I love
Bernado Bertolucci's work. It all started when I studied his 1970's movie
The Conformist a few years back and I totally fell in love with the way he shoots his movies. I love the atmosphere he generates, the well rounded characters and his unique way of shooting movies with dark and disturbing themes along with historical fact and sexual politics. Basically, no-one shoots movies like Bertolucci and unlike many directors of the 70's and 80's era (
De Palma,
Lucas,
Carpenter), he still has it. His 2003 movie
The Dreamers is one of his top four films from where I'm sitting.
Variety are reporting that Bertolucci is set to direct his first movie since The Dreamers. The flick is described as an English-language drama based on the life of 16th century Italian musician and murderer
Gesualdo da Venosa. Yes you read that right, de Venosa was a famous composer but also a notorious killer. He is famed for murdering his wife and the man she was having an affair with and for leaving their dismembered bodies outside of a palace for all to see. The murder was said to be extremely graphic and I won't spoil the film to you by telling you what happened to de Venosa because this sounds like it could be a great film.
Mark Peploe wrote the first draft which was titled
Heaven and Hell although Variety believe they will go with a different title when all is said and done. Peploe wrote Bertolucci's great movie
The Last Emperor in the late 80's of which this story is said to be similarly forgotten in the annals of history. Sounds fantastic. No studio is attached as of yet but let's hope he gets a nice budget for this thing.