Enzo G. Castellari was born on July 29, 1938 in Rome, Lazio, Italy as Enzo Girolami. He directed “A Few Dollars for Django (Pochi dollari per Django),” the original “The Inglorious Bastards (Quel maledetto treno blindato),” “Any Gun Can Play,” “Keoma,” “One Dollar Too Many,” among many other films. Currently, Enzo is in preproduction on a new film starring legendary Spaghetti Western actor (and Keoma star) Franco Nero. He is the son of director Marino Girolami, aka Franco Martinelli. 

Enzo Castellari’s “KEOMA” was shown in a special screening at the USC  Albert and Dana Broccoli Theatre on December 9, 2014. Presented by Band Pro Film & Digital, the screening Q&A was moderated by Jon Fauer, ASC.

The next day, Enzo was the guest of honor of Amnon Band at the annual Band Pro Expo and Open House. Enzo  signed autographs for a devoted following of admirers. Amnon  presented Enzo with a famous Frederick Remington bronze “The Bronco Buster.” An original is in the White House. When Theodore Roosevelt was presented with the statue in 1898, he said, “There could have been no more appropriate gift…” Enzo Castellari said, “But this is in the White House. I am overwhelmed. It is magnificent.”

About “KEOMA” (1976)

Franco Nero (Django, The Fifth Cord) is KEOMA, a half-breed gunfighter weary of killing as a way of life. But when he returns to his troubled childhood home, Keoma is caught in a savage battle between innocent settlers, sadistic bandits and his vengeful half-brothers. In a wasteland gone mad with rage and pain, can one man massacre his way to redemption? Directed by Enzo G. Castellari . With Woody Strode (“Once Upon a Time in the West”), William Berger (“Django Strikes Again”) and Olga Karlatos (“Zombie)” Considered one of the greatest Spaghetti Westerns of all time.

 Introduction to the screening of Keoma at USC on Dec 9. 2014

ENZO CASTELLARI
My father was director. A great pleasure for me after school was to see my father with a car waiting to take me to the editing room where he was working on his movies. I have always been fascinated by editing.

A big surprise for all the American actors who came to Italy to work on my movies was when I would explain in detail how everything would be cut. Each morning, I would describe how a certain shot would be a close-up, another would be a dolly shot, and then a wide shot. I would explain it so everybody knew the way that I would edit the scene. Two days or three days later, the actors could see the edited scene that we already had shot.

When I am editing, I need music. Not just any kind of music—but the music that I think is perfect for the scene. For “Keoma,” I did the editing with a scratch track of music from Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. I used all their songs. It was perfect for me. I used it for the timing, and to convey the meaning of the song.

In “Keoma,” there are lyrics about death in some of the songs. This provides punctuation for the theme about death in the movie. The songs of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan gave me the chance to find exactly what I was thinking during the shooting. When it was time for our musicians to score the film, they asked what kind of music I wanted? Since it was already a final cut, I said, “Just watch the film silently and the you will feel how the music is already there.

JON FAUER
You’ve said that “Keoma” is your favorite film. Why?

ENZO CASTELLARI
It was wonderful to be able to do this movie. It was the one that built my career. I don’t know what other kind of job can give you this possibility and this chance. I’m very grateful and I’m still in love with this movie. I love it,.

JON FAUER
Well, I hope everyone in the audience will enjoy it as much. Let’s screen the film and then we’ll be back to do a Q&A.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Please don’t fight with me by asking questions that will be too difficult for me to answer. I hope you enjoy “Keoma.”

After screening of “Keoma”

ENZO CASTELLARI

JON FAUER
How did you get started in the film business?

ENZO CASTELLARI
I was so lucky. I was born into the movie business, which made it was relatively easy. I started as an actor when I was child, and then worked as assistant to the assistant director, assistant director, then script writer, editor and everything else. I was lucky to have the movie business in the family. When I was an assistant, I was at the same time the editor of some of my father’s movies. Fortunately, my father never complained about my editing.

