Director Bernardo Bertolucci on his best movie scenes

Marlon Brando with actress Maria Schneider and Bernardo Bertolucci in Last Tang in Paris.
Photo: Keystone / Getty Images

This story was published for the first time on December 15, 2010. It is republished today on the occasion of Bertolucci's death.

Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, who died of cancer Monday at age 77, was one of the most important filmmakers of all time. Over the years, he has mingled the experimentation of the new French wave, the operatic gestures of classic Italian cinema, the sensationalism of American films and exuberant sensuality to create a complex, controversial and personal corpus. Make your choice about his most important film: the awesome stylized The conformist (possibly as influential as a movie Citizen Kane), the famous Last Tango in Paris, the sprawling Marxist epic in front of you 1900, the heavy weight of the Oscars The last emperor, or even the retrospective cheers The sky of protection. Everyone would be valid. Here, the director dissects ten of the key scenes of his filmography.

The scene: After discovering that his father, an anti-fascist martyr, had in fact betrayed the partisan cause, Athos Magnani Jr. chose to maintain the myth of his father's heroism.

Bertolucci: "My father once said to me:" You've killed me so many times in your movies. "Even though Athos chose to maintain the myth of his father, it was the beginning of a liberation of the father figure for me.When I shot this film, in the summer of 1969, I Had started going into a shrink.I had chosen this news from Borges [’The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero’]and it was perfect for the beginning of the analysis because it was about the son and the father. And I saw my father as Athos Magnani sees his father – as a hero and a traitor. The end is not exactly like in the history of Borges. [In my version, Athos] decides to maintain the myth and mystery of the father's death – that's my decision. And at the very end of the film, he realizes that he is in a jail because he sees that the railway leading to the outside of the city is covered with grass, which means that no train has crossed this city for a long time. So, he is a prisoner of time, a prisoner of this story and a prisoner of his father. "

The scene: In the culminating scene of the film, Marcello organizes the brutal and highly symbolic murder of his mentor, Professor Luca Quadri, and his wife, Anna Quadri.

Bertolucci: "The conformist was shot while I was still in the editing room with Stratagem of the spider. So, both films have reflected, and The conformist also happens in the same years as the father's story The spider's ploy – 1937, 1938, more or less. Here, you have a young man who goes to Paris with the precise mission of ending this teacher, who is a very important person for him. In the film, the phone number and address of the teacher are the same as those of Jean-Luc Godard in Paris. It was like a message that I passed on to Jean-Luc: I was a young Italian who came to Paris with his films and, in a way, Marcello betraying his teacher, I betrayed Jean-Luc – by agreeing to do a film that was less experimental, a movie that was not so obsessed with the question "What is cinema?" but who wanted to tell a story, with characters. And again, my father said, "Well, here we have another father killed!

The scene: After experiencing a complete psychological collapse on the eve of the fall of Mussolini, Marcello denounces his fascist friend and finds himself alone with a young prostitute homeless. As the camera gets closer to him, Marcello, still closed, turns to look at the bastard – and us.

Bertolucci: "We feel that Marcello suddenly feels who he is. He finally understands himself. This closeup was so intense. After filming in the evening, I asked Jean-Louis, "What were you thinking about during this scene?" He added, "I was thinking of the wheels of my Mercedes." You never know with actors. "

The scene: While the anonymous sex games played between Paul (Marlon Brando) and Jeanne (Maria Schneider) intensify, he sodomizes her, using a little butter.

Bertolucci: "It was not in the screenplay, but we often had breakfast meetings with Marlon in this Parisian apartment. We both thought we had to go further than the erotic scenes we had done so far. There was a wand, and we cut it, and there was a piece of butter to put on the wand. Then Marlon and I looked at each other. This is where the idea was born. And it was very difficult to say to Maria. So we did something very nasty. I did not tell Maria what was happening. We were shooting the scene and Marlon started to wear his jeans – which, by the way, is only possible in a movie. If you do it, because it's too narrow – and she could not understand, then she started to react, saying, "No, no!" And then he puts his hand in the butter. For those who do not know what's going on, what's happening is very violent. So she screams. She shouted in part because she was indignant at me and Marlon, who was for her a kind of paternal figure and who often protected her. I think she felt betrayed by both of us. I do not think the scene could have been shot differently. I think that if I had warned him, it would have been very difficult to eliminate that kind of violence. In fact, if I had told her, she would probably never have been able to accept it. In the meantime, I was ecstatic to be able to use, for erotic purposes, something that is on the breakfast table every morning. "

The scene: Towards the end of Bertolucci's famous epic of more than five hours, the liberation of Italy by the fascists is quickly followed by a glorious parade and waved by a flag in which the peasants on the left judge the owner Alfredo (Robert De Niro ).

