Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian writer-director, dies recently after making 25 films over 51 years. He is most renowned for The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and the 9-Oscar winner The Last Emperor (1987). Bertolucci’s body of work benefitted from his longtime collaboration with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.
Of course, his most notorious film was Last Tango in Paris. I rewatched Last Tango in Paris in the last few years, and concluded that it just doesn’t stand up. In fact, I found parts of the vaunted Marlon Brando performance risible and, knowing what we know now about how Bertolucci and Brando treated actrees Maria Schneider, the famed butter scene is disturbingly unwatchable.
I actually prefer Bertolucci’s more recent work, beginning with the underrated The Sheltering Sky (1990) with John Malkovich and Debra Winger. I thought that his The Dreamers was the best film of 2003.
I especially like Bertolucci’s final film, Me and You which he made in 2012 at the age of 72. I saw Me and You at the San Francisco International Film Festival, but it has never been widely available, and sadly, can only be streamed with a Realeyz subscription.
