Enzo G. Castellari | |
|---|---|
 Castellari signing Inglourious Basterds posters at FFF (Lund International Fantastic Film Festival) in Lund, Sweden, 2009 | |
| Born | Enzo Girolami 29 July 1938 Rome, Italy |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1960–present |
Enzo G. Castellari (born as Enzo Girolami on 29 July 1938) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor.
Castellari was born in Rome [1] into a family of filmmakers. His father was a boxer turned film maker Marino Girolami. [2] His uncle is filmmaker Romolo Guerrieri and his brother was actor Ennio Girolami. He initially was a boxer like his father and went to school to get a degree in architecture. [2]
Castellari began work on film assisting with various jobs on sets of his father's films. [2] Among his early credits included uncredited roles in directing films such as Few Dollars for Django (1966) and A Ghentar si muore facile (1967). Many of Castellari's early works are Spaghetti Westerns. [2] He received his official credited directorial debut with Renegade Riders (1967), a film shot in Spain and influenced by Sidney J. Furie's film The Appaloosa (1966). [2] After releasing the Western Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (1968), Castellari did a Macaroni war film titled Eagles Over London . [2]
By the early 1970s, Castellari began exploring other genres as well such as the thriller Cold Eyes of Fear (1971), the comedy Hector the Mighty (1972), and the comedic swashbuckler The Loves and Times of Scaramouche (1976). [2] He directed his first poliziotteschi film with High Crime starring Franco Nero. [2] Nero and Castellari formed a relationship with the film and work together for seven features. [2]
Castellari later noted his work with Nero, stating "I think that to have an actor like Franco Nero is one of the best things that can happen to a director...if it had been possible, I would have made all my films with him" [3] Nero would work with Castellari on the Western Keoma which was only a mild success[ clarification needed ] in Italy on its release, but would later be praised as one of Castellari's best films. [2] [3] Castellari created further poliziotteschi films in the late 1970s as well as the war film The Inglorious Bastards . [2] Castellari was offered to direct the film Zombi 2 , but turned it down as he did not feel he would be the right director for a horror film. [2] [4]
In the 1980s the popularity of the poliziotteschi faltered and Castellari's film Day of the Cobra with Franco Nero was not popular in the box office. [4] Castellari followed it up with The Last Shark , a film about a small beach town terrorized by a bloodthirsty great white shark. [4] The film was withdrawn from theaters after Universal Studios sued the production for being too similar to the film Jaws . [4] Castellari next film 1990: The Bronx Warriors was a surprise hit that created a small wave of films from Italy inspired by the John Carpenter film Escape from New York . [4] The mid-to-late 1980s work for Castellari was work made for foreign markets such as Light Blast (1985), Striker and Sinbad of the Seven Seas . [4]
In the 1990s, Castellari's work was mostly dedicated to made-for-television productions. [4] Castellari made a comeback film in 2010 with Caribbean Basterds, a film which received a theatrical release in Italy which was a rarity for locally made genre films at the time. [4] Castellari cameoed as a German mortar squad commander in The Inglorious Bastards , and Quentin Tarantino cast Castellari in the cameo role of a German general in his film Inglourious Basterds (2009), which was inspired by Castellari's 1978 film. [5]
In October 2014 Castellari was awarded at the Almería Western Film Festival. [6]
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two converging plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's leadership at a Paris cinema—one through a British operation largely carried out by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt), and another by French Jewish cinema proprietor Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent) who seeks to avenge her murdered family. Both are faced against Hans Landa (Waltz), an SS colonel with a fearsome reputation for hunting Jews.
The Inglorious Bastards is a 1978 Italian Euro War film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Bo Svenson, Peter Hooten, Fred Williamson, Jackie Basehart, and Ian Bannen. The film, which concerns a group of prisoners who are drafted into a special war mission in 1944, is a loose (unauthorized) remake of the 1967 American film The Dirty Dozen.
Poliziotteschi constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as polizieschi all'italiana, Italo-crime, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced primarily by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy known as Years of Lead and amidst increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system.
Fabio Testi is an Italian actor. After growing up witnessing film work done around Lake Garda, Testi entered the sets of the film and began work as a stuntman and a double on set, where he worked as a stuntman on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Testi continued stunt work and getting roles in low budget genre films until he was cast in Vittorio De Sica's film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Following this film, Testi became a star in Italy, appearing in some artistic films by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi and Claude Chabrol. Testi also continued to work in poliziotteschi genre films in the 1970s as well as a few gialli, and gained infamy for his publicised relationships with actresses Ursula Andress and Charlotte Rampling.
High Crime is a 1973 Italian-Spanish poliziottesco film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. The film stars Franco Nero, James Whitmore, Delia Boccardo and Fernando Rey. High Crime was a large financial success at the time of its release and helped popularize the Italian cop thriller genre.
Keoma is a 1976 Italian spaghetti Western film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Franco Nero. It is frequently regarded as one of the better 'twilight' Spaghetti Westerns, being one of the last films of its genre, and is known for its incorporation of newer cinematic techniques of the time and its vocal soundtrack by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis.
Detective Belli is a 1969 Italian poliziotteschi directed by Romolo Guerrieri and starring Franco Nero. It is based on the novel Macchie di belletto by Ludovico Dentice.
Inglorious Bastards may refer to:
Euro War, also known as Macaroni Combat, Macaroni War, Spaghetti Combat, or Spaghetti War, is a broad subgenre of war film that emerged in the mid-1960s. The films were named Euro War because most were European co-productions, most notably and commonly by Italians, as indicated by the subgenre's other nicknames that draw parallels to those films within the mostly Italian Spaghetti Western genre.
Marino Girolami was an Italian film director and actor.
Street Law is a 1974 poliziotteschi film. It stars Franco Nero, Barbara Bach and was directed by Enzo G. Castellari.
The Shark Hunter, also known as Guardians of the Deep, is a 1979 Italian adventure film directed by Enzo G. Castellari.
Day of the Cobra is a 1980 Italian poliziottesco film directed by Enzo G. Castellari.
The House by the Edge of the Lake is a horror film directed by Enzo G. Castellari.
Payment in Blood is a 1967 Italian Spaghetti Western film. It represents the official film debut for director Enzo G. Castellari of Few Dollars for Django. The film stars Edd Byrnes and Guy Madison.
Jonathan of the Bears is a 1995 spaghetti Western film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. It was coproduced and filmed in Russia, where it was released as Месть - белого индейца.
A Few Dollars for Django is a 1966 Italian/Spanish co-production Spaghetti Western film directed by León Klimovsky and Enzo G. Castellari and starring Anthony Steffen. Although credited only to León Klimovsky, A Few Dollars for Django was predominantly directed by an uncredited Enzo G. Castellari.
Violent Rome is an Italian 1975 poliziottesco film directed by Marino Girolami It obtained a great commercial success and launched the career of Maurizio Merli. The film is the first entry into the Commissioner Betti Trilogy.
Tex and the Lord of the Deep is a 1985 Western film co-written and directed by Duccio Tessari and starring Giuliano Gemma and William Berger. The film is an adaptation of the Tex comic series that were popular in Italy. Previously attempted to be made into a production in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the film was eventually made by Tessari who adapted the film from the comics originally to be a pilot for a television series.
Savage Attack is a war film directed by Tonino Valerii. It was written by Roberto Leoni after the success of several films based around veterans of the Vietnam War. The film starred Bo Svenson and Peter Hooten and was shot primarily in the Dominican Republic. It did not receive a theatrical release in Italy and was released on home video in West Germany as Brothers in Blood in 1987.
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