BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI
Name: Bernardo Bertolucci
Born: 16 March 1940 Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Bernardo Bertolucci (born March 16, 1940) is an Italian writer and Academy Award
winning film director.
Bernardo Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma, in the region of
Emilia Romagna. He was the second son of his father Attilio, who was a poet, a
reputed art historian, anthologist and also a film critic. Having been raised in
such an environment, Bertolucci began writing at the age of fifteen, 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 Bertolucci 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.
Bertolucci has two brothers: the film producer Giovanni (b. 24 June 1940) and
the theatre director and playwright Giuseppe (b. 27 February 1947).
His first wife was Adriana Asti, star of his early film Prima della rivoluzione.
In 1978 he married Clare Peploe, a British screenwriter who has since directed a
few films as well.
Bertolucci initially wished to become a poet like his father. With this goal in
mind, he attended the Faculty of Modern Literature of the University of Rome
from 1958 to 1961. As noted above, this is where his film career as an assistant
director to Pasolini began. Shortly after, Bertolucci left the University
without graduating. In 1962, at the age of 21, he directed his first feature
film, La commare secca (1962) The film is a short murder mystery, following a
prostitute's homicide. Bertolucci uses flashbacks to piece together the crime
and the person who committed it. The film which shortly followed was his
acclaimed Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione, 1964).
The boom of Italian cinema, which gave Bertolucci his start, slowed in the 1970s
as directors were forced to co-produce their films with several of the American,
Swedish, French, and German companies and actors due to the effects of the
global economic recession on the Italian film industry. It has been speculated that
this is the point in its history at which Italian cinema began to depend upon
the international market.
Bertolucci might not regret this disintegration: he is actively political, and a
professed Marxist. Like Visconti, who similarly employed many foreign artists
during the late 1960s, Bertolucci uses his films to express his 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, touched upon the relationship between nationhood
and nationalism, as well as issues of popular taste and collective memory, all
amid an international plot by Mussolini to assassinate a professor of politics
in Paris, France. 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
Name: Bernardo Bertolucci
Born: 16 March 1940 Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Bernardo Bertolucci (born March 16, 1940) is an Italian writer and Academy Award
winning film director.
Bernardo Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma, in the region of
Emilia Romagna. He was the second son of his father Attilio, who was a poet, a
reputed art historian, anthologist and also a film critic. Having been raised in
such an environment, Bertolucci began writing at the age of fifteen, 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 Bertolucci 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.
Bertolucci has two brothers: the film producer Giovanni (b. 24 June 1940) and
the theatre director and playwright Giuseppe (b. 27 February 1947).
His first wife was Adriana Asti, star of his early film Prima della rivoluzione.
In 1978 he married Clare Peploe, a British screenwriter who has since directed a
few films as well.
Bertolucci initially wished to become a poet like his father. With this goal in
mind, he attended the Faculty of Modern Literature of the University of Rome
from 1958 to 1961. As noted above, this is where his film career as an assistant
director to Pasolini began. Shortly after, Bertolucci left the University
without graduating. In 1962, at the age of 21, he directed his first feature
film, La commare secca (1962) The film is a short murder mystery, following a
prostitute's homicide. Bertolucci uses flashbacks to piece together the crime
and the person who committed it. The film which shortly followed was his
acclaimed Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione, 1964).
The boom of Italian cinema, which gave Bertolucci his start, slowed in the 1970s
as directors were forced to co-produce their films with several of the American,
Swedish, French, and German companies and actors due to the effects of the
global economic recession on the Italian film industry. It has been speculated that
this is the point in its history at which Italian cinema began to depend upon
the international market.
Bertolucci might not regret this disintegration: he is actively political, and a
professed Marxist. Like Visconti, who similarly employed many foreign artists
during the late 1960s, Bertolucci uses his films to express his 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, touched upon the relationship between nationhood
and nationalism, as well as issues of popular taste and collective memory, all
amid an international plot by Mussolini to assassinate a professor of politics
in Paris, France. 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