"I'm a copier, a cheater." "Ruggero Deodato´s film had just come out and had gone really well... called Eaten Alive..." "No..." "Yes..." "it was called Last Cannibal World..." "It had done really well, it had been seized by the censors, so we decide to ride their commercial success." "I had an associate called Fabrizio De Angelis, with whom I put together a company in order to make Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals." "It came out well, with this combination, a little horror and a little sex, that worked well..." "We went to Fogliano, but nobody believes we did." "We hired a lot of Filippino's from Rome, we put some wigs on them and pretended they were lndio's." "They all fell into the trap." "At Fogliano there is an artificial lake with two palm trees... it could look like the Amazon and with these Filippino's in wigs, it was perfect..." "I first met Aristide Massaccesi in 1971 when I worked on the first film I had written." "A film directed by Michele Lupo, with Giuliano Gemma." "Aristide, during this period, was a director of photography and a camera operator." "I liked him because he was simple and spontaneous very friendly, and extremely brave." "I saw him shoot a scene, precariously tied to a coach with the serious risk of harming himself." "I asked him if he was crazy." "He was a pleasant person and he always had a joke so you would always be laughing." "With Emanuelle e Francoise- le sorelline (Emanuelle's Revenge)" "I was involved by chance." "He had a script that was too short and he asked me to have a look at it." "I admit to having stolen the idea from an old film, adding this idea of a man being held captive in a cage." "A French film, that took the concept from a previous Greek film." "It was an idea that had been copied a couple times." "He offered me a role." "I didn't want to do the film, especially my role." "It took place in a villa owned by one of the producers," "Which was a five minute walk from my house." "So, seeing as I needed the money... the morning cf the shoot, instead of getting a cappuccino, I went there and did my scenes." "That's the only reason I did it." "I've never seen the film." "I haven't the foggiest idea of what came of it." "I doubt there is a film, in which Aristide put any real effort in the framing of his shots." "That was not his role." "His role was to hurry up." "Most of his films were sold before shooting, he would get money from the distributors and shoot them." "Often he would go so quickly that he would finish a lot sooner than scheduled." "He couldn't go tell this to the distributors though because if not they would say:" ""why the fuck did I give that amount of money?"" "Once, one of his distributors visited the set and we didn't have a thing to show him so we pretend to shoot without any film in the camera." "He explained the situation to us and we went along with his charade." "The Anthropophagus project was born by chance." "I had gone to his office for a visit and he was dealing with a script that didn't work." "He only had the beginning:" "a man that finds himself shipwrecked on a lifeboat." "I told him, jokingly "I will write it for you but I have to be the protagonist"." "The film was supposed to be set in Greece." "I would often choose what films to do on the basis of where they were going to be shot." "I wrote what you can see in the film." "There weren't any great ideas." "The only original concept was this man going crazy and basically becoming a cannibal after devouring his son." "As luck would have it, I didn't even get to go to Greece because all my scenes were shot in Rome." "Talking about the film is difficult, because there is nothing to it just a few gruesome scenes that a certain fraction of the public like." "I enjoyed writing them but I can't say I liked them." "Absurd however, which can be considered a sort of a sequel," "I had more fun writing." "Even though that too was a little film, not a big deal." "Following Aristide's request I tried to conceive a film that wasn't going to be too expensive where most cf the action took place on one set:" "a villa, in which this crazed man finds refuge." "It's your average horror film, nothing exceptional... but it works." "My first meeting with Michele was in a cemetery at night... but I'm not sure it was Absurd maybe another film... no it was probably Absurd." "We needed a bunch of teens with motorbikes." "Calling here and there they rounded up a few friends and among this group there was also Michele Soavi and that's where he fell in love with cinema and fell in love with Aristide, because it was hard not to." "He even came on the following days when we didn't need the bikers anymore." "He would hang round and help, asking if he could do anything." "Slowly a relationship began." "Aristide took him under his wing, like a son." "Michele was completely unaware of what life on a set was." "He was bright and loved cinema, in fact he had a developed aesthetical taste..." "I met Aristide Massaccesi through his trusted Assistant Director, Claudio Bernabei with whom I was also a friend." "He was working on Absurd and for a scene they needed kids with motorbikes and of course being a small production they were looking for people who could bring their own bikes with them, at Manziana where they were shooting." "He looked at me and asked "do you have a photo?" I answered "of me or my motorbike?"" "and he began laughing." "It was love at first sight." "I was very young, nineteen years old and trying to find some work, fascinated, as I was, by cinema." "At night, I would admire these spaceships that would be shooting in the city, during the summer." "For me that was a dream, instead of hanging out in bars smoking joints." "To be able to work in that world, at night, was like