Renato Castellani

Personal Info

Known For Director

Gender Male

Birthday 1913-09-04

Deathday 1985-12-28 (72 years old)

Place of Birth Finale Ligure, Liguria, Italy

Also Known As Ренато Кастеллани

Renato Castellani

Biography

Renato Castellani (4 September 1913 – 28 December 1985) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Son of a representative of Kodak, he was born in Varigotti, at the time a hamlet of Final Pia, which became Finale Ligure (Savona) in 1927, where his mother had returned from Argentina to give birth to his son. He spent his childhood in Argentina, in the city of Rosario. After 12 years, he returned to Liguria and resumed his studies in Genoa. He moved to Milan, where he graduated from the Polytechnic University in architecture. In Milan he met Livio Castiglioni and together they aired for GUF (Fascist University Group) L'ora radiofonica and La fontana malata by Aldo Palazzeschi, experimenting with new techniques for sound editing on radio. He began collaborating in 1936 as a military consultant for The Great Appeal, a film by Mario Camerini. He worked as a film critic and worked - as a screenwriter or assistant director - with important names of the Italian cinema of the time, such as Augusto Genina, with whom he signed the script for Castles in the air (1939), by Mario Soldati, of which he was assistant director on the set of Malombra (1942). He then worked with the director Alessandro Blasetti, signing the screenplays of his movies An Adventure of Salvator Rosa (1939), The Iron Crown (1941), Four Steps in the Clouds (1942) and with the director Camillo Mastrocinque, signing the screenplay of The Cuckoo Clock (1938). His first work as a director was A Pistol Shot (1942), based on a story by Aleksandr Puskin, in which Alberto Moravia also took part in the screenplay, with Fosco Giachetti and Assia Noris. This movie, as well as the subsequent Zazà (1942), fit into the caligraphism genre. With Under the Sun of Rome (1948), It's Forever Springtime (1950), both shot outdoors with non-professional actors, and especially Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952), Castellani gave rise to a new genre, defined as "pink neorealism", considered by critics at the time as the downward trend of neorealism, but destined to a vast audience success. With Two Cents Worth of Hope, he won the ex aequo Grand Prix at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. With Romeo and Juliet (1954), he won the Golden Lion at the 1954 Venice Film Festival. After some other significant films such as Dreams in a Drawer (1957) and The Brigand (1961), Castellani devoted himself mainly to biopics in episodes shot for television, widely followed, such as The Life of Leonardo da Vinci (1971) and The Life of Verdi (1982).

Known For

Director

1982
Verdi

as Director

1982
Verdi

as Director

1978
1969
A Brief Season

as Director

1967
1964
Controsesso

as Director

1964
1963
Crazy Sea

as Director

1961
The Brigand

as Director

1959
Hell in the City

as Director

1957
1954
Romeo and Juliet

as Director

1952
1950
1948
1946
Professor, My Son

as Director

1944
Zazà

as Director

1944
1942
A Pistol Shot

as Director

1940
A Hundred Thousand Dollars

as First Assistant Director

1939
Department Store

as First Assistant Director

1936
Il grande appello

as Assistant Director

Writer

1982
Verdi

as Writer

1970
Alta comedia

as Writer

1969
The Archangel

as Screenplay

1969
A Brief Season

as Writer

1967
Ghosts, Italian Style

as Screenplay

1964
1964
Three Nights of Love

as Screenplay

1963
Crazy Sea

as Screenplay

1963
Crazy Sea

as Story

1961
The Brigand

as Screenplay

1958
Resurrection

as Screenplay

1957
1954
Romeo and Juliet

as Adaptation

1952
1948
Under the Sun of Rome

as Screenplay

1946
Professor, My Son

as Screenplay

1946
1946
Notte di tempesta

as Adaptation

1945
In High Places

as Screenplay

1944
Zazà

as Screenplay

1944
1942
Malombra

as Screenplay

1942
A Pistol Shot

as Screenplay

1942
The Jester's Supper

as Screenplay

1941
The Iron Crown

as Screenplay

1940
1939
Department Store

as Screenplay

1938
The Cuckoo Clock

as Screenplay

Creator

1982
Verdi

as Creator

Art

1957
I sogni nel cassetto

as Production Design