Renato Castellani (4 September 1913 – 28 December 1985) was an Italian film director and screenwriter.
Early life
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.[1]
With Under the Sun of Rome (1948), It's Forever Springtime (1950), both shot outdoors with non-professional actors,[5] 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,[6] but destined to a vast audience success.
^Brunetta, Gian Piero (2009). Il cinema neorealista italiano. Da "Roma città aperta" a "I soliti ignoti" (in Italian). Rome: Laterza. p. 86. ISBN9788858113387.
Brunetta, Gian Piero (2003). Guida alla storia del cinema italiano (1905-2003) (in Italian). Turin: Einaudi. ISBN9788806164850.
Brunetta, Gian Piero (2009). Il cinema neorealista italiano. Da "Roma città aperta" a "I soliti ignoti" (in Italian). Rome: Laterza. ISBN9788842089124.
Brunetta, Gian Piero (2009). Il cinema neorealista italiano: storia economica, politica e culturale (in Italian). Rome: Laterza. ISBN9788842089452.
Sacchettini, Rodolfo (2011). La radiofonica arte invisibile. Il radiodramma italiano prima della televisione (in Italian). Corazzano (Pisa): Titivillus. ISBN9788872183151.
Further reading
Bondanella, Peter (2014). The Italian Cinema Book. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. ISBN9781844574056.
Carluccio, Giulia; Malavasi, Luca; Villa, Federica (2015). Il cinema di Renato Castellani (in Italian). Rome: Carocci. ISBN9788843078011.
Costa, Antonio (2013). Il cinema italiano. Generi, figure, film del passato e del presente (in Italian). Bologna: Il Mulino. ISBN9788815244833.