A nearly naked man, a large wreath of dry grass on his head, white paint on his dark skin.
He advances towards another, a dark-haired man in a shirt and trousers, hands him a human heart.
The other sketches a disgusted pout, casts a sidelong glance to his left, then crunches the bloody organ with full teeth.
This is the kind of spectacle - a bit morbid - offered by Ruggero Deodato in
Cannibal Holocaust
, the story of an explorer struggling with the Indians of Amazonia, his most cult horror film.
The Italian director, who became known for his horror films and his spaghetti westerns, died Thursday, December 29 at the age of 83.
Born in 1939 in Potenza in Basilicata, Italy, Deodato began with the piano before devoting himself to cinema.
Friend of Roberto Rossellini's son, Renzo, he was hired as an assistant on the director's sets.
He cut his teeth there, but quickly left auteur cinema to devote himself to genre cinema, which was more popular and less prestigious.
Spaghetti Westerns and Horror Movies
He chained westerns, adventure films, musicals, participated in the filming of spaghetti westerns by Sergio Corbucci, with whom he co-signed
Navajo Joe
and
Django
.
He also works for Italian television, directs series and commercials.
His career really took off in the 1970s with his trilogy of horror films devoted to cannibalism.
He directed
The Last Cannibal World
in 1977,
Cannibal Holocaust
in 1980 and
Amazonia: The White Jungle
in 1985.
The second of the trilogy, filmed from fake archives of explorers in the Amazon rainforest, is banned by the Italian judiciary who believe that the images are authentic and that individuals have lost their lives on the set.
Deodato is charged with murder.
According to
Liberation
, the filmmaker must bring to court the actors of the film, who travel from the United States to prove that they are alive.
Cannibal Holocaust
, which is filmed on the mode of
"found footage"
, that is to say real fake images of amateurs, which are found at the scene of a crime, inspires many horror films after him.
Others will follow, such as the
Blair witch project
,
Paranormal Activity
.
If the scenes of violence against human beings are false, those against animals are very real.
They earned him a four-month suspended prison sentence.
The verdict was canceled in 1984, but the film was banned in around forty countries until 2001.
Deodato ran out of steam in the 90s. Genre films enjoyed decreasing success in Italy.
He gradually abandoned cinema and produced television soap operas until the 2000s. Seven years later, Quentin Tarantino, producer of Eli Roth's film
Hostel, Chapter II
, invited Deodato to play a small role in the film.
The director accepts, he will play an Italian cannibal there.
A ferocious eclecticism, a cannibal end.