Mario Bava is an Italian film director, screenwriter, cameraman. Biography, filmography

Italian film director, cameraman and scriptwriter Mario Bava is an acknowledged master of horror, who has no equal in creating horror films, the author of the best film fantasy of the 60s and 70s of the last century. He is one of the founders of the "jallo" - a genre of super-awful subjects that cause numerous fainting in the auditorium.

The first acquaintance with the cinema

Mario Bava, whose biography was nothing special, was born in the Italian city of San Remo, July 31, 1914, in the family of the sculptor-monumentalist Eugenio Bava, who worked in the cinema, ensuring the production of films with motionless and slow-moving scenery. Especially difficult was the design of the background in the filming of historical films. As a teenager, Mario Bava helped his father. Then he began to look closely at the work of the operator, which seemed to him incomprehensible and mysterious.

First specialty

After a while, Mario Bava mastered the profession of the operator and began to participate in the shooting as an assistant. The first film, which he shot on his own in 1933, was called "Mussolini" and told about the rule of the dictator. The young operator worked creatively, others appreciated the young talent. Each venerable Italian filmmaker I would like to work with Bava. Removed Mario quickly and efficiently, usually doing one or two takes.

In total, Mario Bava shot forty-five films as an operator, deserving the title of master of special effects. Then he became interested in directing, began to try his hand at the staging business and also successfully.

Mario as a director

The work of the operator allowed Bava to thoroughly study the process of making films, and in the end he made his debut. His first test was the movie "I'm a vampire", whose production stopped in the middle due to a quarrel between director Ricardo Fred and the producer. The producer left the set, and Mario Bava, who worked on the project as an operator, took over his duties and finished the film. The results of his work were flawless.

Then Mario Bava was already middle-aged, he was forty-three years old, and he had a certain experience. Next, Mario began to "fix" the unsuccessfully filmed films and succeeded in this matter. The ability to direct him was obvious, and knowledge and experience in camera work allowed to get good results.

Production work

Later, Bava began to shoot films from start to finish, as an experienced director. His author's work was the movie "Demon Mask", based on the drama "Viy" Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. So in the work of Mario came the genre of "horror." The next two pictures - "Blood and Black Lace" and "The Girl Who Knew Many", staged in 1963 - marked the beginning of a long series of horror films. Then the director begins to shoot the film "Scourge and body." In the center of the plot is a 19th-century castle and its inhabitants. The film is full of terrible details: there are suicides, on the screen bloody knives close-up, all the attributes of horror are involved.

Horror voltage

Then the director removes: "Six women for the murderer," "Three faces of fear," and "Horror from deep space." All works are classic horror films, but the director presents them to the viewer under incredible, inhuman tension. As if the paintings are permeated with an electric current of hundreds of thousands of volts, and how to withstand it - no one knows. Eventually, the film company, with whom Mario Bava had a contract, decides to end his relationship with the director, as the censors were at a loss and did not know how to fit the "jallo" films to the standards of American morality.

The director softens and releases a horror comedy with Vincent Price. The audience gradually began to smile. And then came the chilling film "Operation" Fear ", the purest jallo, and some of Bava's directives began to resonate with the works of such masters as Fellini, Scorsese, Argento.

Despite the praiseworthy reviews of famous directors, as well as intellectuals from among moviegoers, Mario himself modestly called himself an artisan, not a stage manager. His self-criticism was hypertrophied, and the degree of modesty suggested a pathology.

And yet the director was shooting really horrible, hopelessly creepy movies. But the most surprising thing was that the artistic level of films did not suffer at the same time.

Illusion and Reality

The director's world is a distorted space that has lost its relative harmony. Reality and illusion, two absolutely incompatible things, Bava ties among themselves with fantastic ease, without looking. But at the same time he still has to balance on the verge of separating the real and supernatural worlds.

Fenced off from the whole world by an impenetrable wall of self-irony, Bava successfully uses the possibilities of filmmaking for the transmission and dissemination of mysticism, all abnormal and terrible.

Time of heyday

The end of the sixties of the last century was the most productive period for the director. In 1969, Mario withdrew the "Red Sign of Madness", an ironic parody of Hitchcock's "Psychosis", forcing the viewer to accept the maniac's point of view.

The picture "Five dolls under the August moon" was filmed in the same year. This is a black comedy in the manner of the detective "Ten Little Indians" by the work of Agatha Christie.

"Bloody Bay" is a horror film that will later serve as the basis for American tapes "Friday, 13" and "Halloween."

All the films were successfully shown in the US and Europe. Mario Bava became the object of imitation, he had followers, such as Dario Argento and Margeriti Antonio.

