Ruggero
Deodato was born on
7th of May 1939 in Potenza,
Italy. For some he may also be known as Roger Rockfeller; Roger Deodato or Roger Franklin. He grew up in
Rome's Parioli region, which is known as the home for many of
Italian cinema's most notable figures of the
1950s. Thus it was only natural that Deodato developed an interest in cinema at an early age.
His friendship with the son of director Roberto Rossellini led to an
assistant director job on "Il Generale della Rovere" in
1959. The next eight years he spent assisting on more than 40
films for such great italian
directors as Mauro Bolognini, Riccardo Freda, and Joseph Losey.
In
1968 he made his official directorial debute "Fenomenal e il Tesoro di Tutankamen", earlier in
1964 he had directed "Ursus il Terrore dei Kirghisi" after Antonio Margheriti abandoned the movie in mid-shoot. Later Deodato walked on it too and left the
burden on
director of photography Gabor Pogany, who finally finished the
movie. Antonio Margheriti was eventually credited of the piece due to commercial reasons.
Soon Deodato had enough of the
film industry and quit in
1969 to go into
advertising and
television. 7 years later Ruggero Deodato was
Italy's leading
producer of
TV commercials and had taken Lamberto Bava as his assistant. During his career Ruggero managed to produce several highly regarded commercials and
news programmes and later on he ventured into
drama series, with great
success.
In
1975 Deodato made a
comeback to the big screen with "Ondata di Piacere" and was soon back to full time
film producing.
1979 was the year when he created one of the most
infamous and
hated films of all
time, "
Cannibal Holocaust", a
twisted and
violent depiction of
humankind. This was definitely the movie for which he would be
remembered for.
In most of his films Deodato describes man's
inhumanity to man and
strips the
human condition to its most
primal level. Often it is a
civilized man who acts as an
instrument for Deodato's
views.
Cannibal
Holocaust could be seen as a
true fluke and an
important milestone for Ruggero Deodato, this was undeniably his
breakthrough. But on the other hand, after the
release, Deodato was filed with several
law suits and the movie was
banned in
many countries, this and the
huge amount of
bashing and
threats he received reflected very
severely on him and his
career. The sad thing is that he never
really
recovered from it. He's still
alive and
breathing though.
Despite the difficulties he
faced after the release of Cannibal Holocaust Ruggero didn't stop making movies and has directed
numerous titles, the latest one, a TV-series, was finished in
1999. Sadly none of them reach up to the same level as his earlier productions.