Bernardo Bertolucci, an internationally renowned master of Italian cinema, dies at the age of 77. Author, director, screenwriter and film producer, he has directed films that left a mark in the history of cinema such as Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Sheltering Sky and The Last Emperor.
It will be impossible to forget Bernardo Bertolucci, the protagonist of Italian cinema and ambassador of Italian art in the world. Known and admired internationally, he is the only Italian to have won the Academy Award for Best Director, an award obtained in 1988 for The Last Emperor. The film dedicated to the last Chinese emperor, is in fact a colossal worldwide success. The film, among others, has totaled: 9 Oscars, 9 David di Donatello, 4 Golden Globes, 4 Nastro d’Argento, 3 BAFTA. Bernardo Bertolucci, before meeting the cinema, followed in his father’s footsteps the poet Attilio Bertolucci. His passion for the Seventh Art is not long in coming. Bertolucci abandoned his studies in Literature to become assistant to another milestone in Italian cinema Pier Paolo Pasolini. Bernardo Bertolucci directed his first feature film La commare secca (1962) based on an idea and the screenplay by Pasolini.
However, the international fame arrived 10 years later, in 1972, with the scandalous film Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud and Massimo Girotti. A scandal that, despite various censorships, made it so that the film took record figures at the box office. The genius of Bernardo Bertolucci continues to produce masterpieces such as: 1900 (1976), La luna (1979), Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981), up to The Last Emperor (1987). The film director’s successes continued in the following years: The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha starring Keanu Reeves. And more recent films such as The Dreamers (2003) and Me and You (2012), the latter freely based on the novel of the same name by Niccolò Ammaniti.
Bernardo Bertolucci passed away in Rome on November 26, 2018, following a long illness.