a dream to me." "I was picked so I went to the set with my bike." "It was a night shoot, there was me and other teens and we were supposed to taunt an old drunkard" "on this minuscule set, made out of 8 people." "I would see this little man, Aristide, climbing on vans and shooting all over the place." "In six hours we had an infinite number of shots." "I was paid immediately, which is something very rare." "Usually you get paid weeks later but instead his partner, Donatella Donati came up to me smiling and handed me my 50 thousand lira." "For the bit parts or as an assistant." "Then Michele was an AD on a film I directed, as always, produced by Aristide." "Seeing Michele as kept insisting, Aristide decided to give him a chance in directing a film and he asked me to write the script." "Actually, he asked me to write two one for Michele and one for me." "The first film I wrote was... the one he called Acquarius..." "Stagefright and I was supposed to direct it, but I was having trouble with a restaurant I had just opened in Rome and had to take care of it, so I told Aristide "Michele can direct the first and I will do the following one"." "So Michele directed Stagefright... which is another film I wrote with a small budget in mind." "There wasn't much money, so I set the story in one location, this big abandoned theatre." "The film is nice, it works very well, especially thanks to Michele who did a better job than what I would have ever done." "I was more talented with actors but he had a great visual sense and a good taste in music." "The film even won a prize at Avoriaz Film Festival and its mostly thanks to Michele." "One day he asked me if I wanted to work on a film as a script supervisor." "That was the time of Caligula:" "The Untold Story, where I met many people that became important in my career." "For example David Brandon, a wonderful Irish actor with whom" "I became friends and later cast as the protagonist in Stagefright." "Stagefright arrived just like that." "I had already become as assistant to Dario Argento and I had done other things with Aristide as an AD." "I had also already directed a couple of music videos which I immediately brought to Aristide for his opinion." "One useless cloudy morning Aristide calls me and asks me if I want to direct a horror film." ""Are you sure you want to put the responsibility of a film in my hands?"" ""Yes, come over and we can talk."" "So we started working on the project, which began with a completely different story from what became the film." "We would have these long brain-storming sessions in which we talked about how this film was supposed to be, I would explain what I had in mind..." "That was the period in which Filmirage was born." "There were young directors, one American, Deran Sarafian and Fabrizio Laurenti for example." "He was the first to create a reality for which to nurture young talent." "Aristide's school was more than essential to me." "He was the first one to put an Arriflex in my hands and say "shoot, shoot, just shoot"" "He would suggest shots or do a scene with a stuntman and ask me to be the extra camera." "It was a very stimulating atmosphere." "So Stagefright was born in a beautiful delirium of emotions and feelings." "Then Montefiori came on-board with a script he had written for me." "This was very fortunate because the script was suitable for me and perfect for Aristide's wallet." "The location, an abandoned theatre, kind of a hanger which was supposed to be in America and was perfect for me and allowed me to have all the time necessary to elaborate the scenes not having had much experience... my knowledge was mostly theory" "even if I had done various films as an AD and I had been able to work in various roles: as a grip, an operator... this saved me because to direct you need to know how to do everybody's job" "so not to get ripped off when it comes to time and costs." "It was an expensive film for Aristide." "He would usually do films in three weeks he had given me four and we ended up needing six but he was very, very happy with the footage." "The film was photographed by Renato Tafuri who did a wonderful job." "A lovely photographer that contributed to the fortune of this small film, which later won a prize at Avoriaz and opened my career internationally with Terry Gilliam." "Let's start by saying that for me Aristide Massaccesi was our Roger Corman." "In the sense that Aristide, on one side was a great professional." "A wonderful DOP." "Then on the other he was a completely crazy producer, like Corman." "Our meeting occurred in occasion of Goblin, known as Troll 2, my first experience in the States." "Aristide had created a strange situation:" "he had a truck full cf cameras and electrical equipment with which he toured America working with various crew members of the independent American film industry." "Money arrived from independent American producers or from Italian production companies like the ones I had worked with:" "Filmexport, Franco Gaudenzi´s Flora Film, all of whom made films for the American market." "The astuteness of Aristide was "if I have to do films that imitate the American's it's better for me to shoot them there."" "One might think it would be very expensive but actually it wasn't." "If you go and shoot in the province, like me in Utah, working without involving the unions and do a small film it costs as much as going to the Philippines to shoot." "Of course it takes courage but he had plenty of it." "He was extremely creative." "All the scripts that came in, me and Rosella would discuss them with him." "He was great." "While he was around this style of cinema could exist, with his departure this cinema died with him." "Aristide Massaccesi, real name of Joe D'Amato, was a father figure for