Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Remembering Angelo Novi

Angelo Novi was born on June 9, 1930, in Lanzo d'Intelvi, in the province of Como, Italy. He studied at l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (The Brera Fine Arts Academy) under the painter Domenico Cantatore, and then enrolled in the faculty of architecture for just one year, after which he dedicated himself to photography, firstly working as a photojournalist through the Publifoto agency (now Olimpia). He then moved to Rome and continued his work in reportage, and then in the 1960s began working for the Dufoto photographic agency where he began his career as a set photographer. He photographed for seminal Italian directors such as for Pier Paolo Pasolini on “Mamma Roma”, “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” and “The Hawks and the Sparrows”, “Thereom”, and for Sergio Leone on the locations of “Once Upon a Time in the West”, “Once Upon a Time in America” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. For the latter he also stepped in front of the camera to play the role of a young monk and again as the bartender in “My Name is Nobody”. However, he was known in particular for working on the sets of the films of Bernardo Bertolucci. He photographed for the master filmmaker's “The Conformist”, “Last Tango in Paris”, “The Last Emperor”, “Little Buddha”, “The Sheltering Sky” and “Stealing Beauty” as well as the epic “Novecento” (1900) producing large bodies of black and white images. He died in his home town of Lanzo d'Intelvi on May 6 1997. Today we remember Angelo Novi on what would have been his 80th birthday.

2 comments:

  1. Biltmore: He's also somewhere in My Name Is Nobody (1973).

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  2. Biltmore: Sorry I didn't see the mention above. Does anybody have a screen grab of Novi from Nobody????

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