Just found out online that Gillo Pontecorvo has died! This was reported by the BBC in London; the news hasn't hit this side of the Atlantic yet.

Very sad, but especially so after having seen "Marie Antoinette". Pontecorvo (with Francesco Rosi, with Marco Bellocchio, with Bernardo Bertolucci, with Elio Petri, with the Taviani Brothers) was part of a generation of Italian filmmakers who were concerned with the fusion of politics and aesthetics in filmmaking. Yet what makes their work (at their best) so astounding is that they fused their political passions and their ideology with the most fervent and beautiful imagery.