an erotic triangle between a French brother and sister and a visiting American student. For the film version Bertolucci removed all the homosexual content of the book.
Bertolucci’s best known film Last Tango in Paris garnered Marlon Brando a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. The film tells of a recently widowed woman played by Maria Schneider who has an anonymous sexual affair with a man. The film was banned in many countries for its nudity and sex scenes. The most controversial scene of the film involves an anal rape. Actress Maria Schneider later said in interviews that she felt taken advantage of during the film and did not know the full details of the scene until the day of shooting.
The Last Emperor saw Bertolucci win the Best Director Oscar and the Best Adapted Screenplay award. The 1987 film was the first production given permission to film within Beijing’s forbidden city.
Throughout his career Bertolucci worked with many well known actors including Robert de Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster, Donald Sutherland (1900), Jill Clayburgh, Fred Gwynne (Luna), John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole (The Last Emperor), Debra Winger, John Malkovich, Timothy Spall (The Sheltering Sky), Thandi Newton, David Thewlis (Besieged), Keanu Reeves, Bridget Fonda, Chris Isaak (Little Buddha), Liv Tyler, Joseph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack, Rachel Weisz (Stealing Beauty) and Michael Pitt and Eva Green (The Dreamers).
Many of Bertolucci’s films featured soundtracks created by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. His final film Me and You was an Italian drama released in 2012, it failed to impress critics or audiences.
Bertolucci died at his home in Rome surrounded by his family. He was 77 years old.
OIP Staff, Image: Associazione Culturale Cinemazero published via a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
