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Bernardo Bertolucci |
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Director / Screenwriter |
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1940 - |
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Born March 16,
Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy |
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Key
Production Countries: Italy, France, UK
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Key Genres:
Drama, Psychological Drama, Political Drama, Erotic Drama |
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Key
Collaborators: Vittorio
Storaro (Cinematographer), Ennio Morricone (Composer), Giovanni Bertolucci (Producer/Screenwriter), Jeremy Thomas (Producer), Gabriella Cristiani (Editor), Stefania Sandrelli (Character Player),
Alain Midgette (Character Player), Gianni Silvestri (Production Designer),
Mark Peploe (Screenwriter), Alida Valli
(Leading Character Player) |
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Highly
Recommended: The
Conformist (1970)* |
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Recommended:
The Spider's Stratagem (1970)*,
The
Last Emperor (1987) |
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Worth
a Look: La Commare Secca (1962), Before the Revolution (1964), Last Tango in Paris (1972)*, 1900 (1976)*, Luna (1979),
Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981), The Sheltering
Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993), Stealing Beauty (1995), Besieged (1998) |
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Approach with Caution: Partner (1968)** |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; **
Listed in TSPDT's
Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ] [
Bertolucci
Core ] [
Guardian
Unlimited Interview (2001) ] [
1989
BBC Interview ] [
Baseline
Biography ] [
Bright Lights Film Journal Article (2006) ] [
Guardian Article (2008) ]
[
New York Times Article (2010) ] |
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Books:
[
Bernardo Bertolucci
] [
Bernardo Bertolucci: The Cinema of Ambiguity ] [
Bernardo
Bertolucci: Interviews ] |
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"At the age
of twenty-one, Bernardo Bertolucci established himself as a
major artist in two distinct art forms, winning a prestigious
award in poetry and receiving high critical acclaim for his
initial film, La commare secca. This combination of
talents is evident in all of his films, which have a lyric but
exceptionally concrete style." -
Robert Burgoyne (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)
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"One of the
cinema's greatest masters of visual beauty, especially when
assisted by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci's films
are also dramatically naive and pretentious far too often, even
addled at times, resulting in risible scenes even when respected
actors are used. But at least the nine Oscars won by The Last
Emperor, one of his three near-masterpieces, have assured
that Bertolucci will not simply go down in history as the man
who made Last Tango in Paris." -
David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999) |
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"One of the
most accomplished directors of the contemporary Italian
cinema... Bertolucci, who believes that "cinema is the true
poetic language", had applied his celluloid poesy mostly to
political-human themes, but with Last Tango in Paris
(1972) he moved into the realm of the purely human. It
established Bertolucci as a commercially viable director as well
as a highly gifted one." -
(The
MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994)
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"The psychological and intellectual man in society has been
brilliantly explored by Bertolucci." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"I'm no longer interested in
making political films. There's something old-fashioned about
them. Young people now don't care for politics. It isn't present
in life as it used to be. And increasingly I like films which
reflect present-day reality." -
Bernardo Bertolucci (1999) |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director that we
haven't seen include The Dreamers (2003). |
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7+ |
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"Bernardo
Bertolucci was, until the 1980s, another identifiably
political Italian director, whose best remembered films were
very much influenced by the political activity of the 1960s
in Europe and the United States. From his first feature,
Before the Revolution (1964) his films display nostalgia
for the old order simultaneous with its denunciation. The
disintegration of macho masculinity in the face of a
(potentially) revolutionary Europe was central to Last
Tango in Paris (1972), Bertolucci’s most controversial
film... Bertolucci’s epic 1900 (1976), a portrayal of
the rise of Italian communism and the struggle of the
peasantry against the aristocracy, may be his defining
political statement, after which he gradually abandoned many
of his radical convictions."
-
Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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Michelangelo Antonioni |
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Jean-Jacques Beineix |
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Catherine Breillat |
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Liliana Cavani |
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Francis Ford Coppola |
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Philip Kaufman |
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Anthony Minghella |
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Pier Paolo Pasolini |
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Francesco Rosi |
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Martin Scorsese |
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István Szabó |
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Luchino Visconti |
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Bernardo Bertolucci's Favourites |
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Accattone (1961)
Pier Paolo
Pasolini,
Blue Velvet (1986)
David Lynch,
Breathless (1960)
Jean-Luc Godard,
City Lights (1931)
Charles Chaplin,
Germany, Year Zero (1947)
Roberto Rossellini,
Marnie (1964)
Alfred Hitchcock,
The Rules of the Game (1939) Jean
Renoir,
Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
Kenji Mizoguchi,
Stagecoach (1939)
John Ford,
Touch of Evil (1958)
Orson Welles.
Source:
Sight & Sound
(2002) |
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