Bernardo Bertolucci, director of Last Tango in Paris, passes away after battle with cancer at 77

Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, who helmed films like Last Tango in Paris died after a battle with cancer on 26 November. He was 77. The news of his death was confirmed by his publicist reports The Guardian. [caption id=“attachment_5619001” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Bernardo Bertolucci. Image from Twitter[/caption] Bertolucci has also directed films like The Last Emperor, the first Western film made in China. The film went on to bag nine Oscars including best picture and best director. According to Variety, he was born into a wealthy family of Parma and was the son of poet Attilio Bertolucci. He himself became an award-winning poet at age 21 but decided to take up filmmaking instead. Bertolucci first worked as an assistant to Italian poet Pier Paolo Pasoloni and worked on Pasolini’s first film Accattone in 1961. He made his directorial debut the following year with The Grim Reaper, which was screened at the Venice Film Festival. The award winning director created controversy when a 2013 video surfaced on the internet in 2016 where he confessed that the infamous ‘butter rape scene’ in Last Tango in Paris between the lead actors Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider was not consensual. Brando went on to receive an  Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Bertolucci was nominated for Best Director.