Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia

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Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia
Bragaglia-carlo-l 1942.jpg
Bragaglia in 1942
Born(1894-07-08)8 July 1894
Frosinone, Kingdom of Italy
Died4 January 1998(1998-01-04) (aged 103)
Rome, Italy
Occupations Film director
Screenwriter
Years active1933–1963
Relatives Anton Giulio Bragaglia (brother)
Arturo Bragaglia (brother)

Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia (8 July 1894 – 4 January 1998) was an Italian film director whose career spanned from the 1930s to the mid-1960s. He mainly directed adventure pictures and popular comedies, including some starring Totò. His 1942 film Non ti pago! was shown as part of a retrospective on Italian comedy at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. [1]

Contents

Life and career

Bragaglia was born in Frosinone, Latium, and was a veteran of World War I. [2] Together with his brother Arturo, Bragaglia started his career as a photographer, specialized in portraits of actresses, and began to experiment avant-garde photographic techniques like "fotodinamica". [2] He later founded with his other brother Anton Giulio the Casa d'arte Bragaglia, which quickly became a popular attraction for Rome artists, and an independent theater, "Teatro Sperimentale degli Indipendenti" (1923-1936). [2] After having served as stage director in his theater, in 1930 Bragaglia was put under contract by Cines Studios as set photographer, also undertaking a short apprenticeship as an editor and assistant director, and collaborating with Alessandro Blasetti, Gennaro Righelli and Guido Brignone. [2]

After directing a few documentaries, in 1932 Bragaglia made his feature film debut with Your Money or Your Life , based on a radio play by Alessandro De Stefani. [2] [3] The film was greatly inspired by René Clair, [2] [3] while his lead actor Sergio Tofano basically reprised his comic strip character Signor Bonaventura. [2] Following the moderate success of the film, Bragaglia specialized in the Telefoni Bianchi genre, with a few exceptions like the realist dramas Tomb of the Angels and The Prisoner of Santa Cruz and the surreal Totò comedy Mad Animals . [2] After the war he continued his career, being active in various genres, including sword-and-sandal and swashbuckling films. [2]

Upon his 100th birthday in 1994, the Locarno Film Festival showed a film retrospective of his works. Being that he lived well into his second century Bragaglia became known as a famed storyteller who provided a wealth of information and anecdotes concerning the early days of Italian cinema. He died in Rome in 1998 after a fall which fractured his hip. [4]

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ "Italian Comedy - The State of Things". labiennale.org. Archived from the original on 1 August 2010. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Carpiceci, Stefania (2017). "Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, l'artigiano che venne da una casa d'arte familiare e sperimentale". Ai margini del cinema italiano: soubrette e maggiorate fisiche, artigiani e autori di film minori. Pacini editore. pp. 11–29. ISBN   978-88-6995-164-0.
  3. 1 2 Poppi, Roberto (2002). "Bragaglia, Carlo Ludovico". I registi: dal 1930 ai giorni nostri. Gremese Editore. p. 70. ISBN   978-88-8440-171-7.
  4. ↑ Bignardi, Irene (5 January 1998). "Ciao signor Cinema". La Repubblica . p. 35.
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