The Italian director who shocked the world

Bernardo Bertolucci’s two best-known films were so radically different that it was difficult to believe they were the work of the same director. The Italian auteur’s crowning glory was 1987’s The Last Emperor: a sweeping, lavish biopic of Pu Yi—who became emperor of China at age 3—that won all nine Oscars for which it was nominated, including Best Picture. But his most famous movie was 1972’s Last Tango in Paris, about a joyless, often brutal affair between an American widower (Marlon Brando) and a young Frenchwoman (Maria Schneider). Lauded by some critics for pushing the boundaries of sexual representation and denounced by others as misogynistic and pornographic, the X-rated film earned Bertolucci an obscenity conviction in Italy and made $36 million at the U.S. box office alone. Last Tango’s success surprised Bertolucci. “It’s very rare,” he said, “that such a desperate movie manages to have such a widespread audience.” Bertolucci was born in Parma, in northern

Italy, to an “affluent, artistically inclined family,” said The New York Times. His father was an acclaimed poet and occasional film critic; his mother taught literature. Bertolucci started making short films as a teenager, and at age 21 directed his debut feature, The Grim Reaper, about the murder of a prostitute in Rome. He was soon being hailed “as one of the brightest young stars of international cinema,” said the Associated Press. A selfproclaimed Marxist, Bertolucci didn’t “shy away from politics and ideology”: His 1964 film Before the Revolution was “a reflection on politics and the middle class,” and 1970’s The Conformist dealt with a young man’s bid to prosper in Fascist Italy.

Last Tango made Bertolucci “the most famous director in the world,” said The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Courted by American film studios, he gave them 1900 (1976): a five-hour, $8 million epic about two rural Italian families, starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, and Burt Lancaster. It was a spectacular flop. His “roller coaster between critical success and failure” continued with works such as 1979’s Luna, “an overheated tale of incest,” and 2012’s Me and You, about a teenage boy who cuts school. While some might have pictured a libertine behind the camera, Bertolucci insisted he didn’t fit the bill. “I’m a repressed person,” he once said, “who can express my energy, my libido, my aggression, only in my work.”