R.I.P. – director Bernardo Bertolucci, age 77

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Bernardo Bertolucci obituary.

His contributions to cinema, great as they are, pale in comparison to his contributions to cinema nudity.

Yes, he directed 21 feature films and won Oscars as both a writer and director.

But the name of this blog is not Other Great Stuff. I’ll leave the encomiums to the experts, like Marty Scorsese.

From our perspective, he’s the one who directed Eva Green in The Dreamers and Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris. He’s the one who got a young Thandie Newton naked in Besieged and even got Debra Winger to strip in The Sheltering Sky. He managed to film nude scenes from Liv Tyler and Rachel Weisz in the same film (Stealing Beauty). And that list only scratches the surface. There’s Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda …

We owe him so much.

Enough to forgive him for Little Buddha.

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UPDATE from the comment section:

The death of Nicolas Roeg should also be noted. He gave us Jenny Agutter in Walkabout, Amanda Donohoe in Castaway, the classic sex scene in Don’t Look Now, and one of the most memorable nude classics in Full Body Massage. The Man Who Fell to Earth had some memorable nudity as well. He was married to Theresa Russell and she was naked in Bad Timing. Oh yeah, he was also one of the most interesting and innovative filmmakers of all-time, though I don’t know how much I actually enjoyed his work.

Trivia: He was second-unit cinematographer on Lawrence of Arabia. He’s the second 90+ year old crew member on that film to die this year after editor Anne V. Coates passed in May.

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Scoop’s note:

I didn’t know how to eulogize Nic Roeg without breaking the rule about speaking ill, which is to say honestly, of the recently deceased. Roeg was a perfect illustration of the Peter Principle. He was a wonderful cinematographer, who reached his level of incompetence as a director. He had absolutely no sense of narrative or pacing, although his films always looked great because of his cinematographer’s eye. In fact, he took the rare split roles of director/cinematographer in Walkabout.

In all of his years in the film industry he was never nominated for an Oscar, and was only nominated for three BAFTAs, two of which were for cinematography. He lost all three times. To be fair, he perhaps should have received an Oscar nomination for his outstanding cinematography in Far From the Madding Crowd.

He did win the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the “Transilvania Film Society,” so we know he was huge in the vampire set! (Wikipedia says “Transilvania” is the Romanian spelling.)

Too soon?

As the commenter noted, there’s no disputing his contribution to screen nudity, and thanks to the internet, we don’t actually have to watch any of his boring and poorly edited movies to see the nude scenes. So, Nic, thanks for the mammaries.

Here’s an OBG: Sharon Kelly in Alice Goodbody (1974)

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In her twenties Sharon Kelly was an attractive, extremely buxom redhead, and she’s stark naked here, facing the camera.

She was always a dependable presence in the films of the legendary exploitation directors of the 70s like Russ Meyer, Bethel Buckalew and Harry Novak.

IMDb says:

“With her fiery scarlet hair, pretty round freckled face, awesomely ample, buxom and shapely figure, and infectiously bubbly good-natured personality, popular 1970s soft-core starlet Sharon Kelly was as endearing as she was alluring. In the early 1980s, Kelly began acting in hardcore X-rated porno movies under the pseudonym Colleen Brennan. Sharon Kelly voluntarily quit acting in the late 1980s because of the AIDS scare and went on to create her own home recording studio for phone sex hot lines.”

College Football Rankings – Week 14

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This week’s official playoff rankings:

The committee still shows no inclination to let UCF into the playoff club with the other three undefeated teams.

Sagarin’s computer supports that position by ranking UCF 18th in the nation. Four of the teams ranked above them have suffered four losses.

Five Thirty Eight speculates on all the playoff possibilities. The one certainty seems to be that Notre Dame is in, having finished their schedule undefeated.

Clemson seems pretty safe, given that their only remaining game is their conference championship battle against mediocre Pitt (7-5). Clemson is favored by four. Not four points. Four touchdowns.

Assuming a Clemson win, then three of the playoff teams will be Notre Dame, Clemson and the winner of the Alabama-Georgia game (the bookies currently favor ‘Bama by 13.)

The battle for the fourth spot now shapes up to be between Oklahoma and Ohio State, which re-entered the picture after scoring 62 points against last week’s #4, Michigan. Both of those teams will be rooting for Alabama this week, because if ‘Bama loses they could still make the play-off, given that their regular season is considered by some to be the single greatest in the history of college football dating back to 1888!

An Alabama loss, coupled with wins by Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma, is a nightmare for the selection committee. They would then be stuck with Georgia, Notre Dame and Clemson and would only have one more spot to allot to three teams with approximately equal credentials. (That would be Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio State, all three of which would probably be favorites in one-on-one match-ups against Notre Dame. Alabama would probably be favored by 20 over the Irish head-to-head, yet could end up freezing on the outside of the playoff club, looking in while the Notre Dame team lounges by the fire in their green smoking jackets!)