Enzo G. Castellari Explained

Birth Name:Enzo Girolami
Birth Date:1938 7, df=y
Birth Place:Rome, Italy
Years Active:1960–present
Occupation:Film director

Enzo G. Castellari (born as Enzo Girolami, 29 July 1938) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor.

Early life

Castellari was born in Rome into a family of filmmakers. His father was a boxer turned film maker Marino Girolami. 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.

Career

Castellari began work on film assisting with various jobs on sets of his father's films. 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. 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). After releasing the Western Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (1968), Castellari did a Macaroni war film titled Eagles Over London.

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). He directed his first poliziotteschi film with High Crime starring Franco Nero. Nero and Castellari formed a relationship with the film and work together for seven features.

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"[1] Nero would work with Castellari 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.[1] Castellari created further poliziotteschi films in the late 1970s as well as the war film The Inglorious Bastards. 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.

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. Castellari followed it up with The Last Shark, a film about a small beach town terrorized by a bloodthirsty great white shark. The film was withdrawn from theaters after Universal Studios sued the production for being too similar to the film Jaws. Castellari next film was a surprise hit that created a small wave of films from Italy inspired by the John Carpenter film Escape from New York. 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.

In the 1990s, Castellari's work was mostly dedicated to made-for-television productions. 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. 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.[2]

In October 2014 Castellari was awarded at the Almería Western Film Festival.[3]

Filmography

Title YearCredited as Notes
width=6% Director!width=6% Writer!width=6% Producer!width=6% Other
Renegade Riders 1966Credited as E.G. Rowland[4]
Any Gun Can Play 1967
One Dollar Too Many 1968
Johnny Hamlet 1968
Kill Them All and Come Back Alone 1968
Eagles Over London 1969
Cold Eyes of Fear 1970
Hector the Mighty 1971
Sting of the West 1972
High Crime 1973Role of a Reporter
Street Law 1974
Cry, Onion! 1975Role of the Mexican in the market
1975
Keoma1976
1976Role of the Cowardly Storekeeper
1978
1977Role of a German Officer
1979[5]
1979Role of Il killer
Day of the Cobra1980Role of Warehouse Thug
The Last Shark1981
1982Role of the Vice President
1982Credited as Enzo Girolami
Escape from the Bronx1983Role of the Radio Operato
Tuareg – The Desert Warrior1984Role of a Prison Guard
Light Blast1985
Hammerhead1987
Jonathan of the Bears 1994
Caribbean Basterds2010

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Hughes, Howard . Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult . . 9781848856073 . 30 April 2011 . 270 . 756484421.
  2. News: Enzo and Tarantino: 'Basterds' brothers . . 19 May 2009 . 20 March 2010 . Nick . Vivarelli . https://web.archive.org/web/20090829123400/http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118003930.html?categoryid=13&cs=1 . 29 August 2009 . . Reed Elsevier Inc. . live .
  3. News: El Almería Western Film homenajeará a Enzo G. Castellari y Giuliano Gemma . D. . Martínez . 4 September 2014 . 10 March 2019 . . Joly Digital.
  4. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20030813203031/http://www.enzogcastellari.com/films2.htm. Films. Enzo G Castellari Official Website. 9 March 2015. 13 August 2003 .
  5. Book: Curti, Roberto . Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970-1979 . . 978-1476629605 . 23 August 2017 . 211 .