Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci (born March 16, 1940) is an Italian writer and film director.

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Bertolucci was born in Parma, Italy, the first son of his father who was a reputed art historian and poet. Bertolucci started writing at the age of 15 and soon after received several prestigious literary prizes including the Premio Viareggio for his first book. His father's background helped his career: the elder Bertolucci had helped the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini publish his first novel, and Pasolini reciprocated by hiring Bernardo as first assistant in Rome on Accattone (1961). But Bertolucci's potential had already been noticed by others, such as Sergio Leone, who asked him to write the storyline for Once Upon a Time in the West. Leone later rejected it as too cerebral for an American audience.

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Bernardo Bertolucci directed his first film at the age of 21 (The Grim Reaper, 1962) which was shortly followed by his acclaimed Prima della rivoluzione (Before the Revolution, 1964).

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The boom of Italian cinema that gave Bertolucci his start slowed in the 1970s, as the Italian film industry felt the effects of global economic recession. Directors increasingly were forced to co-produce their films with French, American, Swedish, and German companies, in order both to finance them and to appear competetive in the now-international entertainment industry. Bertolucci was no exception. Last Tango in Paris (1972), starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider exemplified the new trend for Italian movies to make more money by employing foreign actors in starring roles: Last Tango included only one Italian actor, Massimo Girotti, in a main role. Bertolucci's 1900 (1976), starring Burt Lancaster, Donald Sutherland, Robert de Niro, and G?rard Depardieu, is often said to mark the point at which the Italian film industry's dependence on the international market began to contribute to the disintegration of its national identity.

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Bertolucci might not regret this disintegration: he is actively political, and a confessed Marxist. Like Visconti, who similarly employed many foreign artists during the late 1960's, Bertolucci uses his films to express his own political views; hence they are often autobiographical as well as highly controversial. His political films were preceded by others re-evaluating history. The Conformist (1970) criticised Fascist ideology, examining the relationship between nationhood and nationalism, as well as issues of popular taste and collective memory. 1900 also analyses the struggle of Left and Right. The 1987 epic The Last Emperor (recently re-released at an extended 219 minutes) allowed Bertolucci to influence politics both through his characters and through the act of making the film itself. He was granted unprecedented permission to film in the Forbidden City of Beijing, and the film's central character Pu Yi undergoes a decade-long communist re-education under Mao which takes him from the peacock colours of the palace to the grey suit worn by his contemporaries to live out his life as a gardener.

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March 16: March 16 is the 75th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (76th in Leap years). There are 290 days remaining....

1940: 1940 was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar)....

Writer: The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. Skilled writers demonstrate skills in using language to portray ideas and images, whether producing fi...

Bernardo Bertolucci related Images and Photos (experimental)

Rio San Bernardo Venice

Abdication of Bernardo O'Higgins Supreme Dictator of Chile