He has worked under major directors, such as Stephen Frears ( in the 1988 period drama Dangerous Liaisons ); Gus Van Sant ( in the 1991 independent film My Own Private Idaho ); and Bernardo Bertolucci ( in the 1993 film Little Buddha ).

* 1941 – Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian film director

** Bernardo Bertolucci, Italian writer and film director

His first film was 1977's Berlinguer ti voglio bene, also by Bertolucci.

Then Bernardo Bertolucci cast him in a small speechless role as a window upholsterer in the film La Luna which evaded American distribution due to its subject matter.

Bernardo Bertolucci (; born 16 March 1941 ) is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky and The Dreamers.

He is the elder son of Ninetta, a teacher, and Attilio Bertolucci, who was a poet, a reputed art historian, anthologist and film critic.

His cousin was the film producer Giovanni Bertolucci ( 24 June 1940 – 17 February 2005 ), with whom he has worked on a number of films.

The boom of Italian cinema, which gave Bertolucci his start, slowed in the 1970s as directors were forced to co-produce their films with several of the American, Swedish, French, and German companies and actors due to the effects of the global economic recession on the Italian film industry.

Bertolucci became infamous in 1972, with the controversial film Last Tango in Paris, with Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud and Massimo Girotti, when a scene featuring the anal rape of character Jeane by character Paul using butter as a lubricant, among other depictions of the young Schneider that were thought to be exploitative, caused serious concern due to its representation of women.

Because of the exploitative nature of Bertolucci's depiction of Jeane, the film can easily be seen as a sexist, masculinist rape fantasy, especially given that Bertolucci himself openly admits that the film was inspired by his own sexual fantasies, though many critics dismissed the concerns as moralistic.

Brando too felt raped by Bertolucci, and did not speak to him for many years as a result of the trauma of being involved with the film.

The film caused criminal proceedings to be brought against Bertolucci in Italy for the anal rape scene, and the film was sequestered by the censorship commission and all copies were ordered to be destroyed.

Many years after, when the censorship commission had been abolished, the film reappeared ( because Bertolucci had kept a clandestine copy ) and was projected in a slightly censored version.

During the making of Last Tango in Paris, Bertolucci toyed with the idea of adapting Dashiell Hammett's book Red Harvest into a feature film.

Bertolucci wrote two screenplays, the first draft was written almost entirely as a political film, from which emerged a story inspired by socialist syndicalism of the late 1920s in America.

In Rome, Bertolucci and Warren Beatty talked in great detail about the film, and in 1982 Bertolucci left Europe for Los Angeles, where he was to shoot Red Harvest, but five years went by and the film was never made.

In 1987, Bertolucci directed the epic The Last Emperor, a biographical film telling the life story of Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last Emperor of China.

This period brought him work on several European productions, with directors such as Luchino Visconti and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Bertolucci released a documentary in 2006, Pasolini prossimo nostro, based on an interview with Pasolini done on the set of Salò in 1975.

In 1975, Benigni had his first theatrical success with Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia, written by Giuseppe Bertolucci.

Bertolucci left Pasolini's poetic ideas behind in order to follow his own personal idea about cinema, based primarily on the individuality of people who are forced to deal with sudden changes in their lives.

Bertolucci answered this by saying he too much identified with Brando's character to humiliate him in such a way.

Bertolucci increased his fame with his next few films, from Novecento ( 1976 ), an epic depiction of the struggles of farmers in Emilia-Romagna from the beginning of the 20th century up to World War II with an impressive international cast ( Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster, Dominique Sanda ) to La Luna, set in Rome and in Emilia-Romagna, in which Bertolucci deals with the thorny issue of drugs and incest, and finally La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo ( 1981 ), with Ugo Tognazzi.

Bertolucci has worked almost exclusively with Thomas from then on.

After his divorce from Adriana Asti, Bertolucci married Clare Peploe, screenwriter and director with Mark Peploe of Professione Reporter, and who had already collaborated with Michelangelo Antonioni.

Bertolucci was furious at Shochiku Fuji's interference with his film, calling it " revolting ".

It includes a booklet featuring an essay by David Thomson, interviews with production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti and actor Ying Ruocheng, a reminiscence by Bertolucci, and an essay and production-diary extracts from Fabien S. Gerard.

The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci.

* Best Adapted Screenplay ( Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci )

Shepard, Antonioni, Italian filmmaker Franco Rossetti, screenwriter Tonino Guerra and Clare Peploe ( wife of Bernardo Bertolucci ) worked on the screenplay.

Italy has produced many important cinematography auteurs, including Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Ettore Scola, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Zeffirelli, Mario Bava, Sergio Corbucci, Lucio Fulci, Mario Monicelli, Marco Ferreri, Elio Petri, Ermanno Olmi, Umberto Lenzi, Lina Wertmüller, and Luchino Visconti.

' Bernado Bertolucci in context ': Tasker Yvonne: Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers.

* 1911 – Attilio Bertolucci, Italian poet and writer ( d. 2000 )

The Italian poet Attilio Bertolucci ( born in a hamlet in the countryside ) wrote: " As a capital city it had to have a river.

This ambitious multi-genre multi-media project featured contributions by over 100 performers, including Pina Bausch, Bernardo Bertolucci, Josep Carreras, His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Salman Rushdie.

* April 11 – The Last Emperor ( directed by Bernardo Bertolucci ) wins nine Oscars.

The film's script was written by Leone and his longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Donati, from a story by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, both of whom went on to have significant careers as directors.

Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma, in the region of Emilia-Romagna.

Having been raised in such an environment, Bertolucci began writing at the age of fifteen, and soon after received several prestigious literary prizes including the Premio Viareggio for his first book.

His father's background helped his career: the elder Bertolucci had helped the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini publish his first novel, and Pasolini reciprocated by hiring Bertolucci as first assistant in Rome on Accattone ( 1961 ), where he met his first wife, Adriana Asti.

Bertolucci has one brother, the theatre director and playwright Giuseppe ( b. 27 February 1947 ).

Bertolucci initially wished to become a poet like his father.

Shortly after, Bertolucci left the University without graduating.

Bertolucci uses flashbacks to piece together the crime and the person who committed it.