Bernardo Bertolucci, a towering figure of world cinema, has died aged 77. The influential Italian auteur, perhaps best known for epic The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars, and groundbreaking works such as Last Tango In Paris and The Conformist, passed away in Paris this morning following a battle with cancer his publicist has confirmed. Bertolucci was a key figure in the extraordinary Italian cinema of the 1960s and early 1970s but also made a successful transition to…