Deaths in World Cinema in 2018

Another year has passed, and the world of cinema has lost several of its well-known figures; at the forefront are Italian cinema, which bid farewell to three acclaimed filmmakers: Bernardo Bertolucci, Ermanno Olmi, and Vittorio Taviani. Bernardo Bertolucci is probably the most famous filmmaker who passed away last year; on November 26, at the age of seventy-seven, he died of cancer. Bertolucci was one of the most controversial filmmakers in cinema history, especially making waves in the 1970s. He began his career in 1961 as an assistant to the well-known Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and made his first feature film a year later at the age of twenty-two, moving away from his desire to become a poet like his father and continuing to work in cinema until the last years of his life. The sexual explicitness of "Last Tango in Paris" caused a lot of uproar and even led to Bertolucci's trial. As a Marxist, Bertolucci had no qualms about bringing his political beliefs and thoughts into cinema, thus adding some of the world's most famous political films to his filmography; from "Before the Revolution" and "The Conformist" to "1900." However, his most captivating films are those where he moved away from "important political" statements and focused on the simplest human relationships and love; including in "The Sheltering Sky" (1990) and "The Dreamers" (1996). The sexual explicitness of "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) caused a lot of uproar and even led to Bertolucci's trial; thus, the most recognized film of this filmmaker was created, which today, upon re-examination, has little to say beyond its surrounding controversies. Ermanno Olmi, another acclaimed Italian filmmaker who passed away on May 5, was ten years older than Bertolucci and completely different from him: very reclusive and unassuming with very calm films that remind one of Sohrab Shahid Saless's films and the cinema of the Iranian festivals of the 1960s. Long takes and anti-narrative films shape a filmmaking world that is not in a hurry to tell stories and captures a moment of daily life with non-professional actors. He has been unjustly mixed with the Italian neorealists, while he himself opposed this characterization. His most famous work, "The Tree of Wooden Clogs," won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978. In 2006, Olmi directed a part of the three-part film "Tickets," with the other two parts made by Abbas Kiarostami and Ken Loach. The Taviani brothers - alongside the Coens and Dardens - are the most famous brothers in cinema history who have always worked together, but in 2018, one of the Taviani brothers passed away; Vittorio, the older brother, died on April 15 at the age of eighty-eight. The two brothers began their careers in journalism and entered cinema together by directing a documentary in 1960. They made films for about six decades, and some of their most famous films have very prominent political themes; from "San Michele Had a Rooster" (1972) and "The Padre Padrone" (1977) to "Kaos" (1984). However, their best work was the astonishing film that won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival in 2012: "Caesar Must Die," which features real prisoners as actors and is actually the story of their performance of Julius Caesar; a film that, by blending the prison atmosphere with Shakespeare, takes the viewer to the depths of a shocking apocalyptic scenario. In an exclusive interview with them - during the screening of this film at the Berlin Festival - I asked them why this film is so different from their other films; their response was: "For us, it is always very difficult to judge our films, and we cannot judge them. We are not film critics; you are the film critics, and you should talk about it." Miloš Forman, one of the most famous Czech filmmakers, passed away on April 13 at the age of eighty-six. He was one of the most important filmmakers of the Czech New Wave, living in the country until 1968. One of his most famous films, "The Firemen's Ball," was criticized as a satire of communism in 1967, forcing Forman to leave the country. However, his new phase of work in America was also successful, and Forman directed many prominent films there, such as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and "Amadeus" (1984). Claude Lanzmann, one of the most important documentary filmmakers in the world, passed away at the age of ninety-two: a French filmmaker who immortalized the story of the captivity and slaughter of Jews by the Nazis during World War II with his film "Shoah" (1985); a nine-hour film that took eleven years to make, and 350 hours of footage were later made available on an internet platform for everyone to use. This film was selected as the second-best documentary in cinema history in a 2014 poll by the magazine "Sight and Sound" from some critics. Nicolas Roeg, a well-known English filmmaker, passed away on November 23 at the age of ninety; a filmmaker who worked as a cinematographer for many years and created his most important film in 1973: "Don't Look Now," based on a story by Daphne du Maurier, which is often seen in lists of the best films in British cinema history. Lewis Gilbert was another English filmmaker who passed away at the age of ninety-seven; with three James Bond films in his filmography, including "You Only Live Twice" (1967). Penny Marshall, an American filmmaker, also passed away at the age of seventy-five; she started her career as an actress and became the first female filmmaker whose film grossed over one hundred million dollars at the box office. American actors, Burt Reynolds (the acclaimed actor of "Deliverance" by John Boorman), Dorothy Malone (Oscar winner for "Written on the Wind" by Douglas Sirk), Christopher Reeve (the actor who played Superman), and John Gavin (actor in films like "Spartacus" and "Psycho") were among those who passed away this year, as well as Connie Sawyer, the oldest active actress in American cinema, who died at the age of one hundred five, with eighty-five years of acting experience. Robby Müller, a top Dutch cinematographer known for his stunning films such as "Paris, Texas" (Wim Wenders - 1984) and "Breaking the Waves" (Lars von Trier - 1996), passed away at the age of seventy-eight. Iranian cinema also lost well-known actors such as Ezzatollah Entezami, Nasser Malek Motiei, Vida Ghahramani, and Levon Haftvan in the past year; as well as filmmakers like Yadollah Samadi and Ziaeddin Daryaei.