Tinto Brass 1933 - 2026

Tinto Brass, the Fellini of Smut, has died at 93. 

People will talk about Caligula, or his earlier artier films - Umberto Eco commissioned two films from him in the mid -sixties - but, really, Tinto's career has been, like Russ Meyer's, a hot-breathed caricature of the male gaze. Both men were highly skilled, talented film-makers whose chief interest was photographing naked women. Both had their favourite bits: Russ, famously, was a titty man. Tinto liked arses. He also liked mirrors, peeping through windows, and frosted glass. This lent his films some interesting visuals, a lot of creative composition and distorted frames, but only added to the idea that he was some sort of cinematic Peeping Tom. His 1994 film, The Voyeur, is known in his native Italian, L'uomo che gaurda or "The man who looks". That's his entire career, right there. Tinto was a dirty little boy for 93 years. 

This is my 700th blog and its about Tinto Brass. Bloody hell. 

He expressed a wish for his ashes to be scattered in the Venice Lagoon. A final one off the wrist for Tinto. That'll choke a few fish.    

R.I.P.