Biography for
Bernardo Bertolucci More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

16 March 1940, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Height

5' 10" (1.78 m)

Mini Biography

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films are known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy, in 1940. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (1962). His second film, Before the Revolution (1964), which was released in 1971, received an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay. Bertolucci also received an Academy Award nomination as best director for Last Tango in Paris (1972), and the best director and best screenplay for the film The Last Emperor (1987), which walked away with nine Academy Awards.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Matt Dicker

Spouse

Clare Peploe	(1990 - present)
Adriana Asti	(? - ?) (divorced)

Trade Mark

Frequently references classic movies

Frequently has nude scenes in his films

Long, complex camera movements.

Nonlinear timeline.

Often references famous painters or art movements.

Trivia

Brother of Giuseppe Bertolucci, cousin of Giovanni Bertolucci.

Son of poet Attilio Bertolucci and Ninetta Giovanardi.

Born at 7:25pm-CET

Homage at the 48th Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival. [2000]

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 (1961).

President of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990

In July of 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 a close friend of Pier Paolo Pasolini.

He was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of his outstanding contribution to film culture.

When the Italian Bertolucci was Oscar-nominated as Best Director for The Last Emperor (1987) (and won), his Best Director fellow nominees were all non-Americans: Adrian Lyne and John Boorman (UK), Lasse Hallström (Sweden) and Norman Jewison (Canada) making that particular instance unique in Oscar history. [11 April 1988]

Directed one Oscar nominated performance: Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris (1972).

Personal Quotes

[on Los Angeles] The Big Nipple.

[His answer on 2 October 1979 to a woman who had just seen a special screening of 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.

I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy. I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns or tanks. I think that I used to love Hollywood movies. I remember great phases and moments. But, unfortunately, now is not the moment.

[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.

[In response to Ingmar Bergman's contention that Last Tango in Paris (1972) (US title: "Last Tango in Paris") was really about homosexuals, and only in those terms did the film make sense and become interesting] 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.

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.

[on the untimely death of Pier Paolo Pasolini] A remarkable director -- a great loss to Italian culture. It was as if he was discovering cinema from scratch.

[on Gerard Depardieu] Fills the space like a young Marlon Brando. He has an extraordinary intensity.

[on Marlon Brando] An angel as a man, a monster as an actor.

Kurosawa's movies and La Dolce Vita, Fellini, are the things that pushed me into being a film director.