Tinto Brass, the Italian director celebrated and often controversial for his erotic historical epics, including 'Salon Kitty' and 'Caligula,' has died at the age of 93. His family announced the news on Wednesday to the Italian press agency Ansa.
Brass was born in Milan in 1933 into a Venetian family of artists. He initially studied law before turning toward cinema in the late 1950s, a path that led him to Paris, where he worked as an archivist at the Cinémathèque Francaise. There he met Roberto Rossellini and served as an assistant on Rossellini's war drama 'General della Rovere.'
He made his directing debut in 1963 with the Venice-set story 'In Capo Al Mondo,' later retitled 'Chi Lavora è Perduto.' The film followed a young unemployed man with antisocial tendencies and drew enthusiastic acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. It also ran into serious trouble with Italian censors, the first of many censorship battles Brass would face over the course of his career.
For much of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brass worked in London, shooting a string of English-language productions. Among them was the 1967 erotic pop thriller 'Deadly Sweet,' starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Swedish actress Ewa Aulin. Trintignant plays a young man who learns that his business contact has been murdered and, rather than calling the police, chooses to protect a young woman at the crime scene, played by Aulin, and hunt the real killers himself, a decision that puts him on a collision course with the London underworld.
'Deadly Sweet' screened out of competition at the 1967 Venice International Film Festival, and a restored version was shown at Venice earlier this year as a tribute to the director. His English-language period also included 'Attraction' in 1969 and 'Dropout' in 1970.
Brass achieved his international breakthrough with 'Salon Kitty' in 1976, an erotic war drama set in a high-class Berlin brothel used by the Nazi intelligence service and starring Helmut Berger. His best known film outside Italy, however, remains 'Caligula,' made in 1979 and released in 1984 in a cut that differed from the one Brass had intended.
The contentious production was self-financed in 1980 by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, who clashed with Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal before seizing control of the project and discarding the script. Guccione added adult material that he filmed after the 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 taken off the picture.
In 1983 Brass directed 'The Key,' an adaptation of a novel by Japanese author Tanizaki Junichiro starring Stefania Sandrelli. The film marked a shift toward more highbrow eroticism and performed well around the world. He went on to make further works centered on the sexual liberation journeys of their female characters, among them 'Black Angel' in 2002 and 'Fallo' in 2003.
Brass is survived by his wife, Caterina Varzi, and his children, Bonifacio and Beatrice Brass.
