Enzo G. Castellari: "My tough cinema between cowboys
and executioners"
The director of "Keoma" and "The citizen
rebels" from the mess with his father to the association with Franco Nero
up to the tribute of Tarantino.
[Enzo G. Castellari with Franco Nero on the set of Keoma]
Il Tempo
By Davide Di Santo
October 30, 2018
The name of the Girolami family is carved in the history
of Rome. Literally, because the statue of the boxer at the Stadio dei Marmi has
the features of Marino Girolami, then European champion and later director of
comedies among the most prolific and appreciated. Gathering the witness, since
the '60s, the founder of a family that has gone through Italian cinema since
the post-war period has been Enzo G. Castellari (where G. stands for Girolami),
cult director like Keoma, Il grande racket , The shark hunter, I go ... I kill
him and I come back, The police incriminates, the law acquits ...
Nero, the
protagonist of many of his films, said: "I chose to work with Castellari
because they all spoke ill of me". Why, according to you?
«After some experience to help I immediately switched to
directing and this has caused some envy. Also because in those years the films
to do were many and the competition was very high. Being a son and nephew of
directors and an actor's brother, they thought I had a lot more chances. And
it's true, what luck I had! I had left to do something else. I graduated in
architecture but the DNA eventually won. And then I had to help my father make
a movie a month. While he was preparing the scenes and shooting, I was
dedicated to editing and mixing the previous film and so on, it was a chain. He
also directed six films a year, and I enjoyed myself like crazy. "
What was the most
important meeting for your career?
"There are many. Like the one with Alberto De
Martino in '66 (director and screenwriter: Il Consigliori, L'assassino è ... on
the phone) at the western village of the Balcazar brothers in Barcelona. So
many people walked around there, they gave you horses and extras, but it was
quite disgusting. I had to help in a spaghetti western by José Luis Madrid, a
bad director. When we found ourselves in Rome, De Martino proposed me as an aid
to a film in which they did not want "horse", that is stuntman and
masters of arms. So I started walking alone. The first director was a film that
my uncle Romulus could not shoot. The stroke of the class was the choice of the
title: I go ... I kill him and I come back, like Eli Wallach's sentence in Il buono,
the ugly and the ugly of Sergio Leone. He made a bang, also because the title
often decrees the success of a film. It is the theory of mecoglioni and 'sti
cazzi, which I learned from De Martino. Just say the title of the film aloud,
and see which one of the two options comes out spontaneously ... Another dogma
of De Martino was: the lame laughs, the blind man blows, the mother who speaks
little more! They are the small "laws" of genre cinema ".
Do you like
today's Italian cinema?
"No, because boredom reigns. The great beauty of
Sorrentino will also have won the Oscar, but two balls ... Beautiful images,
eh, but it is a copy of Fellini. Among the directors of today I like the
Manetti Bros and Matteo Garrone. With Marcello Fonte, the protagonist of Dogman
awarded in Venice, I also shot a short film in which he played a pedophile ».
Manetti and
Garrone, directors who often draw from the genre cinema ...
"They're not the only ones. Stefano Sollima
(directed the TV series Romanzo criminale and Gomorra </ CF> and the
films Suburra and Soldado) knows all my films. De Cataldo, the magistrate
author of Romanzo Criminale, I met him in court and he told me: «Maybe I did
you the movie ...».
The directors of
"policemen" have always been branded as fascists. You have the
aggravation of always wearing the black shirt ...
"I've got it right now, but that's because I'm a
little color-blind, so I have all the same coats so I can not be wrong! I tell
you one thing. A few years ago I was in a social center where they projected
The citizen rebels. At the time of the debate I took the floor: "They
always gave me the fascist and the right-wing extremist, but do you know that
my grandfather was killed by a squad because he was a friend of
Matteotti?" Frost. My father later found them all. One pretended to be a
priest, another had moved to a village. And he charged her, one by one. But the
point is another. In that film criminals ruin the life of a good person who,
while the state does nothing, is forced to take justice alone. Well, if this
means being fascist then yes, I'm fascist. Even the boys from the social
centers proved me right ».
The Rome of the
60s was the cradle of cinema, but not only.
"I think I lived in the most beautiful moment of
humanity. In the most absolute sense. In Fregene I often met Ennio Flaiano.
What a genius. With my wife we often entertained with her daughter, who had
great health problems. He knew about this couple who dedicated time to that
unfortunate creature, and came to thank us. A beautiful relationship was born
".
Even the meeting
with his wife seems like the beginning of a film.
"I knew that we were kids, at the slow motion of
editing. I chased it for years. "
Quentin Tarantino
was inspired by his Inglorious bastards for the almost homonymous film. It's a
nice tribute.
"A great honor. When we reviewed my film together,
he played all the lines by heart. He laughed like crazy, and he smashed my
shoulder with punches! Fuck you man !, he repeated. What laughter. He is a fan
of our cinema, he has seen everything. Even The hateful eight, in certain
atmospheres remembers Keoma, my best movie. Among my favorites there is also Il
grande racket, with Fabio Testi. And the Shakespearean western Johnny Hamlet.
Too bad for the Italian title, That dirty history of the west. It makes you
say: and sticazzi ... ".
No comments:
Post a Comment