The Italian film director, cameraman and screenwriter Mario Bava is a recognized master of horror, unparalleled in creating horror films, the author of the best film fiction of the 60-70s of the last century. He is one of the founders of "djallo" - a genre of super-horror stories that cause numerous fainting in the auditorium.
First acquaintance with cinema
Mario Bava, whose biography was no different, was born in the Italian city of San Remo, July 31, 1914, in the family of the sculptor-monumental artist Eugenio Bava, who worked in the cinema, providing the production of films with motionless and inactive scenery. Particularly difficult was the design of the background when shooting 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 some time, Mario Bava mastered the profession of cameraman and began to participate in the filming as an assistant. The first film he made on his own in 1933 was called "Mussolini" and talked about the reign of the dictator. The young cameraman worked creatively, others appreciated the young talent. Every venerable Italian filmmaker I would like to work with Bava. Mario shot quickly and efficiently, usually making one or two takes.
In total, Mario Bava made forty-five films as an operator, earning the title of master of special effects. Then he became interested in directing, began to try his hand at staging and also successfully.
Mario as a director
The work of the operator allowed Bava to thoroughly study the process of staging films, and in the end he made his debut. His first breakdown was the film "I am a Vampire", whose production stopped in the middle due to a quarrel between director Ricardo Fred and the producer. The director left the set, and Mario Bava, who worked on the project as a cameraman, took over his duties and finished the film. The results of his work were impeccable.
Then Mario Bava was already not young, he was forty-three years old, and he had a certain experience. Next, Mario began to “correct” unsuccessfully shot films and succeeded in this matter. His ability to direct was obvious, and his knowledge and experience in camera work made it possible to get good results.
Production work
Subsequently, Bava began to make films independently from beginning to end, as an experienced director. His work was the film "Mask of the Demon", based on the drama "Wii" by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. So the genre of "horror" came to the work of Mario. The next two paintings - "Blood and Black Lace" and "The Girl Who Knew A Lot," staged in 1963 - marked the beginning of a long series of horror films. Then the director begins filming the film "The Scourge and the Body." In the center of the plot is a 19th-century castle and its inhabitants. The film is full of terrible details: suicides occur, close-up bloodied knives on the screen, all the attributes of the horror are involved.
Horror voltage
Then the director removes: “Six Women for the Killer”, “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. It is as if the paintings are penetrated by electric current of hundreds of thousands of volts, and nobody knows how to withstand it. In the end, the film company, with which Mario Bava had a contract, decides to end his relationship with the director, since the censors were at a loss and did not know how to adjust the films in the Jallo genre to the standards of American morality.
The director relents and releases a horror comedy with Vincent Price. The audience began to smile a little. And then came the chilling film “Operation Fear, the purest djallo.” Some of Bav's directorial twists began to resonate with the works of such masters as Fellini, Scorsese, Argento.
Despite the commendable reviews of famous directors, as well as intellectuals from among moviegoers, Mario himself modestly called himself a craftsman, not a director. His self-criticism was hypertrophied, and the degree of modesty suggested pathology.
Nevertheless, the director was making truly terrible, hopelessly creepy films. But the most surprising was that the art level of the films did not suffer.
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 connects with fantastic ease without looking. But at the same time, he still has to balance on the brink between the real and supernatural worlds.
Having fenced off from the whole world with an impenetrable wall of self-irony, Bava successfully uses the possibilities of cinema art for the transmission and dissemination of mysticism, everything anomalous and terrible.
Heyday
The late sixties of the last century was the most productive period for the director. In 1969, Mario directed The Red Sign of Madness, an ironic parody of Hitchcock's Psychosis, forcing the viewer to accept the maniac’s point of view.
The painting "Five Dolls under the August Moon" was shot in the same year. This is a black comedy in the style of the detective "Ten Little Indians" based on the work of Agatha Christie.
"Bloody Bay" - a horror film, which will subsequently serve as the basis for the American films "Friday, 13" and "Halloween".
All films were successfully shown in the USA and Europe. Mario Bava became an object of imitation, he appeared followers such as Dario Argento and Margheriti Antonio.
The decline of the genre
However, in the seventies, the popularity of Mario films declined. Then disaster films and police action movies based on real events came into fashion. European cinema began to show light porn like "Emmanuel". Brutal plots went on rent, on which you do not need to think. Mario’s meditations somehow receded into the background and few people were already interested.
