Oscar Profile #588: Giuseppe Rotunno

Born March 19, 1923, Giuseppe Rotunno entered the film industry as a still photographer at Cinecitta Studios in Rome but lost his job due to his anti-fascist views. Conscripted and sent to Greece in 1942, he then served as a newsreel cameraman with the Italian army film unit. In 1943, he was captured during the German occupation of Greece and spent the next two years in internment in Germany. Freed by US. Troops in April 1945, he returned to Italy. During the following decade he worked his way up from humbly paid assistant cameraman to director of photography.

Rotunnos first film as director of photography was Dino Risi’s 1955 film, Scandal in Sorrento starring Sophia Loren and Vittorio De Sica. His second film was Francesco Rosi’s acclaimed Christ Stopped at Eboli. Then came the Italian/U.S. co-production of The Monte Carlo Story starring Marlene Dietrich and De Sica.

Rotunno continued to work on U.S./Italian co-productions such as Henry Koster’s The Naked Maja starring Gina Lollobrigida, Martin Ritt’s Five Branded Women starrign Silvana Mangano, and Nunnally Johnson’s The Angel Wore Red starring Ava Gardner and Dirk Bogarde. His international reputation was secured by Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins.

Rotunno considered Luchino Visconti his mentor after working as his director photography on Visconti’s 1960 masterpiece, Rocco and His Brothers starring Alain Delon and Annie Girardot. He later did the same for Visconit’s 1963 masterpiece, The Leopard starring Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon. Also in 1963, he was director of cinematography on Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer starring Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio De Sica’s Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow starring Sophia Loren and Mastroianni.

Other 1960s films included John Huston’s The Bible after which Rotunno became the first non-American member of the American Society of Cinematographers. He ended the decade photographing Federico Fellini’s Fellini Satyricon and Stanley Kramer’s The Secret of Santa Vittoria starring Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani.

The 1970s were quite diverse for Rotunno whose films included Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge, Arthur Hiller’s Man of La Mancha, Fellini’s Amarcord, and Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz for which Rotunno received his only Oscar nomination.

The 1980s brought such varied films as Fred Zinnemann’s Five Days One Summer,
Ivan Passer’s Haunted Summer, and Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. The 1990s brought Mike Nichols’ Regarding Henry and Wolf and Sydney Pollack’s remake of Sabrina, as well as Rotunno’s last film, Anna Maria Tato’s Marcello Mastroainni: I Remember.

Giuseppe Rotunno died February 7, 2021 at 97.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ON THE BEACH (1959), directed by Stanley Kramer

An accidental war between the United States and the Soviet Union signals the end of the world in which Australia is the last to go. Rotunno’s stark black-and-white cinematography in Kramer’s Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner starrer from Neville Shute’s best-seller was certainly award worthy, but received no recognition from Oscar, BAFTA, or any other group. Italy’s David di Donatello Awards nominated Rotunno for the less interesting The Naked Maja that year. The Golden Globes nominated it for Best Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor (Fred Astaire) and gave it an award for Best Score.

ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960), directed by Luchino Visconti

The Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists awarded Visconti for his direction and gave Rotunno an award for the film’s stunning black-and-white cinematography. BAFTA nominated the film for Best Film from Any Source and Best Foreign Actress (Annie Girardot) as the prostitute who comes between titular Rocco (Alain Delon) and his brother (Renato Salvaore) in this family saga set in Milan. Former Oscar winner Katina Paxinou (For Whom the Bell Tolls) plays the volatile mother of five boys and Claudia Cardinale, in an early role, plays the wife of one of the brothers.

AMARCORD (1973), directed by Federico Fellini

The Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists gave four awards to this one including one for Fellini’s direction of this semi-autobiographical film of his childhood. Rotunno had to settle for a nomination for his magnificent color cinematography. The acclaimed film also won the 1974 award for Best Picture and Director from the New York Film Critics, an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of 1974, and nominations for Fellini for both Best Director and Best Original Screenplay the following year after the film was released in Los Angeles. Fellini’s Best Director nomination came at the expense of Steven Spielberg who was overlooked for Jaws.

ALL THAT JAZZ (1979), directed by Bob Fosse

Rotunno won a BAFTA award for his cinematography on Fosse’s unique musical. Oscar voters nominated him but gave their award to Rotunno’s countryman, Vittorio Storaro for Apocalypse Now. The film in which Roy Scheider plays a thinly disguised version of Fosse himself, details the sordid life of a womanizing, drug-addicted Broadway choreographer-director and filmmaker. Jessica Lange and Ann Reinking are among his ex-lovers who appear in dream sequences as he lays on life support following open-heart surgery. People either love or hate this one.

WOLF (1994), directed by Mike Nichols

Although Rotunno had a long association in Italy with Visconti and Fellini, he had a long one in the U.S. with Nichols as well. He was director of photography on Nichols’ 1971 film, Carnal Knowledge starring Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen, and Rita Moreno and his 1991 film, Regarding Henry starring Harrison Ford and Annette Bening. It was Nicholson, who had wanted to make this horror film for twelve years who selected Nichols to direct and Nichols who selected Rotunno. Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Kate Nelligan, Richard Jenkins, and Christopher Plummer co-star.