Biografie

Bertolucci's Der letzte Tango in Paris (1972) was pronounced obscene as was banned 'forever' by Italian courts. The director lost his civil rights for 5 years, couldn't vote and received a four months suspended sentence.

Was close friends with Pier Paolo Pasolini.

When the Italian Bertolucci was Oscar-nominated as Best Director for Der letzte Kaiser (1987) (and won), none of his Best Director fellow nominees were from the United States: Adrian Lyne and John Boorman (UK), Lasse Hallström (Sweden) and Norman Jewison (Canada) making that particular instance unique in Oscar history. It was also the first time the Best Director Oscar had been given to a member of the Communist Party.

He was a big fan of Breaking Bad (2008).

In July 1990, along with Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra and Marcello Mastroianni, he wrote: "With the death of Sergei Parajanov cinema lost one of its wizards".

[on Los Angeles] The Big Nipple.

[His answer on 2 October 1979 to a woman who had just seen a special screening of La luna (1979) at the Film Center of the School of the Art Institute, Chicago] I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is.

I don't film messages. I let the post office take care of those.

I am still against any kind of censorship. It's a subject in my life that has been very important.

A monoculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy. I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns or tanks. I think that I used to love Hollywood movies. I remember great phases and moments. But, unfortunately, now is not the moment.