Tonino delli colli biography template

One of the most prestigious Italian directors of photography since the war has disappeared with the death of Tonino Delli Colli. Throughout his impressive career covering more than half a century of cinema, with nearly 150 films, we find a host of directors as different as Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergio Leone, Louis Malle, Marco Ferreri, Federico Fellini, Jean-Jacques Annaud and Roman Polanski.

He was born in Rome on November 20th 1923 and he began his career as camera assistant at Cinecitta when he was just 15 years old, working alongside Ubaldo Arata, Anchise Brizzi and Mario Albertelli.
By the age of 21, he was a director of photography (Finalmente sí) and he was responsible for the photography of fifty or so films before he finally met up with Pasolini in 1961.
From light comedies to melodramas, costume films to international coproductions, Delli Colli was the first DP to make an Italian film using the Ferraniacolor process in 1952 (Totò a colori) before turning to a more demanding film-making genre, “cinéma d’auteur”, where his constantly renewed, anti-conformist talent came into its own. Far from the somewhat pretentious conceptual approaches some people had towards light, Delli Colli declared, more modestly, “All I know is that the position of the first spotlight determines the rest. All the others depend on that. If you get the first spotlight wrong, the whole lot goes to pot.”
Even though a contract signed with two producers - Carlo Ponti and Dino Laurentiis - in the 1950s guaranteed him five films a year, Delli Colli was keen on changing his style and he planned a meeting with Pasolini and accepted a lower salary, “I believe in fate, because that meeting completely changed my career”, he explained to the American Cinematographer.

« With Accattone, Tonino Delli Colli, who was used to working on very high quality but more commercial films (It

Tonino Delli Colli, the versatile Italian cinematographer whose work ranged from Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” to Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful,” has died. He was 81.

Delli Colli died Aug. 16 at his home in Rome of a heart attack.

In a long career that included more than 130 films, Delli Colli worked with top directors of the Italian cinema -- including not only Leone and Benigni but Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rosselini and Federico Fellini.

The cinematographer earned four David di Donatello awards -- Italy’s equivalent of the Academy Award -- for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966), “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), “The Name of the Rose” (1986) and “Life is Beautiful” (1997).

“In my work, I’ve always tried to illuminate the stories that are being told, using the simplicity of my feelings and the instinct that has guided me,” Delli Colli said this year after receiving the American Society of Cinematographers’ international achievement award.

Delli Colli helped pioneer post-World War II neorealist cinema, which emphasized shooting on location and the use of natural light. Practicality helped form the artistic style, he often pointed out -- in war-torn Italy, there was little money for elaborate studios or artificial lighting.

He originally shot only in black and white, which emphasized the gritty realism of the genre. But he made Italy’s first color film, “Toto a colori,” in 1952 and became adept at painting the screen in colors that reflected the mood of the picture.

Whether shooting in color or not, Delli Colli was a master at creating special atmospheres with lighting and -- especially for Leone -- mixing long shots and extreme close-ups to emphasize individual characters.

Delli Colli was particularly associated with Pasolini after volunteering to work for scale on “Accattone!” (1961) in order to join the daring new director. Their c

个人简介