Enzo G. Castellari

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

Enzo G. Castellari
Castellari signing Inglourious Basterds posters at FFF (Lund International Fantastic Film Festival) in Lund, Sweden, 2009
Born
Enzo Girolami Castellari

(1938-07-29) 29 July 1938
Rome, Italy
OccupationFilm director
Years active1960–present

Early life

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]

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). 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 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]

Filmography
TitleYearCredited asNotesRef(s)
DirectorWriterProducerOther
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]
Cry, Onion! 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 1979 Yes [8]
The Shark Hunter 1979 Yes Role of Il killer [7]
Day of the Cobra 1980 Yes Role of Warehouse Thug [7]
The Last Shark 1981 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]
Hammerhead 1987 Yes Yes [7]
Jonathan of the Bears 1994 Yes Yes [7]
Caribbean Basterds 2010 Yes [7]

References
  1. Curti 2013, p. 289.
  2. Curti 2013, p. 290.
  3. Hughes, Howard (30 April 2011). Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult. I.B.Tauris. p. 270. ISBN 9781848856073. OCLC 756484421.
  4. Curti 2013, p. 291.
  5. Vivarelli, Nick (19 May 2009). "Enzo and Tarantino: 'Basterds' brothers". Variety. Reed Business Information. Reed Elsevier Inc. Archived from the original on 29 August 2009. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  6. Martínez, D. (4 September 2014). "El Almería Western Film homenajeará a Enzo G. Castellari y Giuliano Gemma". Diario de Almería. Joly Digital. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  7. "Films". Enzo G Castellari Official Website. Archived from the original on 13 August 2003. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  8. Curti, Roberto (23 August 2017). Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970-1979. McFarland. p. 211. ISBN 978-1476629605.

Bibliography
  • Curti, Roberto (2013). Italian Crime Filmography, 1968–1980. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786469765.
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