On 30 July 2007, two giants of European cinema, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, died on the same day. Around last weekend, two more great European film directors (I’d never brand Roeg an English filmmaker, that sounds so… provincial) passed away. Nicholas Roeg died on Friday 23 and Bernardo Bertolucci on Monday 26 November.

Both directed a run of extraordinary films in the 1970s (what was it with the seventies when every director from Altman to Scorsese and Ashby to Weir directed a string of great films, then lost the plot?). Bertolucci made The Conformist, The Spider’s Stratagem, Last Tango in Paris and 1900. Roeg directed Performance, Walkabout, Don’t Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth. Both directors were true originals and irreplaceable. (I’ve written previously about Roeg, see link below.)

Roeg Gallery from top to bottom: Performance (1970), Walkabout (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Bad Timing (1980) and The Witches (1990).

Previously on Barnflakes
Top 10 British Film Directors
Skinny dipping in the movies

Elsewhere on the web
17 rare times when a director made five or more great films in a row