Bernardo Bertolucci

It's commonly known that A ...

• Sep 8, 2005 04:00 AM ET
• by Maitland McDonagh

Question: It's commonly known that A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo. But I recall reading somewhere that the inspiration for Yojimbo was the Alan Ladd version of The Glass Key. Is this true?

Answer: I've read that Akira Kurosawa cites the Alan Ladd version of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key (1942) as one of his inspirations for Yojimbo (1961). But Yojimbo's plot, which revolves around a masterless samurai (Toshiro Mifune) who blows into a lawless town ruled by warring gangs and r read more

Bertolucci's Naked Truth

• Feb 9, 2004 03:00 AM ET
• by Ethan Alter

"I don't consider the naked body obscene," says acclaimed Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, when asked about the frank sexuality that permeates his latest movie, The Dreamers. "When you go and cover part of the naked body — that's when it [becomes] titillating and maybe obscene." As the backlash from Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" indicates, however, there are many who disagree with him. That's why it's a bold move for Fox Searchlight — the studio overseeing the U.S. release of The Dreamers — to release Bertolucci's original NC-17 cut, instead of the R-rated version they initially planned on shipping to theaters. It's the first studio film since 1998's Orgazmo to be released with an NC-17 — a rating with a history of scaring away advertisers and theater owners read more