me, as he was for many others." "Filmirage was his factory and he launched many artists." "He called me "the visionary" because" "I had some crazy ideas which he loved." "My relationship with him was incredible and that kind of relationships between writer and producer, sadly, doesn't exist anymore." "He always knew what we were talking about, he knew how to truly read a script, which may seem like a silly thing but now producers don't read scripts and don't know how to read them." "He was very creative and for me it was like a school, an academy." "Aristide made me write completely different stories... he would tell me write a horror, write an erotic film" " like Eleven Days, Eleven Nights which was the first erotic comedy in my career." "Write me a pseudo-Rambo, write me a a Vietnam movie, a fantasy film. we would always be changing genre." "He would tell me that every five pages something had to happen, if not it doesn't work." "Plus I would laugh a lot around him." "He was filled with irony and would always have a joke ready but he was never vulgar." "I really to underline this because" "I've read in books about him or viewed interviews online... people speak well about him but are also saying he was crude or vulgar." "I never heard him say a bad word, or curse." "A man of simple tastes, clean and always a gentlemen." "Something that still moves me every time I think about him." "A wonderful thing he told me that I will never forget:" ""never cut your wings", alluding to creativity." "Every time I would have to write something I would ask how much the budget was and he would answer "you write and don't worry about anything." "Don't set any limits, just fly"." "I can only be grateful and say thank you for the relationship and friendship I had with him." "The basis of our collaboration was of reciprocal respect and his capacity to make me laugh." "I found him, in an ambiguous environment like the one of cinema where there is a lot of pretentiousness, a very simple person." "Direct while speaking and especially good natured." "Very generous, that was his biggest trait." "Our partnership developed in a way that was not consistent." "Until 1971, I was only an actor and I had never written anything." "After having met him I started writing." "I wrote for many production companies, not only for him but with him I would have the most fun." "First of all because he was intelligent." "When I wrote something that was good he would take what I had done without changing anything." "While, what irritated me with other directors and producers, was the fact they always had something to say, to modify or change making the story worse instead of better." "In other words, the esteem he had for me and my work made him even nicer in my eyes." "As a director he had his limits, but they weren't limits due to a lack of capabilities but due to his desire for doing things on a small budget." "It's obvious if you do a film in ten days, two weeks maximum that you can't afford to take care of shots and the fine details." "It was his choice however." "If he had wanted to, he could have become, probably not a great director..." "he was a competent professional but could only reach a certain level- but he could have become a big producer." "His greatest capacity was to be liked by everybody." "Everyone I know that had a chance to work with him did so happily because he had a great personality and really managed to make you feel good." "The films I did in Central America with him" "I did them, not because I was interested in the stories..." "I didn't even read the scripts... but because working with him was a bit like being on vacation." "Working at Filmirage with somebody which was so knowledgeable, capable of doing everything from working the lights to camera operating from directing to photographing, was like attending an academy." "Working and observing everything he did in every area of filmmaking: how he would be on set directing or... how he prepared and organised his films." "There was a lot to learn and it was wonderful to work with him." "He would be a real artisan, even discussing the masks and effects we had handmade by Maurizio Nardi and other great artists, that used to work with plastic and not gel like they do now and able to give them suggestions, as with the editor..." "Working with him meant not only working in a protective environment but also meant that you were always learning." "There was always a sense of community and family." "It's never happened like that again..." "We were all his sons and daughters." "The production company was made out of two main figures:" "one was Aristide, the good father to us all, the young writers, directors and even actors that were being forged like Deran Sarafian with whom I became friends and I wrote his first film for him." "He was sent by Sarlui who asked Massaccesi "get this kid started"." "The second figure, who wasn't at all maternal, poor thing she died not many years ago, was Donatella Donati." "Donatella Donati and Massaccesi made an incredible couple:" "Aristide was sweeter, kinder but all the annoying things, the stuff he didn't want to do he would delegate them to Donatella who was a hound, a strong woman, daughter of an important producer." "They were an extraordinary couple, professionally speaking." "Then there was a whole army of secretaries, lawyers, administrators and editors... nearly all women who were in some way an appendix of this couple." "All these people were very protective with them." "I have never seen employees so attached to their employers." "They adored them and I think this was due to the fact that they would infuse the workplace with a family mechanism." "There was a very human-based rapport between everybody:" "if you had to have a fight