I really learned everything from him as well as from all the movies that I did as an assistant director with other directors. A love affair with the movies helped me throughout my entire career.

JON FAUER
I think you told me earlier that you studied art and architecture.

ENZO CASTELLARI
I was about 17 years old when I began studies in the history of art and drawing. I attended the Academy of Fine Arts and then University in Architecture. All of these studies helped me in my work as a director. They helped me tin discussions with the art director and the costume designer because I could draw sketches with a pencil. I could explain shots by drawing them for the director of photography.

JON FAUER
What advice do you have for students in the audience today?

It has been a wonderful, unbelievable life for me. My advice for students ios that you must study, first of all, and then the occasion will come. I repeat, I was very lucky because my father, as a director/producer, gave me the chance to direct. I was 23 when I did my first movie. At the time, many Westerns were made in Spain and he was a co-producer on a Spanish film and I was the assistant director. But as soon as I reached the set it was recognized that the Spanish director was not so great. I asked my father to visit us on location. He came and said, “From tomorrow, you will help direct. But let the Spanish director say, ‘Action.’

JON FAUER
In “Keoma,” the art direction really stands out. How did you establish the style of the film?

ENZO CASTELLARI
I must come back to the first movie with my name on it, “Seven Winchesters For A Massacre.” (1967, aka “Renegade Riders.” During the production, I went to the cinema and watched “The Appaloosa,” (1966) directed by Sydney J. Furie. It was with Marlon Brando and John Saxon. It was unbelievable for me to see the way that Sydney J. Furie was using the Techniscope format, with its a big, wide rectangular shape.

When you do a close-up, you must to put the actor in the right, center, or left, but there is a lot of empty space on the screen. Sydney J. Furie always composed by keeping something interesting in this space. Your attention goes to the close-up, but you sense the location. And that concept became part of my style. It gave me the chance to put several things in the close-ups.

JON FAUER
One remarkable scene for me is the two-shot where the Keoma and his father are on the porch. You’re doing a circular dolly move and you keeping the two characters on both edges of the frame.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Thank you for noticing that. I like this shot as well. We re-wrote the dialog every day. For this scene, I asked John Loffredo (Joshua Sinclair), the brother with the gold tooth, to write the dialog that would include life, family and love. I wanted to do it in one shot and move from left to right. It was not easy. But soon I found the right speed of dollying and it was actually simpler to do than to imagine.

JON FAUER
Take us through the history of the Italian Westerns. This was one of the last of the Spaghetti Westerns. Why?

ENZO CASTELLARI
The genre was completely finished. But Franco and I always said the Western will never die. One of the first movies, “The Great Train Robbery” was Western. “Western all’italiana” (Italian-Style Westerns) had a big, unbelievable time. More than 600 were made. At the end they became comic, stupid, and more than stupid.

JON FAUER
How did first Italian Westerns get started?

ENZO CASTELLARI
History says that Sergio Leone did the first important Western with Clint Eastwood with “A Fist Of Dollars” (1964). It was a great success everywhere in the world. But before that, we did several. Not good ones like Sergio Leone. Sergio Leone gave Italy the chance to do a lot of Westerns and especially the chance for good assistant directors to become directors. That was because there were many movies to shoot every year and not enough directors. He gave us the chance.

JON FAUER
What was the reason for the decline?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Good question. I would like to know. Unfortunately, television, bad movies, comedies and panettone movies. They are called panettoni movies because they come out around Christmas time—comic and vulgar, all of them. I can understand why people, with all their daily problems, want to go to cinema just to laugh and to forget their trouble. But there were really too many movies made in this way.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Too bad for all of us. There are not many producers or distributors left in Italy. I was shooting three movies every year. It was enough to have a story, to have Franco Nero as leading character, and Enzo G. Castellari as the director. Now, there is no way that to repeat that wonderful dream.

JON FAUER
But I think you are repeating the dream. Tell us a little about your upcoming project.

