Nino Baragli
Editing
Biography
Nino Baragli (1 October 1925 – 29 May 2013) was an Italian film editor with more than 200 film credits. Among his films in English, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), both directed by Sergio Leone, are perhaps the best known. Born in Rome as Giovanni Baragli, he was introduced in the film industry by his uncle, the renowned editor Eraldo Da Roma. He started his career in 1944 as film operator and assistant editor for Marinai senza stelle by Francesco De Robertis. During his career he worked as editor in more than 200 productions between 1944 and 1996, including works by Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergio Leone, Damiano Damiani, Luigi Zampa, Giuliano Montaldo, Sergio Corbucci, Mauro Bolognini, Luigi Comencini, Cristina Comencini, Florestano Vancini, Gabriele Salvatores, Alberto Lattuada, Tinto Brass, Margarethe von Trotta, Pál Sándor, Bernardo Bertolucci, Roberto Benigni, Massimo Troisi. The single largest impact of Baragli's editing is likely on the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Gino Moliterno as described Pasolini as follows: "Outside Italy Pasolini is usually remembered as one of the most significant of the directors who emerged in the second wave of Italian postwar cinema in the early 1960s but, within Italy itself, Pasolini was always much more than just a distinctive and innovative filmmaker. By the time he came to make his first film, Accattone, in 1961, he had already published numerous collections of poetry, two highly-acclaimed novels, had collaborated widely in cultural-literary journals and firmly established himself as one of Italy’s leading writer-intellectuals." Stefano Musi has called Baragli's contributions to Pasolini's films "enormous"; Baragli edited every one of Pasolini's feature films from his first, Accattone (1961), to his final film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), which was released shortly after his murder. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith has written of the editing innovations in their early films, "When Accatone and Mamma Roma came out, Pasolini and his editor Nino Baragli were widely condemned as amateurish and incompetent, which is rather like saying that Cezanne's brushstrokes showed that he couldn't paint." Perhaps the best-known of Pasolini's films to English-speaking audiences is The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1964), now considered a masterpiece by many critics. Nowell-Smith writes of the editing that "large sections of the film do not even bother to respect continuity, let alone to pay obeisance to it. ... Each shot simply presents itself as reality in its own right but there is no attempt to maintain the realistic illusion that had been the foundation of cinema since the early 1920s if not before." ... Source: Article "Nino Baragli" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Once Upon a Time in America
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.
Once Upon a Time in the West
After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.
Caligula
Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
A young Sicilian is swindled twice, but ends up rich; a man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night; a group of painters wait for inspiration; a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife; and two friends make a pact to find out what happens after death.
The Decameron
The life of the 13th-century Venetian explorer who sought to connect the civilizations of China and Europe through trade.
Marco Polo
A coffin-dragging gunslinger and a prostitute become embroiled in a bitter feud between a merciless masked clan and a band of Mexican revolutionaries.
Django
At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners -- who are freed by the blast -- Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.
Duck, You Sucker
Jack Beauregard, an aging gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe, but a young gunfighter known as "Nobody" who idolizes Beauregard wants him to go out in a blaze of glory. So, he arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.
My Name Is Nobody
Summer Sunday at a small beach house at the coast of Rome. Many people and stories: women's basketball team, two sports-obsessed soldiers, two men with their girlfriends and the priest with a big secret, an elderly couple with their pregnant granddaughter, and engagemented couple wanting to have sex for the first time.
Beach House
A vicious serial sex killer is on the loose, and landscape gardener and shop-window outfitter Loris is the prime suspect, thanks to his unfortunate habit of getting caught in compromising situations (for which there is always a totally innocent explanation that the police fail to spot). Undercover policewoman Jessica is assigned by eccentric police psychologist Taccone to follow Loris.
The Monster
Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.
The Canterbury Tales
A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.
Theorem
Expert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the Indian-hating Major Cabot. Their elaborate plan is full of disguises, double-crosses, and chases, but Joe always seems to know what he's doing.
A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot
Greek Sea, World War II. An Italian ship leaves a handful of soldiers in a little island; their mission is to spot enemy ships and to hold the island in case of attack. The village of the island seems abandoned and there isn't a single enemy in sight, so the soldiers begin to relax a little. Things change when their ship is hit and destroyed by the enemy, and the soldiers find themselves abandoned there.
Mediterraneo
The final part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life series is rich with exotic tales of slaves and kings, potions, betrayals, demons and, most of all, love and lovemaking in all its myriad forms. Mysterious and liberating, this is an exquisitely dreamlike and adult interpretation of the original folk tales.
Arabian Nights
A Southern Colonel, his three sons, and a card shark embark on an odyssey through the Southwest carrying a coffin full of stolen money with which the Colonel plans to revive the Confederacy.
The Hellbenders
Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.
The Witches
A hitman is double-crossed by his girlfriend and barely escapes a murder attempt. He then sets out to take his revenge on the woman and the gang boss who put her up to it.