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
Film students should stay as far away from film schools and film teachers as possible. The only school for the cinema is the cinema.
Sometimes I think that I understand my movies after I make them. Really. I go very often off of instinct.
A dolly move is a moral commitment.
I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is.
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 don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.
This is something that I dream about: to live films, to arrive at the point at which one can live for films, can think cinematographically, eat cinematographically, sleep cinematographically, as a poet, a painter, lives, eats, sleeps painting.
I like to be in a huis clos, as the French say - in one place. It's something that in general can create a bit of claustrophobia. But for me, claustrophobia becomes almost immediately claustrophilia. I love it!
'Dreamers' was because I really wanted to go back after I heard so much nonsense about '68. I wanted to go back to what for me was '68, when young people thought that they could change the world.
I wanted to have a reaction from the audience. I wanted to be able to talk to somebody, and not be talking just to myself. That's when I did 'The Conformist,' 'Last Tango in Paris,' etc. And I found it was incredibly rewarding, something new.
I wanted already to be a filmmaker after I saw 'La Dolce Vita.'
Although some people call me anti-feminist, I know I wasn't because Germaine Greer supported me.
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.