However, producer Alfred Leone gave Bava a small budget and complete freedom of action. The result of such a peculiar experiment was the picture "Lisa and the Devil", shot in 1973. This film is recognized by many as the pinnacle of the director’s creativity. The complex plot design of the movie, the unexpected combination of the facts of the biography of the maniac-necrophile Ardisson Victor and philosophical fabrications, more like obsessions, gave an unexpected result in strength.
Mario drew through the entire film the Hoffmann motifs of the sinister Doppelgangers with their terrible dialogs. “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 an offer from Dino De Laurentis to work on the adaptation of popular comics. The director coped brilliantly with the task, while he spent only 400 thousand from the allocated three million budget. The film was called "Devil".
Following him, Mario shot two jallos and one Blood Bay horror, which was a record for the number of deaths: there were exactly thirteen of them in the picture.
In 1972, Bava proceeded to create the next horror "Devil's House" based on the work of Dostoevsky's "Demons". However, before appearing on the screen, it turned out that Mario’s film is in many ways similar to Fridkin William's The Exorcist. As a result of rough editing by producer Leone Alfred, who tried at the last minute to reduce the similarities, the Devil’s House was almost destroyed.
Mario began to have financial problems, but, despite this, he rejected another proposal by Dino De Laurentis to shoot a high-budget remake of "King Kong". Bava explained his refusal by the fact that when filming an expensive film project on the site, too many people crowd, and he does not like this.
Depression
The production of the next film, conceived by the director under the name "Wild Dogs", on which he pondered for five years, was suspended. The reason was the bankruptcy of the patronage firm. Forced refusal of further filming of the movie "Wild Dogs" was a real shock for Mario, he could not finish the job. The director fell into a deep depression, closed all started film projects and retired.
Only in 1977, the son of the master Lamberto persuaded his father to undertake the production of a horror film called "Shock". Mario reluctantly set to work, not believing in success. However, high-quality shooting, superbly constructed episodes, provided the film with recognition of the general public. The name of the picture was changed to "Something outside the door."
The revival of creativity
Encouraged by success, Bava accepted the following year the offer to film the famous novel by Prosper Merimee “Venus of Illa”. Despite the fact that Mario, due to poor health, was forced to ask his son to help in the filming, the film turned out spectacular and was rightfully considered the last "branded" work of the great director.
Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, including technical, the film "Venus of Illa" was shown only in 1980, after the death of Mario. The film was the last example of the director’s grandiose cinematic skill.
"Venus of Illa" is a huge bronze statue of a woman, blackened from a long stay underground. When it was dug up, Venus caused a terrible tragedy. Once a young man who was about to marry, jokingly put his wedding ring on the finger of the statue. At night a terrible reckoning awaited him for his frivolity. “Venus Illsky” considered herself a bride, came to the bedchamber, and, not paying attention to the cries of a real bride, took possession of the groom, crushing him and breaking all his bones. The bride and groom died in terrible torment among the wreckage of the wedding bed.
Filmography
During his career, Bava shot more than fifty films as a director and about the same, working as a cameraman. The following is an abridged list of Mario's work as a director. Each of these films is created in the genre of "horror".
- "Fish Soup" (1946).
- "Holy Night" (1947).
- "The Legendary Symphony" (1947).
- "Flavia Amphitheater" (1947).
- "Symphonic Variations" (1949).
- "Police officers and thieves" (1951).
- "The Odyssey's Wanderings" (1954).
- “Beautiful, but Dangerous” (1956).
- "Vampires" (1957).
- "The exploits of Hercules" (1958).
- Kaltiki, the Immortal Monster (1959).
- The Mask of Satan (1960).
- "The Girl Who Knew A Lot" (1963).
- The Three Faces of Fear (1963).
- The Scourge and the Body (1963).
- "Six Women for the Killer" (1964).
- "Planet of the Vampires" (1965).
- Operation Fear (1966).
- The Devil (1968).
- The Bloody Bay (1971).
Mario Bava, whose filmography is quite extensive, given the specifics of his work (horror and jallo are complex genres), has done a lot as a director and cameraman. He will forever remain on the honorary lists of American cinema.
The great director, an unsurpassed master of horror movie making, passed away on April 25, 1980. Mario Bava left an heir, Lamberto Bava, who tried to continue his father’s work and create the same high-quality horror, but so far he only gets parodies.