Italian film director.
Born at 7:25pm-CET.
Son of poet Attilio Bertolucci and Ninetta Giovanardi.
Older brother of Giuseppe Bertolucci , cousin of Giovanni Bertolucci. Brother-in-law of Lucilla Albano. Brother-in-law of Mark Peploe.
Homage at the 48th Donostia-San Sebastin Film Festival.
Was voted the 44th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 121-127. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.
The young Bertolucci took after his father, a Roman poet and film critic, and became a celebrated published poet by the age of 20. He gave up poetry for the cinema after working as an assistant to Pier Paolo Pasolini on the movie Accattone .
President of the Official Competition jury at the 43rd Cannes International Film Festival in 1990.
In July 1990, along with Federico Fellini , Tonino Guerra and Marcello Mastroianni , he wrote: "With the death of Sergei Parajanov cinema lost one of its wizards.".
Supported the Italian Communist Party (PCI).
Was close friends with Pier Paolo Pasolini.
He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.
(11 April 1988) When the Italian Bertolucci was Oscar-nominated as Best Director for The Last Emperor (and won), his Best Director fellow nominees were all non-Americans: Adrian Lyne and John Boorman , Lasse Hallstrm (Sweden) and Norman Jewison (Canada) making that particular instance unique in Oscar history.
Directed one Oscar nominated performance: Marlon Brando in Ultimo tango a Parigi .
He has been wheelchair bound for the past few years due to serious back problems.
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on November 19, 2013.
Hes a big fan of "Breaking Bad" .
Bertoluccis "Last Tango in Paris" was pronounced obscene as was banned forever by Italian courts. The director lost his civil rights for 5 years and couldnt vote and received a four months suspended sentence.
His family moved to Rome when he was a teenager. They lived in the Monteverde vecchio section. A few years later, Pier Paolo Pasolini , poet and friend of Bernardos father Attilio Bertolucci , and his family came to live in another apartment in the same building. Pasolini asked Bernardo to be his assistant on Accatone . Bertollucci used some locations from Monteverde vecchio in his later movies.
One of seven Italians to have been nominated for the Best Director Oscar. The others are Federico Fellini , Pietro Germi , Michelangelo Antonioni , Gillo Pontecorvo , Lina Wertmller and Roberto Benigni. Bertolucci is the only one who won the award.
President of the Official Competition jury at the 70th Venice International Film Festival in 2013.
[on Los Angeles] The Big Nipple.
[His answer on 2 October 1979 to a woman who had just seen a special,screening of La luna (1979) at the Film Center of the School of,the Art Institute, Chicago] I left the ending ambiguous, because that,is the way life is.
[on making The Dreamers (2003) ] It gave me the chance of visiting,a moment that I really loved a lot, the late 1960s. It was a kind of,magic moment in many senses. There was a fantastic projection of the,future, of utopias, which were very noble in some ways. I remember,being young in the 1960s. We had a great sense of the future, a great,big hope. This is what is missing in the youth today. This being able,to dream and to change the world.
The only reality is before the camera. Each film I make is kind of a,return to poetry for me, or at least an attempt to create a poem.
You know for American filmmakers, the Oscars is like a mystic thing. For,me it was being in a mirror of my dreams when I was dreaming of,Hollywood when I was an adolescent.
He has an extraordinary intensity.
The best work being done now is for television.
"Breaking Bad" (2008) - a masterpiece.
"House of Cards" (2013) - very, very good.
But the American films I like now do not come from Hollywood studios,but from television series, like "Mad Men" (2007) ,"Breaking Bad" (2008) , "The Americans" (2013) . I like,when they last 13 episodes but then there is a new series coming with,another 13 episodes. Apart from a few independent productions, I think,that everything that comes from Hollywood is generally sad. It makes me,very sad.
[on describing Hollywood as "the big nipple" at the 1988 Academy Awards],The day after I remember I was driving in Sunset Boulevard and on the,radio there was the disc jockey saying, "and now music from the Big,Nipple. . . " And so they adopted it. . . I just meant that night these nine,Oscars (for The Last Emperor (1987) ) were like a big, big breast,feeding all of us. It was a joke. Sometimes from Hollywood is a very,dry nipple; that time it was big and very generous.
, With each of my movies, every time is the first time. . . which means,taking risks. . .
I make movies in order to make things understood, not to be shocking.
I accept all interpretations of my films. The only reality is before the camera. Each film I make is kind of a return to poetry for me, or at least an attempt to create a poem. .