ENZO CASTELLARI
As I told you, the Western will never die. My next film is “The Angel, The Brute and the Wise.” It is an homage to Sergio Leone and an homage to the cinematography of the Western. The producers wanted to do the movie in South Africa because they are shooting a lot of TV series in South Africa. But the right place to do a Western is where I have done most of them all my life, in Almeria, Spain. The Western town in Almeria is much better than before because they developed it as a tourist attraction.

So we met with the owner of the Western town in Almeria, and he said that if we came in with this project, he has everything we need: horses, props, the town, and lots of locations.
So now we go to Almeria to do the movie.

JON FAUER
In “Keoma,” did you build all the sets and the locations? Tell us about the art direction.

ENZO CASTELLARI
“Keoma” was shot in Northern Italy. I didn’t destroy the village because it was already destroyed. I will explain. The Western town was completely run down. And the idea in “Keoma” that I pushed to have was this background. There’s this village and the mine. I put in a lot of machines and the strange wheel where he’s tied up. I asked the art director to bring everything that you could find with rust and iron. And that became a style. The saloon and interiors were also shot in the village.

JON FAUER
Where was the beautiful, uninhabited area?

ENZO CASTELLARI
That was Abruzzo. (About 2 hours’ drive east of Rome, a third of its territory is set aside as a park. It has the largest area in Europe for national parks and protected nature reserves.)
Abruzzo Promozione Turismo

JON FAUER
Tell us about the script.

ENZO CASTELLARI
There really was no script. We are just invented as we went along. We shot the first two days in the village and then I said, “I think that the last scene should be made here.” Which last scene? Well, of course, Keoma has to kill the brothers. That’s clear. I found it was very simple for me to shoot in this little village. The third day was the last scene of the movie that we saw already with the lady and death and the three brothers.

For me, it’s easy to invent action. During the movie, Franco would sometimes ask me what was happening next. But I would let them know. Everyone was believing in me. But I didn’t always tell the producer or the actors what I had in mind. I knew, scene by scene, according to my editing that it was interesting. I knew when we needed action, or a moment, or a sentimental scene. The film was in my mind, but I did not need to explain it to everybody.

So, we went day by day. “Tomorrow I will explain. And then, after tomorrow, you will know,” I told the actors.

JON FAUER
We’ll open this up to questions from the audience. But before I forget, Enzo Castellari will be at Band Pro Film and Digital Open House on Thursday December 11 from 1:00 to 8:00 P.M. There will be spaghetti, of course.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Not chicken, please. Thank you Band Pro for inviting me.

JON FAUER
No chicken. Enzo Castellari doesn’t like chicken. Let’s discuss craft service on your movies. Just kidding. Let’s discuss technical things. Earlier, we were talking about the switch from film to digital and how you were embracing digital intermediates. Have you noticed if the way you’re shooting has changed over the years as the equipment has evolved — or it doesn’t matter?

ENZO CASTELLARI
When technique will help me in my filming, I’m happy, absolutely happy. But talking about film and digital, several of my colleagues said, “Ah, no. I want film, only film.” Why? For what? I teach in several schools because I like to teach and I like to give back some of what I have learned. I want to give to the students some my experience.

When we arrive at the moment where they must do a short movie in the school, many of the students say they want to do it with the film. But I say, “You may never touch or see film again. You can go near cameras and see the assistant in charge of loading film in the camera, and you will say, “Oh, this is film.” But you will probably never work with it because the labs are disappearing and it becomes more difficult to see rushes. Now, it’s digital from the moment that you shoot until the end; It is all digital. Not film.

The camera still is not always digital. You can still shoot in film. But the rest of the production is digital.

