Poet Of Eroticism: Legendary Director Tinto Brass

*Poet of eroticism, Tinto Brass, is one of the great masters of Italian cinema, a key figure when it comes to amorous relationships, role play within the couple and debunked sexual taboo in the ‘70s.*

In 1963, Tinto Brass made his directing debut with the film Chi lavora è perduto (previously released as In capo al mondo), an anarchic apologue about disaffected youth: the story of a young man with a hostile relationship towards institutions, who cannot find his place in society. During the 1960s, he mainly made political cinema but, as for so many others of his generation, ’68 was a breaking point. Disillusioned and saddened by the lack of real changes enacted by the struggle, he decided to change genre and began to concentrate on eroticism as an authorial break from the past.

And it didn’t take him long: Brass was in cinemas with The Howl (with Gigi Proietti and Tina Aumont), the story of a female protester who decided to take back her liberty on the eve of her wedding, in 1968, but by 1969 he had released Nerosubianco, his first erotic film. It was here that the director tackled the topic of betrayal for the first time, no longer seen as a taboo but as a source of renewed energy within the couple, a theme that would be thoroughly investigated in almost all of his cinema to come. Brass also introduced his proverbial obsession with the female behind in this film, as well as telling the story of love and sex between a white woman and a black man for the first time in Italian cinema… read more >