Liv Tyler Pens Beautiful Tribute To The Late Bernardo Bertolucci

Dreamiest babe Liv Tyler (and Oyster 115 cover star) may have made her screen debut in that Aerosmith video clip, but it’s her role in Stealing Beauty — which captured the serenity of Tuscany, youth, self-discovery and self-expression so hauntingly — that is an early favourite of many.

With the recent news of the film’s director, Bernardo Bertolucci, passing away at age 77, Liv has penned a beautiful tribute.

“My Bernardo, my maestro, my teacher, my believer. Goodbye for now 💔” She writes in an instagram post. “I am so deeply grateful to him. For what he showed to me and let me see. All the little beautiful details that make something truly unique and extraordinary. Thank you for letting me in on that.”

“The little secrets of how to capture the magic. He took me under his wing and let me fly. I felt proud of him each day and the work he induced and I felt like he felt proud of us too, all of us actors up on that little hill in Tuscany filming Stealing Beauty. He ignited my 17 year old soul and has inspired me for a lifetime.”

“He was a visual master,” she continues. “A true visionary. A communicator of beauty and conflict. I learned so much from him about cinema, art and how he was telling our story through these sort of moving paintings. The learning is endless inside of me. I am so grateful to have observed him working when he didn’t know I was watching. He and his camera spied on me but I was spying on them too, watching, studying, observing every beautiful tip. Thank you dear Bernardo. May we meet again one day… your Liv.”

Certainly loved by many beyond just Liv Tyler, both personally and professionally and from an audience perspective. Though, it goes without so much mention that his legacy and passing leave a taste of conflict. In 2007,his then 19-year-old Last Tango In Paris (1972) lead lady, Maria Schneider, gave an interview in which she said she felt “a little raped” by Marlon Brando and Bertolucci.

“That scene wasn’t in the original script,” Schneider said. “The truth is it was Marlon who came up with the idea. They only told me about it before we had to film the scene, and I was so angry. I should have had my lawyer come to the set because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but I didn’t know that.”

“Someone thinks Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. That is false!” Bertolucci returned. “Maria knew everything because she had read the script, in which it was all described. The only new thing was the idea of the butter. It was this, I learned many years later, that upset Maria, and not the violence.”