Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci has made more than 20 films, which have won almost all the most prestigious awards, and have also gathered tens of millions of fans around the world.
Bertolucci was born at the height of World War II, on March 16, 1941, in the Italian city of Parma. The childhood of the future director fell on the period of moral and economic decline of both his homeland and the whole of Western Europe.
Young Bernardo chose a profession under the influence of his father, whose name was Attilio. He was a famous poet and film critic. Atillio took his son with him to film shoots, introduced him to the works of philosophers and the world of fine arts.
At the age of 15, Bernardo watched Stanley Kubrick’s film “The Killing” (1956), which made a huge impression on him. “I literally got sick of this movie,” the famous director recalled over the years. In part, it was this picture that made him try to shoot his own films on 16 mm film. In parallel, he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Rome La Sapienza, and also wrote poems. His poetry collections received prestigious literary awards.
Bertolucci got his first experience working on a big film thanks to the poet and director Pier Paolo Pasolini, whom he had known since childhood. It was Pasolini who invited the then 20-year-old Bertolucci as an assistant on the set of his picture “Accatone” (1961).
In parallel with his studies at the university, Bertolucci followed the news of cinematography. And even went to Paris so as not to miss the most important premieres. “I adored French cinema and felt much closer to French directors than to Italian ones… I went on a trip, first of all, to go to the French Cinematheque. It was a kind of initiation,” said Bertolucci.
The director’s first film, which made him famous worldwide, was “The Conformist” (1970). Before this film, Bertolucci shot almost ten films, among which there were documentaries and plays, short and full-length films, as well as festival and television works.
“The Conformist” tells the story of Marcello Clerici, a representative of the rotten Italian aristocracy. His mother is a drug addict, his father is insane, his best friend is blind, and Marcello himself is trying to cope with the psychological trauma of being almost raped as a child. The main character of the film is trying to get into the service of the secret police. In this connection, he receives from the fascist government the task of killing his professor Luca Cuardi.
This film brought Bertolucci his first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, two prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as a number of other awards. At that time, the director was only 29 years old.
Two years later, the director released another masterpiece, “Last Tango in Paris” (1972). This picture caused both a storm of applause at film festivals and angry bans in many countries.
In the center of the plot of this picture is an American named Paul, who recently buried his wife. He meets a girl named Zhanna, who is much younger than him. A specific relationship is established between them – periodically they meet in a hotel, where they make love and have confessional conversations.
Thanks to this tape, Bertolucci became famous all over the world as a bold experimenter who easily brings scenes of sophisticated sex to the big screen.
“I love success, although sometimes the payment for it is high. This is not a banal phrase – after success, I often have a period of mental agony. For example, I shot “Last Tango” when I was either 30 or 31. I remember my portraits on the covers of Time, Newsweek magazines. It was like a hurricane for my psyche. Success is hard food for thought, but after you digest it, a feeling of happiness comes,” the director later said.
The success of “The Conformist” and “Last Tango in Paris” allowed the director to tackle the larger-scale film “XX Century” (1976). Gerard Depardieu and Robert De Niro played the main roles in this five-hour film. The plot of the picture revolves around two friends, Olmo and Alfredo, who were born on the same day. One of them had rich bourgeois parents, and the other had poor peasants. Together, Olmo and Alfredo went through the main social and political upheavals of the 20th century.
One of the most authoritative critics, Roger Ebert, noted that this film had many ambitions, but only some of them were realized.
After this picture, a protracted ten-year decline began in Bertolucci’s work. In 1979, he released the picture “The Moon”, and in 1981 – “The Tragedy of a Funny Man”, which faced severe criticism. Then the director made two documentaries for television. The failure of all these paintings forced Bertolucci to leave his native Italy and look for inspiration in other countries.
So, in 1987, the director’s largest film “The Last Emperor” was released. He told about the Chinese emperor Pu Yi, who ascended the throne at the age of three. According to legends, “ten thousand years of happiness” awaited him. However, under the pressure of large-scale political changes, the monarchy in his country collapsed. So the government last year
about the heir of the ancient dynasty of emperors was limited only to the boundaries of the Forbidden City, the residence of the Chinese ruler.
Unlike Bertolucci’s previous films, there was no trace of Italian in this picture. The tape told about the history of China in the language of Hollywood cinema. As a result, it became the most titled work of the director, collecting about fifty prizes, including nine “Oscars”.
The so-called cosmopolitan period in Bertolucci’s work was continued by the psychological drama “Under the Cover of Heaven” (1990), which transported the viewer to Africa. And in 1993, the director made another film about the Far East, “Little Buddha” with Keanu Reeves in the lead role.
After 10 years of work in other countries, the director returned to Italy. In 1996, he shot the picture “Elusive Beauty”, which became a kind of declaration of love for his homeland.
This romantic picture is dedicated to the trip of a young American woman to an Italian province. She settled in the villa of old friends, which is surrounded by picturesque landscapes. The girl dreamed of meeting the love of her life right here. However, fate gave her unexpected gifts.
Bertolucci made his last truly outstanding film 15 years ago. It was the revolutionary melodrama “Dreamers” (2003). Its plot revolved between three young people in Paris in 1968.
Everything Bertolucci loved to talk about in his films is concentrated in this picture: youth, passion for changes in politics, sexual provocations, quotes from classic French films and Paris. Critics underestimated “Dreamers”, reproaching the tape for excessive infantilism and implausibility of the plot. However, fans of the director’s work gave her a standing ovation.
After the premiere of this film, the director complained of acute pain in his back. Soon, an incurable disease forever confined him to a wheelchair. Bertolucci did not shoot anything for almost 10 years after that. During this time, he received honorary awards for his past merits at the Cannes, Venice and other film festivals. It seemed that something new could already be expected from the master.
However, in 2012, he unexpectedly released the melodrama “You and I”. True, this film looked like a parody of the director’s previous films. Particularly harsh critics even noted that it would be better for him not to shoot this picture at all, so as not to spoil his filmography.
In Bertolucci’s work, dense contrasts were constantly encountered. He filled the visual series of his tapes with a play of light and shadow. He built the images of the heroes of his films on the opposite sides of human feelings. He showed stories about large-scale upheavals in politics against the background of intimate love stories. And after the legendary films, he released frankly weak tapes. His career was unpredictable, like the Italian temperament. And his creative discoveries are explosive, like surges of libido. Without his films, the cinema would lack passion.