Bernardo Bertolucci
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(1940 - present)
Three Key Films: The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), The Last Emperor (1987).
Underrated: Partner (1968). Although neither as visually stunning or politically incisive as his later films, Partner is the most explicit example of Bertolucci’s debt to the French New Wave—most specifically to Godard’s more political films—which he would maintain a relationship with even after this film (Agnes Varda wrote the French dialogue for Last Tango in Paris). A loose adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Double, the film follows Giacobbe, who returns home one day to discover his double sitting in his room. The double, though, proves to be a much more assertive and charismatic version of Giacobbe and together they set about various political activities, including a large avant-garde theatre performance with Giaccobe’s theatre class.
The political content and visual style are both more stated and less precise than in Bertolucci’s later films. This makes Partner a particularly interesting part of Bertolucci’s catalogue, though, not solely because of how it differs visually from his later films, but also because the politics that would be central to almost all of Bertolucci’s films are present here in a never-again-seen undiluted form.
Unforgettable: The climactic, forest-set scene in The Conformist. With little but the sound of the wind blowing in the background, and scarce dialogue throughout, Bertolucci creates tension and drama almost solely through proficient yet gorgeous camera work and incredible editing. Featuring the use of every tool at their disposal—from close-ups to handheld camera work—the sequence is the best example of what Bertolucci and his long-time collaborator, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, were capable of with the camera.
The Last Emperor (1987)
The Legend: Bernardo Bertolucci emerged in the 1970’s as a strong figure in Italian cinema. Starting with Spider’s Stratagem (1970) and, in particular, The Conformist, Bertolucci set himself apart with a thematic and visual style of his own.
The beginning of Bertolucci’s career is marked by a sustained interest in the rise and fall of Fascism in Italy. Not happy to simply demarcate those who cooperated with Mussolini as evil, Bertolucci repeatedly used his films to explore why so many ordinary people were willing to stand by and often aid a manifestly unjust government. His pivotal movie in this respect is The Conformist, in which the main character is a government official who, merely because of his desire to fit in and his unwillingness to fight against the status quo, becomes an agent for the Fascist regime.
Bertolucci never failed to recognize that those acting in concert with the fascists were acting unethically. His films, though, bravely confront the unfortunate truth that, in too many cases, there was no conscious desire to do wrong, and that the human tendency to conform, whether it be to a job’s requirements in The Conformist or to social and class expectations in 1900 (1976), makes the Italian case not an anomaly but a warning of what any society is capable of turning into.
In these same films, Bertolucci became equally famous for his visual style as for the politics of his films (which, in the case of 1900, sometimes brought him controversy instead). All his films—and particularly those featuring cinematographer Vittorio Storaro—feature an unmistakably theatrical and grand visual style. Bertolucci was as capable of perfectly choreographed long takes with graceful camera movement as he was of gorgeous, meticulously framed still shots. The Conformist astounds for how each frame looks like a painting that should be hung on your wall.
Starting in the mid-1970s, Bertolucci’s films increasingly focused less on Italy. Last Tango in Paris explores the free love mantra of the 1960s through the affair between a older widower and younger woman. The Last Emperor, for which Bertolucci won an Oscar, details the life of China’s last emperor as the country turns into a Republic and then a Communist dictatorship. Then, beginning in the late 1980s, Bertolucci’s films began to reflect a conscious turn from overt political messages. Due to the nature of his past films, though, this absence in his later work in the end makes its own political point. Nevertheless, regardless of the topic or locale, Bertolucci’s films remain unmistakably his: poignant, nuanced, critical, and majestic. 
Tomas Hachard
