American Cinematographer - February 2013 - 24

The Bard Behind Bars
By Patricia Thomson

“Friends, Romans, countrymen …”
might be the most famous line in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but there is a line
that follows in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s
Caesar Must Die (Cesare Deve Morire), an
adaptation featuring prison inmates, that
resonates more deeply: “These are men of
honor, uomini d’onore,” Marc Anthony
says with veiled sarcasm about Caesar’s
friend Brutus and his fellow assassins.
Little did Shakespeare know that
uomini d’onore would become slang for
Mafiosi in the 20th century. Certainly, he
couldn’t anticipate how his lines would
sound when spoken by members of the
Mafia, Camorra and Ndrangheta, Italy’s
organized-crime networks. But, as the
Taviani brothers intuited, it’s a perfect fit.
The themes of Shakespeare’s tragedy —
friendship and loyalty, ambition and
betrayal — are at home in Rebibbia, a highsecurity prison for murderers, drug traffickers and other federal offenders.
Caesar Must Die is the 22nd film by
the Tavianis, who are best known for Padre
Padrone (1977) and Night of the Shooting
Stars (1982), and it is their first digital
production. Shooting with a Red One MX
“was a financial decision, and almost a
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February 2013

curiosity,” says Paolo Taviani. “I have to say,
we weren’t disappointed.”
It was also the first digital feature for
cinematographer Simone Zampagni, as well
as his first job as a director of photography.
“To debut with two masters like them was
a great fortune,” Zampagni says.
Taviani notes, “Even though Simone
is just 40, he has long experience in film. He
comes from a film dynasty. In his father’s
garden are benches from a Fellini film.”
Indeed, Zampagni’s grandfather was a
gaffer, his father a grip-equipment designer,
and his uncle a focus puller.
Zampagni began as a loader on
Ricky Tognazzi’s La Scorta (1992) and
worked his way up to camera operator. But
he calls the Tavianis’ films his true training
ground. In 1998, he started as second
camera assistant on You Laugh. He then
moved on to Resurrection (2001), Luisa
Sanfelice (2004) and The Lark Farm (2007);
on those projects, he worked under Taviani’s
longtime cinematographers, Giuseppe
Lanci and Franco Di Giacomo. “Franco Di
Giacomo was in essence my teacher
because I worked with him for 13 years,
starting as loader and ending up as operator,” says Zampagni. “He left his stamp on
my photography and approach to lighting.”
“On The Lark Farm,” says Taviani,
“Simone was on B camera and often filmed
American Cinematographer

autonomously, and he filmed well. You can
recognize immediately someone who has
good, strong taste in setting the frame. He
is the padrone, the owner of the image.
When we started gathering crew for
Caesar, we said, ‘Let’s give it a try!’ Simone
is young and enthusiastic, and he knew we
didn’t have much money. We shot the
picture in 22 days.”
Working with a budget equivalent
to $1 million, “we felt like kids again!” says
Taviani. (Their preceding film, The Lark
Farm, cost $12 million.) “Shooting with
such little money unleashed an energy, an
enthusiasm we’d forgotten we had.”
The crew was bare bones —
Zampagni operated the B camera and
Steadicam, Andrea Fastella operated the A
camera, and there were two focus pullers, a
gaffer, a key grip and a data manager. All
other crew roles were filled by prisoners.
Like the convicts who perform in the
film, some of Zampagni’s crew had prior
experience from the prison’s theater lab.
Since 2002, theater director Fabio Cavalli
has worked inside Ribibbia, getting the
convicts to adapt the works of Shakespeare
and Dante and other classics into their own
dialects. Over time, a troupe of actors has
emerged. It was seeing them recite Dante’s
Inferno that got the Taviani brothers thinking about a film. Ultimately, Caesar Must

Caesar Must Die photos by Umberto Montiroli, courtesy of Adopt Films.

Julius Caesar
(Giovanni Arcuri)
makes his fateful
entrance in a
rehearsal scene
from Caesar
Must Die,
directed by
Paolo and
Vittorio Taviani
and shot by
Simone
Zampagni.

American Cinematographer - February 2013

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