I was born with the film. I born with the cameras. But now, digital gives me unbelievable opportunities. Only people who worked with film before can appreciate how fantastic it is to work in digital. There is no limit to the fantasy. You can do everything. I did “Caribbean Basterds” (2010) in Margarita Island, Venezuela. The story, I don’t care. It’s enough to go to the Caribbean Sea. But the island was awful. The sea was an unbelievably green color. But sometimes the sun would disappear, which was really a disaster. But at the end, the color correction was a miracle. I could say, “May I have more blue? More blue in Franco Nero’s eyes?” And they colorist would say yes and the machine would go “beep-beep-beep-beep.” “But the sea is too green.” “We can have a better blue—oh, yes. Fantastic.” “But what a shame there wasn’t sun that day.” “Oh, you want some sun?” “Okay. Da-da-da-da.”

There is no limit to the fantasy with digital. As you know, I was born with film and now I am in love with digital. In love, absolutely.

JON FAUER
Tell us a little about working with Franco Nero. He seems to be your favorite actor.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Yes. Favorite actor, big friend and everything. He is in love with the movies. When we discuss the story, he sometimes suggests several things, but in his own way. He’s a very good actor. He can learn all kind of dialogue. When he suggest something, I listen. I know him so well that I catch on immediately. His ideas are always something good because he’s in love with the movie, with the cinema.

Soemtimes he suggests things for the other characters, not for his own character. He’s a helper during the movie. And he is also such a nice person, so kind and so wonderful. Maybe he has to change wardrobe. There may not be a camper around. He changes where he can. He is easy going. We are close friends and he will be, of course, in my next movie. He’s the angel in “The Angel, The Brute and the Wise.”.

JON FAUER
Of course. Now let’s invite audience questions.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
Westerns have been very popular in Italy and in Europe. What makes American culture from that time period so interesting to Italian moviegoers?

ENZO CASTELLARI
There is a difference. When Italian Spaghetti Westerns arrived and became a big success, we did not have the American traditions. We did not have the history of the American West. That’s why we had to re-invent it, in our own way. We put more action, more blood, more humor, a lot of other things together that we didn’t see in the American movies. I think it’s because Americans needed to stay true to their own history. But we didn’t care about the history. We cared about the movie, the story. And so that was the beginning of the difference between American Westerns and Italian Westerns.

Now I like to see wonderful American Westerns because I am tired of Italian Westerns. I’m also looking forward to my next Western.

JON FAUER
What are your favorite American Westerns?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Well, “Monument Valley” is the target for all of us.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
What Italian Westerns were shot in the U.S.?

ENZO CASTELLARI
“Once Upon A Time In The West,” “My Name Is Nobody,”

JON FAUER
Very few.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
I just wanted to ask, you know, in the Frank Wolff documentary with you and Sergio Corbucci, it looks like you’re teaching them how to fight. Were you a fighter or a stunt man?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Well, boxing is my family’s sport. You know, my father was a European champ.

And the first toys that my brothers and I had were boxing gloves. so it was in all the–I’m going around, round, I found the place, but especially there is a gym closer to…

AUDIENCE QUESTION
When you’re shooting a feature, you have X number of shooting days. How do you budget your days when you don’t really have the script on-hand in advance?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Well, this is the experience of being born in the movie business. It’s impossible to know how many days, how many hours, but I’m very sure of what I am doing and completing on time. I’m accustomed to finding the right time, and the right way for calculating the days.

AMNON BAND
In the script, was there a clear political correctness in 1976. Were you aware of an agenda for political correctness or was it just the way the script was?

ENZO CASTELLARI
First of all, I’m not involved in politics nor was my family. My father was not involved in politics. Me, neither. I don’t care about the political meaning of my movies. I just follow the story, follow the character. I never thought about the political situation or the consequences.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
I do have a question, but I’d like to make a compliment first. I think when you said that you were inventing every day, you know, it was kind of intuitive for you. I really like the fragmentation of the narrative. I really loved how it came piece by piece and Keoma looked at something and he had a memory. I felt that you had all these broken pieces of wood, nothing was solid, so that there was light and dark, pieces of lace and cobwebs at the same time. And the opening where you have the window that opened and closed. Did that come to you at the beginning or did that come to you after this whole film kind of pulled together with all of these fragments?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Thank you, thank you. I like that very much. That shot was the first shot of the movie, the first day, the first action. Well, my collaboration is great with the camera operator. Not too much with the director of photography, but the camera operator because he’s my eyes. He has to do exactly what I want. I do drawings first to explain things. “I want this black, black, black and the window on the right.” And we were going around this little village to find the place where we can shoot this because I was so sure of that shot that I was drawing it exactly, with the window on the extreme right.

