FantastiCozzi

Hello friends! As you can see, I am Luigi Cozzi...

and I am working on one of my many scripts.

This is a 'inspiration setting' to write a science fiction movie.

This is the typewriter, where the story is conceived,

here in my studio, which has all the science fiction objects...

that are part of my life.

I've always loved science fiction.

As a kid, my dream was one day to be able to make sci-fi movies.

I spent my entire career chasing this dream:

make a science fiction movie.

Hello! I am Luigi Cozzi and this is my kingdom...

Profondo Rosso Store, in Rome.

A true temple of science fiction, horror and fantastic cinema.

Well, we're in 2016 and I'm already old right now.

But my career in this field has begun a long time ago.

I was born in 1947 near Milan, in Busto Arsizio,

and as a child, with 6 or 7 years old, I fell in love with fantastic cinema...

after seeing for the first time...

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", that great Walt Disney production.

I saw it in 1954, I was a kid, a small boy, and I loved that story.

And I started to looking for other films like that, but it was difficult

to find at that time.

So I decided that when I was grown-up, I would do more!

I started looking for the books of Jules Verne and read them all.

Then I was hungry for literature.

I was one of the few passionate about sci-fi

in a country where the genre was not taken seriously.

I remember they called it 'stupid-fiction'.

I had to take science fiction books hidden, like pornographic books!

My passion, my greatest desire, was to make cinema.

Supose you have all that and more in action, and in color.

You really good make a better investment for your family.

Here tried! See how easy it is.

And then one day, in 1964 or 65, Kodak tried to increase the sales of 8mm film...

releasing a small camera called Brownie.

It was absurd in its simplicity.

I took my savings and bought one,

and with that camera in my hands I started to make movies as if I was possessed.

It was better than any film school I could have gone.

At that time, movies were made only in Rome. And I was in Milan.

It's 370 miles away. Almost another world.

So I decided to work with movie reviews. I started writing for several magazines...

and also published short stories and translations

in magazines published in Italy at the time.

One day, in a bookstore, I found a edition of Famous Monsters of Filmland...

and I thought it was a miracle, a magazine about fantastic cinema!

And of course, soon after, I wrote to the magazine's address saying...

that if they wanted news from Italy, I was willing to cooperate.

At the request of Forry Ackerman, I began to meet and interview Bava, Freda, many others.

And for this reason, in 1969 I moved from Milan to Rome.

There I learned about the mysteries of cinema

working with advertising and documentaries,

and soon I was directing my first film in 16mm, "The Tunnel Under the World",

I was a fan of the Sci-Fi Film Festival of Trieste and became

friends with one of the curators.

They always complain that they had no Italian films to show.

So I asked: "Can I bring a film directed by me?". He said: "Maybe, maybe, who knows?".

And then I called my friends to join this adventure of producing a film.

That picture was born of my friendship with many American science fiction writers.

At the time I had contact with Frederik Pohl,

editor of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine.

He had written novels and many stories.

Among his stories, there was a 1954 story called "The Tunnel Under the World".

And it was an incredible tale about advertising, written in 1954-55,

but depicting the world of today.

It was about the obsession with advertising...

About this person that every day is bombarded by advertising,

but every day at midnight falls asleep...

and the next day wake up and can't remember anything of the day before,

the only thing that changes is the advertising. Then he begins to realize...

his life is a repetition of the same things, where the only thing

that changes is the advertisements.

Looks like "The Truman Show".

Or rather, "The Truman Show" looks like "The Tunnel Under the World".

I am the Man from Mars.

- Mars? But this is the Earth. - I know...

I saw the sun dying, the ruins of the cities.

- Ruins? Sun dying? - That's right.

"Tunnel" is experimental because I was experiencing with the camera.

Everything was new.

The film was made in four days and with three people.

I was the camera operator and three or four friends were the actors.

And when an actor didn't show up, I had to made his role.

- No budget. - No budget?

We just spent with film.

I worked with Castelli. We sell arguments for the comic book "Diabolik",

they pay us and we bought film with the money. And that was the whole budget!

But what are you doing?

We released the film in Trieste. On the big screen and with a great crowd.

And we had great reviews too. Because I knew several critics, and the way they acted,

I suspected that they didn't speak bad things about something that they didn't understand.

They were afraid to say that they hadn't understood the film.

It was all confused... Like a vortex...

Strange, incomprehensible... But fascinating!

And the critics began to write that it was a mysterious, strange movie...

But it was not a bad review.

For me, a vague review, which doesn't say that I am a total incompetent,

or that the film is not professional, it's already a success!

The film was also shown at several film clubs, which for us was a great result.

THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE

I met Dario in March 1970, a month after the premiere of "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage".

The movies of Bava and Margheriti were beautiful, but gothic.

This was a contemporary movie.

