Italian film legacy Bernardo Bertolucci dies at age 77
Born in Parma in 1941, his other films included The Conformist, The Dreamers, 1900 and The Sheltering Sky.
Winner of two Oscars, for directing and co-writing The Last Emperor, he was known for his bold visual style and the controversy stoked by Last Tango in Paris’s explicit sexual content.
A spokesperson confirmed to the BBC he died of cancer after a short illness.
His final feature, Me and You, had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012.
By 15, the aspiring auteur had created two short films. But it was as an assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini on the controversial “Accattone” in 1961 where Bertolucci cut his teeth in the world of film.
Bertolucci’s first feature “The Grim Reaper” marked him as a young director to watch despite being something of a box office failure.
Over the next few years, Bertolucci kept busy with a string of films including “Before the Revolution in 1964 and “The Spider’s Stratagem” in 1970.
But it was with political drama “The Conformist” — also released in 1970 — in which Bertolucci evolved into a more mature director. Two years later came the release of “Last Tango in Paris.”
“I felt prosecuted by censorship,” Bertolucci told CNN back in 2007 regarding the Italian authorities’ decision to condemn the film to be destroyed due to its graphic content.
