Italian director Tinto Brass has died in Rome at the age of 93. His wife, Caterina Varzi, and his children, Bonifacio and Beatrice, announced his death to ANSA. They said the funeral would be a private ceremony.
Brass, born Giovanni Brass in Milan on March 26, 1933, became one of Italian cinema’s best-known directors of erotic films. He described his work as a search for aesthetic experimentation and freedom, marked by a grotesque, paradoxical and surreal style. He also said that censorship and court cases had been a persistent part of his career.
After studying law, Brass worked at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris and assisted directors Alberto Cavalcanti and Joris Ivens. Back in Italy, he worked with Roberto Rossellini on India and Il generale Della Rovere. He made his directorial debut in 1963 with Chi lavora è perduto, a critique of alienated work that soon drew the attention of censors.
His films in the late 1960s included Col cuore in gola, L’urlo, Nerosubianco and La vacanza. The last, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, received the Jury Prize at the 1971 Venice Film Festival. Brass later moved toward erotic cinema, directing Stefania Sandrelli in La chiave in 1983.
His other films included Salon Kitty, Caligola, Miranda, Capriccio, Paprika, Così fan tutte, L’uomo che guarda, Monella and Senso ’45. Caligola, starring Malcolm McDowell, was seized on obscenity grounds. Monamour, released in 2005, was his final film and his first shot digitally.
Brass had been using a wheelchair since suffering a stroke in 2010. At the latest Venice Film Festival, a message from him was read at the world premiere of a restored 4K version of Col cuore in gola. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia acquired his personal archive, organised and catalogued with the work of Varzi, whom he married in 2017.
Sources: ANSA Cultura.