Bertolucci: "During the padrone trial, I saw two or three photographs of 1949, when Mao seized China. There have been numerous lawsuits against the Chinese padrones. I remember seeing this picture of farmers in a circle and the owner sitting in the middle. So when I shot, I thought it was something that had something to do with the Chinese revolution. So, in a way, I dreamed of China when I did it.1900. And this dream would become reality eleven years later … "

The scene: The Oscar winner presented a scene with ironic echoes to 1900End of the life of the last Chinese emperor by a grotesque parade of the Cultural Revolution.

Bertolucci: "Before turning the scene of the parade, I gathered four or five young directors I met, [including] Chen Kaige – who also plays a role in the film, he is the captain of the guard – and Zhang Yimou. I asked them questions about the cultural revolution. And suddenly, it was like I was watching a psychodrama: they started playing and crying, it was amazing. I think that there is a relationship between these scenes in The last emperor and in 1900. But many things have changed between these two films, for me and for the world. "

The scene: After the death of her husband, Kit walks in the desert and is gathered by a group of Tuareg nomads. She starts a relationship with one of their leaders, Belqassim (Eric Vu-an).

Bertolucci"While reading the original novel, I really felt the homosexuality of Paul Bowles in this section. And Debra Winger poses as a boy at the beginning of these scenes. So, I think her way of looking at Belqassim was like she was a boy looking at a man. Belqassim is very mysterious, he is always veiled. There is a moment when he's washing it. She becomes a child, in a certain way. Debra Winger was still searching. She wanted so much to identify with Jane Bowles. I remember she said to me one day, "I know this is the last film I will do, but that will not stop me from giving everything."

The scene: After spending his entire life locked up in his father's palace, Prince Siddhartha (Keanu Reeves) emerges from loneliness to a parade his father arranged for him. However, Siddhartha manages to escape the procession to a side aisle, where he attends a cremation and discovers suffering and death.

Bertolucci: "James Acheson, who was the costume designer on Last emperorand Little Buddha, was also the artistic director of this film. And he produced an incredible fake body for cremation. It was perfect outside, but also inside. So, while it was burning, we could see all the organs burning – the heart, the liver, the ribs. A real corpse would not have burned so well. But it was scandalously detailed and it burned perfectly. Keanu could not move his eyes looking at this. None of us could. So we had for this thing the same kind of compassion that we could have had for a real body. "

The scene: The young American moviegoer Matthew (Michael Pitt) shares a bathtub and a joint with the sexually liberated twins Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), who boast of their mutual love.

Bertolucci: "The sexuality of this age was so wild and it was not loaded. This has not been understood since that time. And to make the film, it was always a dance of jealousy, between the characters, between the actors themselves. Sometimes Michael would be jealous of the other two because they could communicate in another language. So Louis would be jealous of Michael and Eva. But they have always had great elegance. Nobody ever approached me and complained about someone else's closeup or something. But there was an incredible amount of privacy around this apartment. "

The scene: An unfortunate suicide attempt stops abruptly as a brick smashes through a window and the three young protagonists of the movie rush down to face the riots of May 1968 in Paris.

Bertolucci: "We can not prevent it. The brick brings them to the street, but I also wanted the brick to bring the street to their room. They were claustrophobic throughout the movie, and now they are coming out. And when they go out, they separate … I felt like I had to do this movie, because I was reading so much nonsense about 1968, all those stupid things. But this film is not from the point of view of these children at this time, but rather from the point of view of an older man who turns around at that time. I wanted to talk about the boy's youth at that time – and this incredible relationship with the future – the way they planned, invented. Today, children of this age are thinking about tomorrow, then tomorrow, then tomorrow. At the time, there was no tomorrow, there was just … the future. "