The Cinema According to Bertolucci (Bertolucci secondo il cinema) A fascinating on-set film by Italian director Gianni Amelio (The Stolen Children, 1992) that imaginatively explores the making of Bertolucci's political epic, 1900.
Amelio interviews Bertolucci between takes from key scenes featuring Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda and Donald Sutherland, as the director explains his desire to "speak of the land where [he] was born and the most formative time of [his] life".
In a memorable on-set interview, a Hemingway-esque Sterling Hayden, dressed in character as peasant patriarch Leo Dalco and sporting a complexion like "over-cooked bread" (according to his director), poetically ruminates on the "beauty, depth and mystery" of Bertolucci's filmmaking process.
Screens with History of Water (Histoire d'eaux) (10 mins, UK/Germany/France, 2002), from the portmanteau film Ten Minutes Older: The Cello. Taking inspiration from an Eastern parable exploring the nature of multiple temporal realities in human experience, Bertolucci's short film tells of a chance encounter between an Italian woman and an Indian immigrant.