you would -sometimes a screenplay wouldn't work- you would say things directly in someone's face." "It was really like being in a family." "Something strange and rare." "I started composing with Edoardo Vianello and Wilma Goich." "Edoardo, apart from singing with Wilma and with the Vianellas, was interested in composing for films and theatre." "He asked me if I had ever composed anything and as a matter of fact I had only done a few small things." "So he involved me in the making of the soundtrack of a film and a theatre piece." "The play was called Sempre in camicia (Always with a Shirt) and it had a group of actors that later became maybe not famous, but well-known." "That was my first big experience composing a soundtrack." "In the meantime this music was listened to by some people which started asking me if" "I was willing to compose the music for ." "..let's say more important films." "One of these was Aristide Massaccesi who "saw" in me a more horrific vein than a romantic one, which I do feel is pronounced in me and he proposed that I compose the music for Absurd, Rosso sangue." "While asking me to do this film, he also asked if I could replace the soundtrack for another film." "I won't say the name of the musician but the film was Unconscious a title that was later discarded and replaced." "He had directed this film but didn't like the music." "I did a new soundtrack and the film was released with this other composer in the credits but with my music." "Immediately after we did Absurd, for which I have, naturally, full ownership." "This began a career, mostly in horror films, but in the meantime I would do many other things." "Aristide Massaccesi was a very nice person." "With the people that worked for him and so with me as well, he was undoubtedly demanding." "He had clear ideas generally, but in respect to music, not so clear; but as far as everything else I would say very clear." "He was a man full of resources, capable with two Quartz, a lightbulb and candle to photograph anything, and you would watch the scene and go "who did this, Vittorio Storaro?"" "With me he was a wonderful person and would leave me free to express myself." "I worked with many directors and the only one that really knew what he wanted musically was Lucio Fulci, who was a bit of a musician himself." "But apart from Lucio, I worked with directors who would impose their musical ideas which is fine by me, a director is like an orchestral conductor." "When I'm directing an orchestra I don't impose but I except my ideas and visions to be followed... because I'm composing, I know the rhythm and atmospheres required." "A film director is like me when I step onto the podium." "The director is the leader." "For example in a film, during a chase, if he wants a love theme, even if there are people shooting guns and running I will do what he says." "So there are directors who impose and have this sort of approach, even when their ideas don't work in the case of Aristide this didn't happen, he would trust me." "I can't think of one single theme he imposed on me." "I have a nice memory of him even in this sense." "First of all he did something that few people would do." "When he commissioned a film to a director he would never go on set and intervene or be polemical." "He would only step in if there were problems." "For example, if there was a film that had to last three or four weeks and the director was late on arrival in that case he would intervene and would maybe take the camera operator's place." "I had a very direct and cordial relationship with him and when I directed Beyond Darkness (La casa 5) we already had a strong synergy after Troll 2 and so he let me proceed freehandedly." "He would never be invasive." "A real cinema-man." "People like him don't exist anymore." "Volcanic because he was fecund with ideas and projects." "Ironic because he had an accentuated sense cf humour." "Bitter because in his films there is a profound existential streak." "I'm naturally talking about his horror/giaililthriller works and not the other part of his career." "I didn't know him personally but when I did meet him the image I had of him from reading interviews and watching his films, was confirmed." "He was just like I imagined him." "I was introduced to Aristide Massaccesi by Lucio Fulci." "We are in the late eighties, early nineties here." "During this period, Lucio was preparing with Aristide The Doors to Silence." "One day I receive a telephone call from Aristide's office telling me they needed somebody to reshape a script." "Aristide wanted to direct but wasn't convinced by it very much." "We are talking about Frankenstein 2000." "I said yes immediately and went to meet him." "I found a man that was a true Roman, disillusioned, sarcastic and a pleasure to listen to." "It was a situation similar, but a little more articulated, in comparison to what I had already done with Cat in the Brain." "Here there was script written by Michele Soavi and Marcello Modugno in which Aristide wanted to insert more of a literary connection with Mary Shelley's novel." "I concentrated myself on the figure of the monster: his awakening, when he is telepathically reanimated by this girl in a hospital bed during a dark and stormy night, an atmosphere that connects it to the literary source." "Then I wrote some of the killings, a few were already in the script but others I wrote." "The ones committed by the creature who takes revenge on this friend whom he was very tied to." "Donald O'Brien was a wonderful person, exquisite." "English, actually Irish, but had lived for many years in America." "Sometimes I still come across old black and white films with him." "Then he came to Italy, maybe to do some films with Fulci, or even before that with the