I liked it so much that I realized that Dario was a true auteur with great potential.

I was the first journalist to be interested in Dario Argento.

Dario's father, who was the producer of the film,

became very happy when he heard that a journalist wanted to meet his son because he liked the movie,

so he arranged the meeting.

I met Dario and talked to him. I did the interview, but mostly...

we talked a lot and found that we had much in common,

and at the end of the interview he said: "Let's keep in touch. Come back next week".

We like the same things. And one day he said: "Why don't you write something with me?".

And so we started working on this project that became "Four Flies...".

"Four Flies..." born with Dario saying that he wanted to make a film...

with this title: "Four Flies On Grey Velvet".

He had only the title. Period.

It was inspired by a book of Perry Mason, "The Case of the Velvet Claws".

And then he came up with this idea...

It was the story of a musician who goes to the theater and there's a medium on stage.

And this medium says, reading the minds of the audience: "There's a killer in this room".

Death! And all that blood!

But Dario wanted everything to be explained. So... there is no telepathy!

And we couldn't find a logical solution...

to explain how the medium knew there was a killer in the theater without knowing it.

We started working on another story...

and he came up with the idea of a character who is being followed...

and threatened by a stranger, so he decides to kill him.

We started writing this story thinking mainly on the death scenes.

And then we had to find an explanation for the title.

See, we want to conduct an experiment in the eye of the girl.

As you may know, the last image seen by the victim is kept recorded on her retina.

Because Dario wanted everything very realistic, I found this newspaper article...

about an experience made in Germany trying to read

the killer's image in the eye of the victim.

And I showed him. It was not something I invented, nor fantasy or sci-fi,

it was an article on Corriere Della Sera, one of the major Italian newspapers.

And he said: "Wonderful! This is the title!"

And I asked: "What, the title?". "Yes, the flies!"

- But what is this? - Four flies...

Yes, it's true!

Let’s do this, one fly that turns four flies!

Now get out of here! Go!

Looks like four flies...

It's an idea on the edge of science fiction.

Even the machine that reads the eye with laser.

Came from Carlo Rambaldi, who was my friend,

I also had another beautiful idea for the ending.

When the glass shatters, that ballet with the glass.

I suggested to finish the film with this ballet recorded at 2,000, 3,000 frames.

Dario had the production manager looking for a special camera.

And at the University of Naples they found a camera which was used for experiments,

and this camera worked recording 3,000 frames per second.

Dario was very pleased with my work in the screenplay,

and then he asked me to make the movie with him, as his assistant.

And I accepted, because it was a great opportunity to see...

how they made an important film. Because it was an important film.

I did a lot of work in this picture, because I was very young and full of enthusiasm.

This was my first big movie, because Paramount bought the 'package',

so, all of a sudden, I was working with Dario in a Paramount movie!

I was kind of second unit director.

I was the one who filmed scenes like the cat, when the cat attacks.

It took us three hours to infuriate the cat.

And then, for example, a few things in the subway scene, which we shot in Milan.

We filmed in the train station without any permission, entered in the train cabin...

to shoot some beautiful scenes there.

On set I also did other things whenever they needed somebody.

For example, at the end the protagonist is waiting for the killer and an extra walk by the street.

That person is me in a coat.

In another scene, in the train station,

when the detective talks to Michael Brandon,

it's me all the time in the background.

And that scene with the killer and the camera, it was me masked taking pictures.

It was a hellish scene because it was terribly hot.

With these two spotlights on my side, the heat was almost unbearable...

and I was sweating all the time making that scene.

A few years later, Dario recovered that initial idea with the medium and the killer...

in "Deep Red", his masterpiece.

But this time he accepted telepathy!

"Four Flies..." was released at Christmas 1971, and in Easter was still in theaters.

It was a huge success and, because I worked in it with Dario Argento,

producers began to call me to make, obviously, another giallo.

But I prefer to continue working with Dario, and then we did "The Neighbor" for TV.

THE NEIGHBOR

Here's the switch.

What happened, Luca?

Some producers from Milan tried to convince Dario to make a film for them.

And Dario said: "Why don't you make a movie with Luigi?".

But the budget was tight, only four weeks of shooting.

And so I decided to propose to them an extended version of "The Neighbor".

Put a beginning and an end in a story

similar to "The Neighbor" and make a feature film.

"The Killer Must Kill Again". Very bad title! My original title was "The Spider".

It was an attempt to make a film among many that mimicked the work of Argento,

with assassins wearing gloves and black coats, whose identity we only discovered in the end.

And I said: "No! I want to start my movie showing the killer".

I don't know who he is, don't know why he kills, why he does all of this...

And I don't care! But I see him very soon.

Look at this beautiful lighter. And this beautiful initials.

I think that irony is a strong element in all my films.

This terrible killer... is an asshole!