Mario Bava
Mario Bava ( born July 31, 1914 in Sanremo, † April 25, 1980 in Rome ) was an Italian film director, cinematographer and screenwriter. The focus of his work was in the horror film and Giallo. His most famous film is the 1960 created The hour when Dracula comes.
Biography
Eugenio Bava Bava's father, originally a sculptor and painter who worked in the early days of Italian cinema as a cameraman. After a failed study art Mario Bava assisted his father during the shooting. Soon he was self- employed as a cameraman and assistant director. The first directorial job was done by accident: When the director Riccardo Freda had fallen out The Vampire of Notre Dame with the producers on the set of the film, Bava was unceremoniously asked to complete the film.
1960 turned Bava with The hour when Dracula comes his first film. The atmospherically dense black and white film was an international success and gave Bava great reputation. He set off a wave of Italian " Gothic " horror films that would last a round decade. Today is considered the hour when Dracula comes as a classic of the genre, has influenced many directors prevail. The hitherto unknown actress Barbara Steele succeeded with their dual role of breakthrough: they soon became an icon of horror movie and was occupied for many years accordingly. The film was the only collaboration between Bava and her.
Already his next film, Vampires vs. Hercules (1961 ), Bava filmed in color. The sophisticated color dramaturgy of his films would become his trademark. The following Bava worked almost exclusively as a director. He worked as a contract worker in almost all popular genres of the strong trend-oriented Italian commercial cinema. On the visual level, they lifted thereby significantly from the usual average productions from. Since Bava also had the reputation of being able to economize with good budgets, it was used by the producers quite often. Danger: Diabolik, an adaptation of the very popular in Italy Super Thug Comics Diabolik, he realized in 1967 despite considerable effects and many show values with just half of the attached budget. However, only a low budget to work with him was for most of his work anyway: The backdrop of the planet in Planet of the Vampires (1965 ) was created with only two artificial rocks and a smoke machine.
Although the 1964 twisted thriller Blood and Black Lace had clear narrative and dramaturgical weaknesses, but this made up for with a sophisticated camera work. In addition, "invented" Bava with Blood and Black Lace and the previous The Girl Who Knew Too Much (La ragazza che sapeva troppo ) the long time in Italy very popular subgenre of Giallos (Italian Yellow), a brand of crime novels that her name the yellow envelopes of the underlying lurid crime novels owed . The Giallo its attraction especially from the display speculative staged murder scenes and a psychopathological offender characterization. Blood and Black Lace, even still staged quite restrained, drew dozens of non- explicit successor films according to the mingled from the late 1960s to the increasingly exploitative staged Edgar Wallace movies.
Also Bava adapted itself to the contemporary taste: The drastic murder scenes prevailed in the bloodlust of Satan (1971 ) is considered one of the early representatives of the slasher film. This and his subsequent films lacked increasingly of the visual stimulus, the distinguished Bava's earlier work. Since they were also treated carelessly by producers and distributors, and subsequently changed, Bava retired in the late 1970s from the film business.
His son Lamberto Bava, many years his assistant, even working as a director.