peplums, inspired by Ben-Hur." "He stayed in Italy as an actor, very nice and very available." "Poor guy, he had an accident." "He fell in the shower as he was washing and he hit his head becoming paralysed completely down one side." "In fact I did a film called Frankenstein 2000, Return from Death, and he played Frankenstein." "He had a big scar on his forehead, really well made." "There was a scene in which I had thirty kids dancing in a discotheque." "Frankenstein arrives and grabs one of them, kills them." "As we were doing some test shots, one of the kids comes to me and says "This guy is brilliant..." "He walks exactly like Frankenstein."" "Poor guy walked like that because he was paralysed." "But everybody believed he was acting!" "As you know Joe was the producer on his films, or for many at least, among which this was one." "So he had to combine various necessities." "He had to minimise costs and would work very quickly... considering he was also the DOP of the film." "He never wasted time." "He had a simple and essential way of directing but it was also incisive in my opinion and this Frankenstein wasn't any different from what he was other films." "When Filmirage died... you have to look at what the situation was at the time." "There were great difficulties in getting films of a certain kind theatrical distribution." "There weren't as many cinemas any longer and maybe, unfortunately, the industry has been saturated and was overflown by too much product." "The public turned their backs on certain genres, like the erotic films which were previously popular... so Aristide facing this situation had to make hard decisions." "He had more debt than money coming in." "A lot of other companies were closing by the early nineties." "The Americans had complete reign on the market." "As a business man he maybe had some faults." "He didn't really give priority to money." "He was 100% an artist and was just happy to make his films." "Unlike Franco Gaudenzi who had reasoned:" ""I have Zombi 2, so let's make Zombi 3"." "Aristide wasn't like that, he chose the projects he believed in." "He had to be inspired, he had to have fun." "The financial aspect was the last thing he was interested in." "He was a true artist." "His downfall began when Filmirage, which was a company that worked primarily on receiving foreign sales, stopped getting pre-sales." "So he had to turn to porno films, which didn't give him much satisfaction." "We would sell these small films, as if they were American." "In places like the American Film Market in LA, MIFED, Cannes, for a lot of money." "I remember Strike Commando, which I made with Bruno Mattei, that film exploded... it was sold all over the place." "We invested a lot in that market but after some time we realised that we were becoming too small for it." "The average American product was too higher budgeted compared to what we could do... there wasn't that equilibrium anymore and in fact in the early nineties I started moving away from that genre and situation." "The same thing happened to Aristide when there wasn't a market any longer." "The only thing he could do was porn but it wasn't a world that he wanted anything to do with." "The feeling that this kinda of cinema was dying..." "I didn't have it." "I came in late, when Italian genre cinema had dissolved." "Then the actual directors started dying... and one had to adapt." "On why this type of cinema died is not something I won't to dwell on." "It's always the same question..." "but who cares?" "!" "Things have changed and have evolved." "Now we have TV series that cost much more than films." "I adapted myself, like when I learnt how to use all this sort of stuff." "It's part of the evolution and it's a cultural thing." "It's for the most part a cultural thing." "I heard some rumours about debts due to bad business ventures but mostly conducted by Massaccesi´s partner, not by him." "About the films that flopped... all of his films were flops because they weren't films that anybody expected would take in much money." "I'm talking about the period of Anthropophagus..." "Absurd...t hey were films already covered by distributors and financiers." "He wouldn't put a penny." "He would put in his time, his energy, his equipment but never any money." "He started producing with his own money when he started doing a series of porn films." "They were projects that were made in three days." "He would got to the States and direct a dozen in a week." "I once told him what I thought. "You must choose." "You have two roads in front of you..." "You can become a big producer, if you stop wanting to do everything by yourself." "Or you can continue like this and everything you do will be driven by fear."" "His strength was to manage, to have everybody liking him." "He could have managed to work with any distributor." "All of them would have given him money for a film, but he didn't have to be the one directing it too." ""You are principally a director of photography." "You are not a director." "Yes, sometimes you make some nice shots, but they are shots that you copy from other films you don't use a shot because you've understood that it works dramatically in that scene." "Sometimes you do a shot that works in that context but not in the one you need it for."" "I tried to make him understand this reasoning a couple of times but he was too scared to put himself in other people's hands." "He preferred staying in the smaller leagues but having everything under his control." "This doesn't pay off in the long run." "Then he had a breakdown." "You know that when he came back from the States, on his last trip... they had lost all his reels, creating a huge problem for him." "That was the principal cause of his heart attack." "Poor thing." "I was so sorry..."