''City Lights'', 1931, painting by Renato Casaro
by Movie World Posters
Title
''City Lights'', 1931, painting by Renato Casaro
Artist
Movie World Posters
Medium
Painting - Movie Posters
Description
Base painting for the vintage movie poster ''City Lghts'', a silent romantic comedy-drama film released in 1931, written, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. It is widely regarded as one of Chaplin's greatest works and a masterpiece of silent cinema.
In "City Lights," Charlie Chaplin portrays his iconic character, the Tramp, who befriends a blind flower girl (played by Virginia Cherrill) and falls in love with her. The Tramp also encounters a drunken millionaire (played by Harry Myers) who befriends him when sober but forgets him when drunk. Throughout the film, the Tramp embarks on various misadventures to help the flower girl and the millionaire, all while trying to win the flower girl's heart.
Directed by Charlie Chaplin, "City Lights" is celebrated for its timeless humor, heartfelt emotion, and masterful storytelling. The film seamlessly blends comedy and drama, with Chaplin's trademark slapstick comedy complemented by moments of genuine tenderness and poignancy.
One of the most memorable aspects of "City Lights" is its iconic final scene, in which the Tramp's true identity is revealed to the flower girl. This emotionally powerful moment encapsulates the film's themes of love, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit.
"City Lights" is also notable for its groundbreaking use of sound, despite being a silent film. Chaplin made strategic use of synchronized sound effects and music throughout the film to enhance the storytelling and comedic timing, demonstrating his mastery of the medium.
Despite being released during the transition to sound cinema, "City Lights" was a critical and commercial success, reaffirming Chaplin's status as one of the greatest filmmakers of his time. Over the years, the film has continued to garner acclaim from audiences and critics alike and is widely regarded as a classic of cinema.
"City Lights" remains a timeless masterpiece that continues to delight and inspire audiences with its universal themes, brilliant performances, and Chaplin's unparalleled genius as a filmmaker and performer.
Base art is the poster artwork after the text has been digitally removed.
About the artist:
Born in 1935 in Treviso, Italy, Casaro painted posters for many of the world's leading producers and directors. He was exceptionally skilled at his accurate portrayals of actors and his unique use of color and composition. As a result, he was in demand by many of the major film studios, for which he created about 2,000 posters.
In October 2021, "The New York Times" stated that during the six decades of his career, "Casaro's hand-drawn art has hooked movie audiences around the world since the 1950s. Tarantino and Stallone are big fans." His artwork has graced numerous Italian and American posters along with many from Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
His career began when, realizing that besides loving going to see movies, he had a natural knack for drawing and painting. He was offered a job when he was 17 by the owner of Garibaldi Cinema in Treviso, Italy, to paint billboards in exchange for free admission. A year later, he moved to Rome to work as an apprentice for Favalli Studio, a leading film advertising agency.
In 1956, he opened his own art studio at the age of only 21. Within a few years, he drew the attention of film producer Dino De Laurentis. Then in 1965, another producer, Sergio Leone, engaged him to design posters for many of his films, including his early westerns starring Clint Eastwood. In Leone's film, "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984), he gave Casaro's artwork recognition in the movie's end-credits.
In 1968, Casaro began working with Cineriz, an Italian media company involved primarily in producing and distributing films. He was among the first artists to use a manual airbrush for his works, beginning in 1975. This new technique helped revolutionize poster art, which had until then relied on a more impressionistic style with traditional brushwork.
In 1982 De Laurentis commissioned Casaro to paint posters for films featuring a new actor, one who he felt was destined for fame: Arnold Schwarzenegger. He then painted the posters for the "Conan" trilogy, the breakthrough films for Schwarzenegger, who was mostly known as a champion bodybuilder. However, De Laurentis wanted Casaro to focus on the actor's face, not his impressive physique. "Dino wanted to launch him," Mr. Casaro said. "He knew that Schwarzenegger would explode as an actor."
That same year, another major star, Sylvester Stallone, said he loved how Casaro had depicted him in the film poster depicting the troubled Vietnam vet, "Rambo" (1982). "Stallone said that I had entered into his soul," Casaro said.
He continued painting and designing film posters throughout the following decades. In 1987, director Bernardo Bertolucci hired him to design the poster for "The Sheltering Sky." Beginning in 1989, he began using a new style for many of his posters, that of interpreting actors and scenes inspired by masters from the 16th century.
He continued designing posters until recently. In 2018, director Quentin Tarantino commissioned him to produce the artwork for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."
Looking back at his poster styles, Casaro said, "The important thing was to capture the essential: that moment, that glance, that attitude, that movement that says everything and condenses the entire story. That's the hard part."
He currently lives in Andalucia, Spain, where he still paints. However, he largely stopped doing posters in 1998, as he preferred creating hand-painted or manually airbrushed images over the digital and photoshopped renderings that had become the industry standard.
In 2017, the book "Renato Casaro: The art of movie painting" was published, showcasing a large selection of his works and describing the evolution of film art from its early years to the present. And in 2020, a documentary film about his life was released, titled, "The Last Movie Painter".
Search "Casaro" to see other works.
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October 17th, 2022
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