Tinto Brass, director of 'Caligula' and 'Salon Kitty,' dies at 93
The Milan-born filmmaker, known for his erotic epics and decades-long battles with censors, was survived by his wife and two children.
By Alina Campbell ·
Italian filmmaker Tinto Brass has died at the age of 93. His family informed the Italian press agency Ansa of his passing on Wednesday.
Brass was born in Milan in 1933 to a family of Venetian artists. He initially studied law but shifted his focus to cinema in the late 1950s. He served as an archivist at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, where he met Roberto Rossellini and worked as an assistant on the war drama "General della Rovere."
He directed his first feature in 1963, a Venice-set story titled "In Capo Al Mondo." The film, later renamed "Chi Lavora è Perduto," received enthusiastic reviews at the Venice Film Festival. It also marked the beginning of his frequent conflicts with Italian censors.
From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Brass worked in London on several English-language projects. Among these was the 1967 erotic pop thriller "Deadly Sweet," starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Ewa Aulin. The film was shown out of competition at the 1967 Venice International Film Festival. A restored version screened at Venice earlier this year as a tribute to Brass. He followed this with "Attraction" in 1969 and "Dropout" in 1970.
His international profile rose with the 1976 erotic war drama "Salon Kitty," which depicted a high-class Berlin brothel used by Nazi intelligence. His most famous work abroad is "Caligula," released in 1984. The film was self-financed in 1980 by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. Guccione clashed with Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal over control of the project. He discarded the original script and added adult footage shot after the main cast, which included Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, and Peter O’Toole, had completed their work. Brass and Vidal sued to have their names removed from the final cut.
In 1983, Brass directed "The Key," an adaptation of a novel by Tanizaki Junichiro that starred Stefania Sandrelli. The film shifted toward a more sophisticated style of eroticism and performed well globally. He continued this approach in later works such as "Black Angel" in 2002 and "Fallo" in 2003.
Brass is survived by his wife, Caterina Varzi, and his children, Bonifacio and Beatrice Brass.
