Bertolucci, Bernardo

Bertolucci, Bernardo (1940- ), Italian film director, whose works are known for their flamboyant visual style. Born in Parma, Bertolucci attended Rome University and won early fame as a poet. After serving as assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini on Accattone! (1961), he directed La Commare Secca (1962; The Grim Reaper). His second film, Prima della Rivoluzione (1964; Before the Revolution), won him renown at the age of 24 and established his pattern of updating literary classics (in this case, The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839, by Stendhal), and of injecting political ambivalence and ambiguous sexuality into his work. Bertolucci introduced a visual style characterized by choreographed motion, extravagant camera movement, and stylized editing that lent an operatic dimension to the narrative.

Bertolucci went on to direct Partner (1968) and La Strategia del Ragno (1970; The Spider’s Stratagem) before achieving his first art-house hit with Il Conformista (1970; The Conformist). The latter, about a man who embraces the orthodoxy of fascism as a means of denying his troubling sexual identity, is considered by many critics to be Bertolucci’s masterpiece, earning an Academy Award (Oscar) nomination for Best Screenplay. Subsequent films include the controversial L’Ultimo Tango a Parigi (Last Tango in Paris; 1973, Academy Award nomination as Best Director), 1900 (1976), La Luna (1979), La Tragedia di un Uomo Ridicolo (1981; Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990), and Little Buddha (1993). The Last Emperor won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and two for Bertolucci as director and co-screenwriter. Io Ballo da Sola (1996; Stealing Beauty) was his first film made in Italy for 16 years. This perceptive, touching, and humorous coming-of-age story set in Tuscany won widespread critical acclaim. The intimate relationship between two exiles, a reclusive British pianist living in Rome, played by David Thewlis, and his African maid, Thandie Newton, was detailed in L'Assedio (1998; The Besieged), while The Dreamers (2003) recreated the turbulent times of the May 1968 student riots in Paris as the backdrop to the sexual liaison between a young American and a French brother and sister.