Tinto Brass is dead. He was the author of the famous "Caligula"

Tinto Brass's death was announced by his family - his wife Caterina Varzi and children Bonifacio and Beatrice Brass. Initial information shows that the family is planning a private, intimate funeral ceremony.

In September, the Venice International Film Festival paid tribute to him by screening his "Col cuore in gola" as the opening film. The director could not take part in the screening due to poor health.

The first skirmish with censorship

Brass was born in Milan in 1933 into a Venetian family of artists. He first studied law, but in the late 1950s he turned to film. He became an archivist at the Cinémathèque Francais in Paris, where he met Roberto Rossellini and worked as an assistant on his war drama "General della Rovere".

He made his debut as a director in 1963 with the film "In Capo Al Mondo", later renamed "Chi Lavora è Perduto" (Polish title: "He who works is lost - at the top of the world"), about a young unemployed man with antisocial tendencies. The film was enthusiastically received at the Venice Film Festival.

“However, the film encountered serious problems with Italian censorship, which became the first of many battles that Brass would fight against censorship for various reasons,” notes Variety magazine.

Brass spent the late 1960s and 1970s in London, shooting several English-language films, including an erotic thriller called "Deadly Sweet" (Polish title "With my heart in my throat") with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Ewa Aulin in the main roles. This was followed by Attraction (1969) and Dropout (1970).

"Living Room Kitty" and "Caligula"

Brass gained international fame with the erotic war drama "Salon Kitty" (1976), set in an upscale Berlin brothel used by Nazi intelligence.

However, his most famous film outside Italy is "Caligula", shot in 1979 and released in 1984 in a version different from the one Brass intended.

The controversial film was financed by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. However, after an argument with Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal, he took control of the project and started changing the script. He added highly erotic content: the scenes were shot after filming had ended. The leading actors of the time starred in the film, including: Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud and Peter O'Toole.

After this operation, Brass and Vidal filed a lawsuit demanding that their names be removed from the film.

The film takes place after the death of Tiberius, when the cruel Caligula takes power in Rome and begins a period of tyranny towards ordinary residents and people close to the emperor. Due to the boldness of the scenes, often bordering on pornography, this film still raises considerable controversy.

Erotic cinema

In later years, Brass specialized in directing erotic films, including: he produced the drama "Paprika" (1991).

"He became famous for his good taste and sense, although he did not avoid falling into ordinary pornography," summarized the authors of his biography on Wikipedia. "He was able to show the complex, psychological aspects of human eroticism in a very suggestive way, without falling into an academic approach and maintaining strong tension in his images," they concluded.