TSPDT - Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci

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►501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers

See Also

Jean-Jacques Annaud

Michelangelo Antonioni

Catherine Breillat

Francis Ford Coppola

John Duigan

Philip Kaufman

Anthony Minghella

Mario Monicelli

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Francesco Rosi

Martin Scorsese

István Szabó

Director / Screenwriter

1940 -

Born March 16, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Key Production Countries: Italy, France, UK

Key Genres: Drama, Psychological Drama, Political Drama, Erotic Drama

Key Collaborators: Vittorio Storaro (Cinematographer), Ennio Morricone (Composer), Giovanni Bertolucci (Producer/Screenwriter), Jeremy Thomas (Producer), Gabriella Cristiani (Editor), Stefania Sandrelli (Character Player), Alida Valli (Leading Character Player), Franco Arcalli (Editor/Screenwriter), Roberto Perpignani (Editor), Gianni Silvestri (Production Designer)

Highly Recommended: The Conformist (1969)

Recommended: The Last Emperor (1987)

Worth a Look: Before the Revolution (1964), The Spider's Stratagem (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1973), 1900 (1976), Luna (1979), Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981), The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993), Stealing Beauty (1995), Besieged (1998)

Links: [ 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) ]

Books: [ Bernardo Bertolucci: The Cinema of Ambiguity ] [ Bernardo Bertolucci: Interviews ]

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: Before the Revolution (1964), The Conformist (1969), The Spider's Stratagem (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1973), 1900 (1976), Luna (1979), The Last Emperor (1987)


	"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)

	"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)

	"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)

	"The psychological and intellectual man in society has been brilliantly explored by Bertolucci." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)