The Cinematheque of Cuba has prepared a tribute cycle about the American director, scriptwriter and producer Robert Aldrich (1918-1983). His centennial is a good occasion to view or review the cinematography of someone who, in his early years as a producer, was looked down by some of the producers he worked with.
However, they knew that Aldrich, initiated in the RKO Studios (Radio-Keith-Orpheum), came with a first-hand training thanks to his close work with famous personalities such as Jean Renoir, Joseph Losey and Charles Chaplin.
Besides his interest in directing TV series —in fact, he started doing that—, he directed around thirty films from The Big Leaguer (1954) to …All the Marbles (1981). Aldrich was always switching from the direction to the production of films and, occasionally, he wrote some scripts.
Aldrich’s films are of a realistic and, at the same time, elegant staging, where we can appreciate a determined will of variation between the first and general shots.
Well, what characterized this producer from the postwar period the most was his mixture of violence, eroticism and critic. He made incursions into the suspense with the unexpected What ever happened to Baby Jane? (1962), going through the war drama with The Dirty Dozen (1967) and, in order to try everything, he was a pioneer -without really trying to- in creating the spaghetti western with a film like Veracruz (1954). Aldrich was also acclaimed by The Big Knife (1955), Attack (1956) and Autumn Leaves (1956).
Winner in two different occasions of a Silver Bear in Berlin to the best director and the Silver Lion to the best foreign film, Robert Aldrich became an appreciated director by movie lovers and studious. Not few of his films are analyzed in universities all over the world.
Because of the centennial of Robert Aldrich, his figure calls the attention again thanks to the remarkable series Feud, where he is performed by the great British actor Alfred Molina, who stands in the middle, from beginning to end, between Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) while filming What ever happened to Baby Jane?
The invitation is already done. The Cinematheque of Cuba proposes Centennial of the director Robert Aldrich.
Translation by Alberto Morales
