Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucciis an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky and The Dreamers. In recognition of his work, he was presented with the inaugural Honorary Palme d'Or Award at the opening ceremony of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Since 1979 he has been married to screenwriter Clare Peploe...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth16 March 1941
CityParma, Italy
CountryItaly
There's no more film; now everything's digital. I welcome this. It's fantastic for me to have a new chance.
I like to be in a huis clos, as the French say - in one place. Its something that in general can create a bit of claustrophobia. But for me, claustrophobia becomes almost immediately claustrophilia. I love it!
I like that 3D is based on the fact that you look with two eyes, so two cameras imitate that.
If you mention any ideological thing about shooting Last Tango in Paris, I was thinking I was doing a political film.
You know, in ten years you're gonna be playing soccer with your tits, what do you think of that?
A name? Oh, Jesus Christ. Ah, God, I've been called by a million names all my life. I don't want a name. I'm better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.
Having no children had been a kind of choice up to the moment when, from a choice, it became a sadness.
If New York is the Big Apple, tonight Hollywood is the Big Nipple.
I like being able to see an innocence in people. I see a lot of beauty in youth. Young people are in progress. Their faces and bodies and minds are constantly changing. It's exciting to capture that on film.
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.
The problem in Hollywood is that they try to become the only kind of cinema in the world, okay? The imposition everywhere of a unique culture, which is Hollywood culture, and a unique way of life, which is the American way of life.
What always made me proud - almost blushing with pride - is that Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg all told me that 'The Conformist' is their first modern influence.
My father basically had two ways of judging anything. Either something was poetic or it wasn't.
The conformist understands that the reason of his desperate look for conformism is that he realises he is different and that he never accepted his difference.