Tinto Brass

Giovanni Tinto Brass (Milan, March 26, 1933) is an Italian film director. After starting out in cinema as a collaborator of the Cinémathèque Française and assistant to Joris Ivens, Alberto Cavalcanti and Roberto Rossellini, he developed a highly personal and avant-garde style during the years 1960 and 1970, which in the years 1980 led him to make provocative films that sat somewhere between pornography and aestheticism. Fascinated by eroticism, from the years 1990 onward he abandoned most of the themes he had explored earlier and devoted himself exclusively to making numerous intimate works, characterized by fast-paced cinematography (full of tracking shots), quick editing and humorous, unsettling screenplays. His grandfather nicknamed him “Tintoretto,” so he decided to use “Tinto” as his stage name.

Brass was the main director of the controversial cult film Caligula (1979), although he disagreed with the changes made by the producer Bob Guccione (who also directed some of the restricted scenes added to the film without consulting Brass), so he chose not to be credited as the director (he was only credited as the director of photography).