Enzo G. Castellari
Enzo G. Castellari | |
---|---|
Enzo G. Castellari signing Inglourious Basterds posters at FFF (Lund International Fantastic Film Festival) in Lund, Sweden, 2009-09-20 | |
Born |
Enzo Girolami Castellari 29 July 1938 Rome, Italy |
Occupation | Film director |
Years active | 1960–present |
Enzo G. Castellari (born 29 July 1938) is an Italian film director.
Life and career
Early life
Enzo G. Castellari was born on 29 July 1938 in Rome Italy.[1] Castellari was born 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.[2] Castellari initially was a boxer like his father and went to school to get a degree in architecture.[2]
Film career
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).[2] Many of Castellari's early works are 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), Casterllari did a war film titled Eagles Over London.[2] By the early 1970s, Casterllari 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] Castellari 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 Casterllari on the Western Keoma which was only a mild success in Italy on its release, but would later be praised as one of Castellari's best films.[2][3] Casterllari 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 didn't 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] Casterllari followed it up with The Last Shark, a film about a small beach town terrorized by a bloodthirsty great white shark.[4][5] The film was withdrawn from theaters after Universal Studios sued the production for being too similar to the film Jaws.[4] Casterllari 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 Casterllari 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 genres films at the time.[4] Castellari cameoed as a German mortar squad commander in his film 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.[6]
Filmography
Title | Year | Credited as | Notes | Ref(s) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Director | Writer | Producer | Other | ||||
Renegade Riders | 1966 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Credited as E.G. Rowland | [7] | |
Any Gun Can Play | 1967 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
One Dollar Too Many | 1968 | Yes | [7] | ||||
Johnny Hamlet | 1968 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Kill Them All and Come Back Alone | 1968 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Eagles Over London | 1969 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Cold Eyes of Fear | 1970 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Hector the Mighty | 1971 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Sting of the West | 1972 | Yes | [7] | ||||
High Crime | 1973 | Yes | Yes | Role of a Reporter | [7] | ||
Street Law | 1974 | Yes | [7] | ||||
Cipolla Colt | 1975 | Yes | Role of the Mexican in the market | [7] | |||
The Loves and Times of Scaramouche | 1975 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Keoma | 1976 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
The Big Racket | 1976 | Yes | Yes | Role of the Cowardly Storekeeper | [7] | ||
The Heroin Busters | 1977 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
The Inglorious Bastards | 1977 | Yes | Role of a German Officer | [7] | |||
The House by the Edge of the Lake | 1978 | Yes | [7] | ||||
The Shark Hunter | 1979 | Yes | Role of Il killer | [7] | |||
Day of the Cobra | 1980 | Yes | Role of Warehouse Thug | [7] | |||
The Last Shark | 1980 | Yes | [7] | ||||
1990: The Bronx Warriors | 1982 | Yes | Yes | Role of the Vice President | [7] | ||
The New Barbarians | 1982 | Yes | Yes | Credited as Enzo Girolami | [7] | ||
Escape from the Bronx | 1983 | Yes | Yes | Role of the Radio Operato | [7] | ||
Tuareg – The Desert Warrior | 1984 | Yes | Yes | Role of a Prison Guard | [7] | ||
Light Blast | 1985 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Jonathan of the Bears | 1994 | Yes | Yes | [7] | |||
Caribbean Basterds | 2010 | Yes | [7] | ||||
Notes
- ↑ Curti, 2013. p. 289
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Curti, 2013. p. 290
- 1 2 Hughes, 2011. p. 270
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Curti, 2013. p. 291
- ↑ Wheeler, Jeremy. "Great White". AllMovie. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
- ↑ Vivarelli, Nick (19 May 2009). "Enzo and Tarantino: 'Basterds' brothers". Variety. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 "Films". Enzo G Casterllari Official Website. Archived from the original on August 13, 2003. Retrieved March 9, 2015.
References
- Curti, Roberto (2013). Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980. McFarland. ISBN 0786469765.
- Hughes, Howard (2011). Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781848856073.
External links
- Enzo G. Castellari at the Internet Movie Database
- Enzo G. Castellari official site
- Enzo G.Castellari-biography on (re)Search my Trash
- Castellari: Action Italian Style tribute publication dedicated to Enzo G. Castellari and his films