TINTO BRASS: WHERE COMEDY MEETS EROTICA

Tinto Bras:Where Comedy Meets Erotica

Giovanni Brass (born March 26, 1933), better known as Tinto Brass, is an Italian filmmaker. He is noted especially for his work in the erotic genre, with films such as Così fan tutte (released under the English language title All Ladies Do It), Paprika, Monella (Frivolous Lola)

Life

Brass was born in Milan. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he created many avant-garde films, including Nerosubianco, L'urlo, and La Vacanza. However, he is best known for his erotic epics, Salon Kitty, The Key, Senso '45 and Caligula. The latter film was a collaboration with celebrated author Gore Vidal, Franco Rossellini and Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione. However, many consider Caligula to not be a true Tinto Brass film since post-production was not handled by Brass. The director demanded that his name be stricken from the credits after Guccione inserted hardcore sex scenes and recut much of the film's story and theme structure. Despite this, the film contains many of Brass' trademarks and remains his most widely viewed work (and the highest-grossing Italian film released in the United States). Well into his seventies, he continues to make films.

Style

Brass' films follow an impressionistic style - they tend not to show immense landscapes, but bits and pieces of the scenery and peripheral characters and objects through pans and zooms, thus imitating how the viewer might see the events if they were actually present. This also gives the films an extraordinarily rapid pace. He often uses a television-like multicam method of shooting, with at least three cameras running at once, each focusing on something else.

There are many other directorial trademarks throughout his films. From 1976's Salon Kitty onwards, mirrors play a large part in the set design. Sometimes he even goes as far as to begin a scene with a mirror shot, then pan over to the action being reflected, giving a disorienting feeling. His erotic films – especially The Key, Miranda and All Ladies Do It – often accentuate women's buttocks and hairy armpits, almost to the point of fetishizing those particular physical feature. Many of his erotic films seem to include unsimulated sexual acts, but his male actors usually are using prosthetic penises in these instances.

He almost always works in a cameo for his friend Osiride Pevarello, and, in more recent years, for himself.

Controversy

Some of Brass's early films contain instances of animal abuse. L'urlo contains scenes of a man killing a mouse, and a goose being decapitated on camera, while Salon Kitty contains a graphic scene of pigs being gutted in a slaughterhouse.

Filmography

• In capo al mondo or Chi lavora è perduto (1963)
• Ça ira - Il fiume della rivolta (1964)
• La mia signora (1964)
• Il disco volante (1964)
• Yankee (1966)
• Col cuore in gola (1967)
• L'urlo (1968)
• Nerosubianco (1969)
• Dropout (1970)
• La vacanza (1971)
• Salon Kitty (1975)
• Caligula (1979)
• Action (1980)
• La chiave (1983)
• Miranda (1985)
• Capriccio (1987)
• Snack Bar Budapest (1988)
• Paprika (1991)
• Così fan tutte (1992)
• L'uomo che guarda (1994)
• Fermo posta Tinto Brass (1995)
• Monella (1997)
• Tra(sgre)dire (2000)
• Senso '45 (2002)
• Fallo! (2003)
• Monamour (2005)
• Ziva, l'isola che non c'è (preproduction)