Director Review: BERNARDO BERTOLUCCI

There are people out there who appear born to be directors. Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci is one of these cases. Son of film critic, he latched onto and learned from master director Pier Pasolini while he was still very young. This coupled with his staggering oeuvre lead me to beleive that this is a man who invariably belongs behind a camera.

His directoral debut, La Commare Secca, (1962) written by his mentor Pasolini, is a daring retelling of the classic murder mystery. Though it does lean heavily on Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), this is still a film with its very own voice. It uses a multiple-narrator structure to put the viewer in several different vantage points surrounding a single event: the murder. What I like about this movie is that it places the viewer in the feet of the detectives investigating this particularly horrific crime. As each character involved unfolds his or her perspective, we slowly receive the clues we need to crack the case. I've always thought that the most pointless and frustrating mysteries are the ones that never give you the chance to figure it out yourself. Though it may be difficult to catch, (what with all the misdirection in the varrying stories told) it is possible to deduce who the killer is. I also like the social commentary divergences that Bertolucci takes along the way. He juxtaposes bored, higher-class loungers who laze about having affairs and collecting money against lower-class rascals and weirdos struggling and scraping to survive and find meaning in the streets of Rome. My only criticism of this film is that sometimes these vignettes are too long and boring.

A decade later Bertolucci would create an art house classic that would get him an Academy Award nomination and put him permanently on the international film map: Last Tango in Paris (1972). One of the most emotionally dense films I've ever seen, Last Tango stars Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, both at the top of their game. Brando was coming to this hot off the set of The Godfather (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar) but really put himself into this role. Ever the master method actor (chills me to think of his methods for getting into this character) he brings so much dimension to his character Paul that, though you never feel like you understand Paul, you feel like Brando does. You feel like somewhere locked inside him lies the reason that he is so harsh, jaded and angry. Schneider's character Jeanne is no less confusing, subjecting herself to a string of brutal, animalistic sex encounters that border, at times, rape. I number this among the several movies that I love and connect with, but that are very uncomfortable to watch.

Okay, fast forward a decade and a half now to 1987, when Bertolucci would create his most acclaimed work: The Last Emperor. NINE ACADEMY AWARDS!!! And honestly, I think it just about deserves that. A truly compelling and layered epic, the story of Chinese Emperor Pu Yi, who took the throne at age three and witnessed the crumbling of the Qing Dynasty, draws you into a truly unique life. The beautiful recreation of the Forbidden City is stunning. The acting is solid, sometimes playful, sometimes torrid and upright. And, though it's not a film without a few story incoherencies, it's still thoroughly enjoyable.