Arty Farty Filmy Friday ~ Bertolucci & Verbinski

Instead of focusing on a painter today, a look at another facet of Pisces/Neptune creativity: film. Why, one might ask, does Neptune, Lord of the Oceans, have anything to do with film? From astrologer John Hayes:

Neptune has a delicate musical and artistic sense and an idealism and spirituality that recall Venus, whilst in other ways it is reminiscent of Jupiter, and its connection with drugs and poisons is distinctly Piscean. It has a clear connection with all marine matters, and indeed with many things related to liquidity. It is the planet of the creative imagination, ranging downwards from the inspiration of the great poets and artists to the terrible and diseased fancies of the criminal and mentally afflicted. It is the planet of pretence and deception, including self-deception; it has a general tendency to make things appear other than they are, whence its relation to the stage and film.

Two well-known film directors were born on 16 March: Bernardo Bertolucci in Italy in 1941 (per Astrodatabank, "birth certificate in hand", so sources giving 1940 are wrong); and Gore Verbinski in USA, 1964.

The Bertolucci film I can remember having seen is The Last Emperor (1987). We saw it not long ago on HBO or TCM - it's an excellent movie - won 9 Oscars! Bertolucci is known both for sweeping epics such as that film, as well for helping to bring eroticism into general release with his Last Tango in Paris. He is known to have strongly left-wing political views. Bernardo Bertolucci is considered one of the pre-eminent international directors of the latter half of the twentieth century. A biography is available at Rotten Tomatoes.

We've seen three of Verbinski's films: Rango, one of the Pirates of the Caribbean set (cannot recall which), and The Weatherman.
Gore Verbinski has become one of American cinema's most inventive directors. He was a punk-rock guitarist as a teenager and had to sell his guitar to buy his first camera, is now the director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) which made the industry record for highest opening weekend of all time, and grossed over $1 billion dollars worldwide.

He was born Gregor Verbinski on March 16, 1964, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His father was of Polish descent, worked as a nuclear physicist at the Oak Ridge Lab. In 1967 the Verbinski family moved to California.... His biggest influences as a kid were Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Black Sabbath's Master of Reality. He started his professional career as a guitarist for punk-rock bands, made his first films together with friends. After having developed a passion for film making, he sold his guitar to buy a Super-8mm camera, attended the prestigious UCLA Film School, from which he graduated in 1987 with his BFA in Film.
Information from a mini-bio by Steve Shelokhonov available in full HERE.


Two film directors, a generation apart, of very different background and styles, one Italian the other American but of Polish descent, one born during World War 2, the other in the dramatic 1960s. One with a feel for the erotic mixed with some fairly extreme left-wing political views, the other inventive, fun, whimsical, into a bit of quirk and not afraid of the dark.

How do their natal charts compare?

No time of birth is known for Verbinski, so Moon and ascendant degree will not be accurate as shown.

Sun in third decan of Pisces. Third decan of Pisces is said to have a secondary ruler, Scorpio, which in turn connects to Pluto/Mars. Bearing this in mind we might expect to find some draw towards the erotic or darker subject matter. Bertolucci is known for eroticism in his movies, his Moon in Scorpio is a second indication of the same. Verbinski has directed at least one horror film: The Ring.

Bertolucci had Neptune opposing his natal Sun, while Verbinski has Neptune in a wide trine to his Sun.

Both men have the extra emphasis on Neptune-ruled Pisces of three personal planets: Bertolucci Sun/Mercury/Venus; Verbinski: Sun/Mercury/Mars. Both have a planet close to the Aquarius/Pisces cusp (Bertolucci's Mercury and Verbinski's Saturn).

While Bertolucci's natal Venus (planet of the arts) is with his Sun in Pisces, Verbinski's is in Taurus, possibly with his natal Moon, reflecting, perhaps, his musical beginnings.