What my camera operator did was wonderful during the entire movie. I remember there is a moment during the last fight where Woody Strode is running up the steps and going into the saloon. There are squibs and splinters and things flying around in front of the camera.

And the cameraman said, you will see in the dailies that there is one frame with the close-up of Woody where he is in the middle of all this. So it was wonderful that he could catch this action even down to the individual frame. This is so important for me. One of the first things I discuss with production is who will be the cameramen because I collaborate with them much more than with the DP.

JON FAUER
Just to clarify, when you say cameraman, that’s the camera operator.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Camera operator, yes. We say “al buco,” to the hole. “Occhi al buco,” eye to the hole (viewfinder).

AUDIENCE QUESTION
For your next movie, will you be shooting in Italian or English?

ENZO CASTELLARI
English. All my movies are shot in English.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
Franco Nero, he does his own voice in English?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Yes. Did you hear the movie? It was his voice.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
How did you come up with the idea of this ending of the film where the pregnant woman is delivering? I noticed when he shot the brother, she screams more. How did you come up what that idea?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Good. Unbelievable question. When I was doing the sound mix, where we put together dialogue, music and sound effects, we adjust the levels, We can make the music louder, or the dialog, to put the emphasis on one of the elements. The second time I was watching the movie with the sound mixer, the music accidentally disappeared, and all we heard was the voice.

I said, “That’s fantastic. We won’t use any music or effects. No, just the screaming of the lady. Watching “Keoma” right now, I still think it was a good idea. But this wasn’t mine. It was an accident. I like it. Thank you for the question.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
In a lot of your best ’60s films, Francesco De Masi did the score. In a lot of your great ’70s films it was the De Angeles Brothers, Guido and Maurizio De Angeles. Was that your personal choice and which scores are your favorites or the most effective?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Thanks for this question. Francesco De Masi, as you know, is not with us anymore. And but in my next film, I have all the music he made for all his movies. His son Filippo gave it to me. It was given for the relationship and a big, big friendship with Francesco. I am so glad. I will have the chance to choose from hours and hours of his music. I am so happy to do this. And thank you for remembering Francesco De Masi.

JON FAUER
Your music in “Keoma” is very operatic. It’s opera meets Leonard Cohen, meets McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Leonard Cohen was a fantastic inspiration. All of us are inspired by certain works. No one can say, “I am the sole inventor.” It’s not true because every move you ever saw, every bit or piece, inspires you somehow.

JON FAUER
Whose voices were those in “Keoma?” There’s the lady’s voice, the guy’s voice.

ENZO CASTELLARI
She was a singer from Israel. I don’t remember the name, but the De Angeles Brothers found her. I thought she was fantastic. The male voice was one of the De Angeles brothers.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
Was anyone else considered for the role of “Keoma” and where did the name Keoma come from?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Keoma came from Woody Strode. Woody gave the producer a wonderful, enormous book about the West and the Indian peoples (native Americans). It was fantastic and I got a lot of inspiration looking at it. There are two versions to where the name came from. The producer says that Keoma was the name of a whore in the book, but I don’t think that’s the case. For me, the name comes from the native American dialect that means freedom.

