Angelo Novi

Birth : 1930-06-09, Lanzo d'Intelvi, Italy

Death : 1997-05-06

History

Angelo Novi (9 June 1930 – 6 May 1997) worked for thirty years as the exclusive photographer with some of the most known Italian film directors of his time, such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Leone, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. He studied at the Brera Academy in Milan, and from 1952 on, started to work as a photojournalist. The ability to capture the decisive moment, inspired by idols like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, is an important gist for his photographic style, which later honed in his work as a set photographer. Novi told his own story through the scenic action captured by his photographs. Emphasis on the decisive moment, the contrast of proximity and distance, and the black and whites, are all attributes of Novi's work. With his photographs, Novi has made a comprehensive contribution to the cultural memory of the golden era of the Italian cinema. As a silent observer, he captured the moments at the film sets both behind the scenes and in action, revealing intimate aspects that cannot be found on the screen.

Movies

Stealing Beauty
Still Photographer
Lucy Harmon, an American teenager is arriving in the lush Tuscan countryside to be sculpted by a family friend who lives in a beautiful villa. Lucy visited there four years earlier and exchanged a kiss with an Italian boy with whom she hopes to become reacquainted.
The Star Maker
Still Photographer
The adventures and deceptions of a photographer who travels through small villages of 1950s Sicily pretending to work for the big film studios in Rome.
Little Buddha
Still Photographer
After the death of Lama Dorje, Tibetan Buddhist monks find three children — one American and two Nepalese — who may be the rebirth of their great teacher.
The Sheltering Sky
Still Photographer
An American couple drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.
The Last Emperor
Still Photographer
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
Once Upon a Time in America
Still Photographer
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.
Borotalco
Still Photographer
Sergio Benvenuti is a shy seller of contracts for a Roman company of music, but because of his character he cannot find even a customer, so he asks for help from a fellow named Nadia.
Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man
Still Photographer
The son of the owner of a large Italian cheese factory is kidnapped, but as the factory is on the verge of bankruptcy the owner hatches a plan to use the ransom money as reinvestment in the factory.
1900
Still Photographer
The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.
Run, Run, Joe!
Still Photographer
When a don who they were suppose to protect ends up dead, his bodyguard and bodyguard's friend must go under cover to escape the wrath of mob.
My Name Is Nobody
Bartender
Jack Beauregard, an ageing 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.
The Silk Worm
Still Photographer
Smeralda Amadier, a retired singer, lives in an isolated villa with her secretary Marcella and her lover Didier (but throws out the latter after catching him with another woman). Smeralda has huge debts and when creditors threaten her with bankruptcy she decides to sell her valuable jewels. That evening, she meets Costas, a handsome young man who seduces her. Next morning, there is no sign of him or the jewels. He was apparently a penniless gigolo, but who was his secret partner in the theft?
Last Tango in Paris
Still Photographer
A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.
Duck, You Sucker
Still Photographer
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.
The Fifth Cord
Still Photographer
A journalist finds himself on the trail of a murderer who's been targeting people around him, while the police are considering him a suspect in their investigation.
The Conformist
Still Photographer
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Boot Hill
Still Photographer
Victims of oppressive town boss Honey are offered help by an unusual alliance of gunmen and circus performers
Theorem
Still Photographer
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.
Crazy Westerners
Still Photographer
Little Rita has a dream: she dreams of a better world and she believes that all the evil in the world originates from gold. So she has decided to blow up all the gold she can put her hands on. In her mission she is assisted by the Indian Chief Bisonte Seduto and by her friend Francis. Little Rita kills Ringo and Django, but she is taken prisoner by the Mexican bandit Sancho who wants to steal her gold. Black Star rescues her and seems determined to help her, but does he?
Io non protesto, io amo
Still Photographer
Caterina, a young teacher, has a hobby of singing and occasionally delights her students.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Monk
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
Still Photographer
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.
Django
Still Photographer
A coffin-dragging gunslinger and a half-breed prostitute become embroiled in a bitter feud between a merciless masked clan and a band of Mexican revolutionaries.
Location Hunting in Palestine
Set Photographer
In 1963, accompanied by a newsreel photographer and a Catholic priest, Piero Paolo Pasolini traveled to Palestine to investigate the possibility of filming his biblical epic The Gospel According to Matthew in its approximate historical locations. Edited by The Gospel‘s producer for potential funders and distributors, Seeking Locations in Palestine features semi-improvised commentary from Pasolini as its only soundtrack. As we travel from village to village, we listen to Pasolini’s idiosyncratic musings on the teachings of Christ and witness his increasing disappointment with the people and landscapes he sees before him. Israel, he laments, is much too modern. The Palestinians, much too wretched; it would be impossible to believe the teachings of Jesus had reached these faces. The Gospel According to Matthew was ultimately filmed in Southern Italy. Mel Gibson would use some of the same locations forty years later for The Passion of the Christ.
Love Meetings
Still Photographer
Microphone in hand, Pier Paolo Pasolini asks Italians to talk about sex, apparently their least favorite subject: he asks children if they know where do babies come from, asks old and young women about gender equality, and asks both genders if a woman's virginity still matters, how do they view homosexuals, if sex and honor are related, if divorce should be legal, if they support the recent abolition of brothels, etc. He interviews workers, intellectuals, students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and other different people, painting a vivid portrait of Italy in the years of the Economic Boom, suspended between modernity and tradition.
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Still Photographer
This biblical drama from the Catholic Marxist director focuses on the teachings of Jesus, including the parables that reflect their revolutionary nature. As Jesus travels along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, he gradually gathers more followers, leading him into direct conflict with the authorities.
Corruption
Still Photographer
Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...
La bella di Lodi
Still Photographer
Story of Roberta, a beautiful young woman from a wealthy industrialist family and her relationship with Franco, a rough car mechanic and stranger whom she meets on the beach of Forte dei Marmi.
Family Diary
Still Photographer
Enrico is a struggling journalist in the Rome of 1945. He receives a phone call informing him that his younger brother Lorenzo has died. Enrico recalls their long and difficult relationship; he was brought up by their poor but warm-hearted grandmother, Lorenzo was raised as a gentleman by a wealthy local aristocrat. Reunited in the Florence of the 1930s, Enrico becomes his spoilt brother's keeper, forever haunted by a sense of guilty responsibility towards a man he both hates and loves.
Mamma Roma
Still Photographer
After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.