Bernardo Bertolucci was born
March 16 , 1940 in Parma, Italy. His father was Attilio Bertolucci, a famous
poet and film critic. So as you can imagine Bernardo was surrounded with an
atmosphere of creative and raised with an open mind for the arts. Its not surprising
that He started to make short films on 16mm stock when he was just a teenager,
roughly 15. Bernardo was also a young writer and it's this creative outlet that
first got him some recognition. He won the Premio Viareeggo award which is one
of Italy’s top literary awards for his first book, In Search of Mystery. While
studying at the University of Rome, Bernardo worked as an assistant director to
Pier Paolo Pasolini on the film, Accatone. This opportunity gave him the
covedencice and experience to embark out on his own independent film career.
Bernardo Bertolucci's first two films where not received with much praise and
caused a five-year drought in funding for features. During this time he made a
number of documentaries and assisted Julian beck on various productions. It
wasn't until 1970 that Bertolucci received international acclaim for, The
Conformist, a non-linear exploration
of Mussolini's Fascist Italy and a character study of an individual who
conforms to the era's conventions. In that same year, 1970, Bertolucci came out
with his controversial feature that would instill his auteur status, Last
Tango in Paris.
Last Tango in Paris is about a young French
girl and a middle age American man having an affair in an apartment that they
get together just for the sole purpose of their “meet-ups”. The American man,
Paul, is just recently widowed after his wife commits suicide and the young
French girl has a fiancé that she is not too sure about. The main rule is no
information about each other must be mentioned.
Show clip: Last Tango in Paris 23min.28sec. -
27min.23sec.
As I was watching this film I got a sense of just a
free-flowing style. The camera was like a person on a construction site that
didn't know what there were doing; just roaming around and taking everything in
that was going on around them. I can see that Bertolucci's past experience with
documentaries play a part in his philosophy in filmmaking. He lets the viewer
in on everything and it seems very honest. It's at these parts in the film that
I think we get a glimpse of Bertolucci himself. Now I wanted to see if, as an
auteur, if he keep that honesty throughout his career. So the next film I chose
was the one he directed most resent. The Dreamers. It's about an
American college student who visits France and meets a brother and sister who
take him on a journey of crazy indulgences, both mentally and physical. While
watching this film, I saw some major changes in his Bertolucci's style, but
that was to be expected, it's a 33 year gap between Last Tango in Paris and
The Dreamers. Evolution in necessary for an evolving medium. However,
the film may not have been as free-flowing as his earlier work, but there are
still glimpse of that honesty that we connect to so much.
Show clip: The Dreamers 1:08:31 – 1:11:16
Bertolucci likes to push the boundary on the viewer’s
comfort level. That, in itself, is like his style. Honesty can often be
uncomfortable. Now with that said, for me, the boundary's were push a little
too far with The Dreamers. The film was just a little too honest for me.
The pace is much faster which seems to shove the material right into your face,
but at times the pace slows and everything seems to be shown perfectly to
you. To me, Bertolucci is like the butcher, the cook, and the waiter of
filmmaking. He takes you in and shows you how the meat is cut from the bone.
Then takes the meat to the stove and shows you how to cook it. And Finally sits
you down and display the outcome of the whole process. It's your opinion if it
tastes good or not.
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