Red Shoes

The Venice Festival asked many directors for one minute-and-a-half movie, to be shown all together. I didn’t know if I wanted to do it. But going out with my wheelchair, let’s say my electric chair, around me, there are all these cobblestones, and there are all these holes in the street. It’s so much trouble to move around. So it was a political film—a cry for help to the mayor of Rome to do something about the condition of the streets. [Laughs.] It didn’t work at all. We went out the other day, and everything is the same, only it’s worse. Bernardo Bertolucci, interviewed by Sam Adams, Bernardo Bertolucci on physical limitation, American TV, and Breaking Bad, The Dissolve, July 11, 2014