In 2010, Yuri Lyubimov, then 92, directed a production based on Tonino Guerra’s long poem Honey (Il miele). Guerra, who had turned 90, traveled to Moscow and opened one of the first performances with a brief talk. If memory serves, he began like this: “When Federico Fellini and I, in Rome, started working on what would become Amarcord…”
It was unbelievable that a denizen of that golden age would leave his mythical cloud and share the ground with us. Actually, Amarcord was barely 35 years old then, but it was the creation of wondrous giants who had once walked the earth.
And now Bertolucci is gone. He belonged to a generation twenty years younger than Fellini’s, Guerra’s and Pasolini’s; he continued making films until a few years ago. Still, The Conformist and his other early works were fruit of the same golden age.
I associate Guerra with Tarkovsky above all – they were friends and he co-wrote the script of “Nostalghia.” Yes, the 60s-80s were a great age for cinema indeed.
The same man co-authored the scripts for Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point. A remarkable range for a screenwriter.