ABSTRACT
C inematographer apher A 1960 graduate of Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Vittorio Storaro is one of the most gifted cinematographers of his generation. His career was launched in 1969 when he began collaborating with his former fellow student at the Centro, Bernardo Bertolucci. Since then, Storaro’s eye has consistently explored new territories, at once extending and renewing the excellence of his technical expertise and scholarship. Each of his films focuses on one particular aspect of his medium. The result has been a series of dazzling concertos: concerto for camera movement in La strategia del ragno (The Spider’s Strategy) (1969), concerto for enses and angles in Il conformista (The Conformist) (1970), concerto for colour in Ultimo tango a Parigi (Last Tango in Paris) (1972) and concerto for framing in Novecento (1900) (1976). After his brilliant contribution to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1976), Storaro was seduced by the Hollywood sirens and has been working in the United States since 1980. However, his crew has remained entirely Italian as he attempts to disseminate the Italian aesthetic tradition at the heart of the Hollywood machine.