AUDIENCE QUESTION
Is Tarantino going to be in your next movie?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Yes. The movie starts with three guys arriving on horseback, with the wind howling and dust and everything, as usual. Their faces are covered by bandanas. We inter-cut to an underground mine. There is a guy hiding. He has blue eyes. It’s Franco Nero, of course. The three guys arrive. We intercut between closeups of their eyes and Franco’s. They stop their horses and they get down. They take off their bandanas. We see them. It’s Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth and Robert Rodriguez.

JON FAUER
Marvelous. Wind and dust and stars. It’s funny. We used to joke that the Ridley Scott lighting kit was smoke for the smoke-filled room, a bare light bulb, and red lipstick. I would argue that the Enzo Castellari lighting kit is lots of smoke…

ENZO CASTELLARI
Lots and lots of smoke.

JON FAUER
Slow motion.

AUDIENCE COMMENT
Lots of dust.

JON FAUER
Dust everywhere. And long lenses.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Right. But in my next, I want to use squibs that hit and the block camera. I want to do it like Spielberg did in “Saving Private Ryan” in the beginning. Squibs, blood and dust. I never used dust as a substitute for squibs, but I want to do that now because it’s fantastic.

AMNON BAND
I was wondering how did you feel when Tarantino started to do remakes of your movies?

ENZO CASTELLARI
A long time ago, some friends asked, “Did you read what Tarantino said about Italian movies?”
I said that I had not.

They said, “Yes, but it’s very interesting because Tarantino is a fan of Italian movies.”

Another friend asked, “Did you read what Tarantino was thinking about Italian action movies?”

I grabbed the magazine or the newspaper. I want to read it.

And then a friend asked, “But did you hear what Tarantino said about you?”

“About me?” I said. “He knows me?”

Suddenly, in the afternoon, a voice came on the telephone. “Mr. Castellari?”

“Yes.”

“This is Mr. Goodwin. I’m Quentin Tarantino’s lawyer.”

“Ah, am I guilty for something?”

“No, no. We are interested in buying the rights to your “Inglorious Bastards.”

Really? I didn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke.

I said, “Are you really American? Are you really a lawyer of Quentin? Give me your telephone number. I will call you back.”

So I did. It’s unbelievable. From Lumière until now, how many movies have been done? 2 to 3 million? And of all these 3 million movies, a genius like Quentin Tarantino chose just mine to do a remake–I can’t believe it. But there were several phone calls with the lawyer and a meeting at last was set up in Venice during the festival. They had invited Tarantino, and they invited me. I was never invited to be involved in a film festival. I do my action movies and that’s all. But no, they invited to the Venice festival.

And Tarantino insisted that they show my “Inglorious Bastards.” So we met in Venice. The screening of my movie was unbelievable. There were thousands of people, waiting for Tarantino.

They took me to a separate entrance to avoid the crowd. I was taken along a big corridor. And suddenly, dum-dum-dum-dum. I hear a voice say, “Maestro.”

Who was that? It was Quentin running toward me. He gave me a big bear hug. From that moment on, it seems that every time we meet, he will take me and give me a big hug and spin me around.

We go into the cinema and he confesses that this is the first time he’s seeing it on a big screen. I ask why. He says, “I accepted to come into Venice just to see your movie on the big screen because I am accustomed to see it only with on VHS first and then on DVD. But I wantws to see it on the screen, especially with you. So we were watching the movie with the cinema full of people. People were sitting on the floor. It was unbelievable. And he was repeating, in advance, all the lines from the film. He knew all the lines of dialog by heart. And after each shot that, he would say, “Perfecto, man. It’s great.” And then he would give me a punch on the shoulder. By the end of the screening, my shoulder was very sore from being punched so many times.

JON FAUER
Did he know you were a boxer?

ENZO CASTELLARI
Yes. But it was fantastic. And he was the first to stand and up and say to everybody, “Maestro. My master.” It was a big, unbelievable success. From that moment, I knew that Tarantino considered me a master.

JON FAUER
Great. So hopefully, we’ll be back in a couple of months to watch your latest movie. Thank you very much, Maestro.

ENZO CASTELLARI
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.