Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci has died.
Bertolucci, who was 77 years old, died Monday morning at his home in Rome. Variety, the entertainment weekly magazine, reports that he had cancer.
He is best known for the films “The Last Emperor,” and “Last Tango in Paris.”
Bertolucci won the best director Oscar for “The Last Emperor,” making him the first and only Italian to win the best director Oscar. “The Last Emperor,” a cinematic masterpiece about the last imperial ruler of China, was nominated for nine Oscars and won all nine categories.
“Last Tango in Paris,” however, is probably his best-known film. The 1972 erotic drama starred Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. Tango is the tale of a older man and a young woman who have anonymous sex in various locations in Paris. “Tango” created quite a stir when it came out because of a controversial sex scene involving butter.
Years later, Schneider, who was 19 years old when filming on “Tango” began, said in an interview that the scene was not in the original script and she was only told about it right before the scene was shot. “I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci.”
At the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Bertolucci was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or for his life’s work.