Decline of the genre

However, in the seventies the popularity of Mario's films fell. Then in a fashion the films-accidents and police insurgents based on real events have entered. European cinema began to show a light porno like "Emmanuelle". We went to the rental of brutal stories, over which you do not need to think. Mario's meditation somehow fell into the background and few people were interested.

However, producer Alfred Leone gave Bava a small budget and complete freedom of action. The result of such an original experiment was the picture "Lisa and the Devil", filmed in 1973. This film is recognized by many as the pinnacle of the entire creative work of the director. The complex plot structure of the film, the unexpected combination of the facts of the biography of the maniac-necrophilous Ardsisson Victor and philosophical fabrications, more like a delusion, gave an unexpectedly strong result.

Mario conducted through the film Hoffman's motives for sinister doppelgangers with their horrible dialogues. "Lisa and the Devil" was not only a classic horror film, but also contained a share of romanticism.

"The Devil"

Until 1968, Mario practically did not shoot anything. Then he received a proposal from Dino De Laurentis to work on the adaptation of popular comics. The director brilliantly coped with the task, while he spent only 400 thousand of the allocated three millionth budget. The film was called "The Devil".

Following him, Mario took two jallos and one horror "Bloody Bay", which was a record number of deaths: there were exactly thirteen of them in the picture.

In 1972, Bava began to create another horror "The House of the Devil" based on the work of "Demons" by Dostoevsky. However, before going to the screen, it was found that the film of Mario is in many respects similar to the "Exorcist Devil" Fridkin William. As a result of rough editing by the producer Leon Alfred, who tried to reduce the similarity at the last minute, the "Devil's House" was practically destroyed.

Mario began to have financial problems, but despite this, he rejected another offer by Dino De Laurentiis about the filming of a high-budget remake of "King Kong". Bova explained his refusal by saying that when shooting an expensive film project on the site, too many people crowd, and he does not like it.

Depression

The production of the next picture, conceived by a director named "Wild Dogs", over which he pondered for five years, was suspended. The reason was the bankruptcy of the patronizing firm. Forced abandonment of further filming of the movie "Wild Dogs" was a real shock for Mario, he could not finish the work. The director fell into a deep depression, closed all the initiated film projects and retired to rest.

Only in 1977, the son of Maitre Lamberto persuaded his father to take up the production of a horror film called "Shock." Mario reluctantly began to work, not believing in success. However, high-quality shooting, superbly arranged episodes, provided the film with the recognition of the general public. The name of the painting was changed to "Something Behind the Door".

Revival of creativity

Inspired by success, Bava took a proposal next year to film the well-known novella of Prosper Merimee "Venus Ilskaya". Despite the fact that Mario was forced to ask his son for help in filming because of his poor state of health, the film turned out to be spectacular and was rightly considered the last "proprietary" work of the great director.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, including technical ones, the film "Venus Ilskaya" was shown only in 1980, after the death of Mario. The painting was the last example of the grandiose cinematic mastery of the director.

"Venus Ilskaya" is a huge bronze statue of a woman, blackened from a long stay underground. When she was dug up, Venus became the cause of the terrible tragedy. Once a young man who was about to marry, jokingly put on his wedding ring on the finger of the statue. At night, he was awaited by terrible payment for his frivolity. "Venus Ilskaya" considered herself a bride, came to the bedchamber, and, not paying attention to the cries of a real bride, seized the bridegroom, crushing him and breaking his bones. The newlyweds died in terrible agony among the wreckage of the wedding bed.

Filmography

During his career Bava took more than fifty paintings as a director and about the same number, working as an operator. Below is a shortened list of works by Mario as a stage director. Each of these films is created in the genre of "horror."

• "Fish soup" (1946).
• "Holy Night" (1947).
• "Legendary Symphony" (1947).
• "Amphitheater of Flavia" (1947).
• "Symphonic Variations" (1949).
• "The police and thieves" (1951).
• "Wanderings of the Odyssey" (1954).
• "Beautiful, but dangerous" (1956).
• The Vampires (1957).
• "Heroic deeds of Hercules" (1958).
• "Kaltiki, the immortal monster" (1959).
• "The Mask of Satan" (1960).
• "The girl who knew a lot" (1963).
• "Three Faces of Fear" (1963).
• "Scourge and body" (1963).
• "Six women for the murderer" (1964).
• "The Planet of Vampires" (1965).
• Operation Fear (1966).
• "The Devil" (1968).
• "The Bloody Gulf" (1971).

Mario Bava, whose filmography is quite extensive, given the specifics of his work (horror and jallo are complex genres), did a lot as a director and an operator. He will remain forever in the honorary lists of American cinema.

The great director, an unrivaled master of horror films, died on April 25, 1980. Mario Bava had an heir, Lamberto Bava, who tried to continue his father's business and create the same high-quality khororry, but he still has only parodies.