Mario Bava - Biography

Biography

Mario Bava was born in Sanremo, Liguria. The son of Eugenio Bava, a sculptor who became a pioneer of special effects photography and subsequently one of the great cameramen of Italian silent pictures, Mario Bava's first ambition was to become a painter. Unable to turn out paintings at a profitable rate, he went into his father's business, working as an assistant to other Italian cinematographers like Massimo Terzano, while also offering assistance to his father who headed the special effects department at Benito Mussolini's film factory, the Istituto LUCE.

Bava became a cinematographer in his own right in 1939, shooting two short films with Roberto Rossellini. He made his feature debut in the early 1940s. Bava's camerawork was an instrumental factor in developing the screen personas of such stars of the period as Gina Lollobrigida, Steve Reeves and Aldo Fabrizi.

Bava completed filming I vampiri (aka The Devil's Commandment) for director Riccardo Freda in 1956, now referred to as the first Italian horror film. Bava was originally hired as the cinematographer, but when Freda walked out on the project midway through production, Bava completed the film in several days, even creating the innovative special effects that were needed. He also handled the cinematography and special effects on the 1957 Steve Reeves classic Hercules, a film credited with sparking the Italian sword and sandal genre.

Bava co-directed The Day the Sky Exploded in 1958, the first Italian science fiction film. Because he had no earlier credited experience as a director, the film was credited solely to Paolo Heusch. In 1959, Bava completed Caltiki - the Immortal Monster, again for Riccardo Freda, and also worked on the lighting and special effects for Hercules Unchained.

In 1960, Bava directed Black Sunday, a gothic horror film and his first solo directorial effort, which made a genre star out of Barbara Steele. His use of light and dark in black-and-white films is widely acclaimed along with his use of color in films such as Black Sabbath (1963) and The Whip and the Body (1963).

His work has proved very influential. Bava directed what is now regarded as the first Italian giallo film, The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), and his 1965 sci-fi horror film Planet of the Vampires was a thematic precursor to Alien (1979). Although comic books had served as the basis for countless serials and children's films in Hollywood, Bava's Danger: Diabolik (1968) brought an adult perspective to the genre. 1971's Twitch of the Death Nerve is considered one of the earliest slasher films, and was explicitly imitated in Friday the 13th Part 2. Many elements of his 1966 film Kill, Baby... Kill!, regarded by Martin Scorsese as Bava's masterpiece, also appear in the Asian strain of terror film known as J-horror.

Mario Bava was very disappointed with the distribution of some of his later films (which caused him to retire in 1978 at age 63). His Lisa and the Devil (1972) was never picked up by a distributor, and had to be later re-edited (with new 1975 footage) into an Exorcist-clone retitled House of Exorcism in order to get released. Bava's Rabid Dogs (1974) was never released theatrically during his lifetime; the film only appeared on DVD in the late 1990s, re-edited a bit with some new footage, and was released again in 2007 in a slightly altered version under the title Kidnapped. Bava retired in 1978 after co-directing his last horror film, Shock, with his son Lamberto (although he did some special effects matte work on Dario Argento's 1980 movie Inferno). Bava died of natural causes in 1980 at age 65.

Mario Bava's son Lamberto Bava worked for fourteen years as Bava's assistant director, and went on to become a horror film director on his own. On several of Mario's movies, Mario was credited as John M. Old. Later, Lamberto was sometimes credited as John M. Old, Jr.

Several books have been published about Mario Bava: Mario Bava by Pascal Martinet (Edilig, 1984) and Mario Bava edited by Jean-Louis Leutrat (Éditions du Céfal, 1994) in French; Mario Bava by Alberto Pezzotta (Il Castoro Cinema, 1995) in Italian; The Haunted Worlds of Mario Bava by Troy Howarth (FAB Press, 2002) and most recently, the massive critical biography Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark by Tim Lucas (Video Watchdog, 2007; ISBN 0-9633756-1-X).