Dario Argento E-Book

James Gracey

• Herausgeber: Kamera Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 309

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The stylistic and bloody excesses of the films of Dario Argento are instantly recognisable. Vivid, baroque and nightmarish, his films lock violent deaths in a twisted embrace with an almost sexual beauty. Narrative and logic are often lost in a constant bombardment of atmosphere, technical mastery and provocative imagery. It's a body of work which deals explicitly with death and violence, all the while revelling in perversely alluring stylistics and shot through with an unflinching intensity. Setting the tone with earlier gialli films such as The Animal Trilogy and Deep Red, Argento has steadily pushed the boundaries; through his elaborately gothic fairytales Suspiria and Inferno, right up to his more recent contributions to TV's Masters of Horror compendium and the conclusion of his Three Mothers trilogy, Mother of Tears: The Third Mother. Along the way, his prowling camera work, pounding scores and stylistic bloodshed have only gained in intensity and opulence. This Kamera Book examines his entire output. Hailed as one of horror cinemas most significant pioneers and the twentieth century's major masters of the macabre, Argento continues to create inimitable and feverishly violent films with a level of artistry rarely seen in horror films. His high profile and mastery of the genre is confirmed with his role as producer on celebrated classics such as George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Lamberto Bava's Demons. His work has influenced the likes of Quentin Tarantino, John Carpenter and Martin Scorsese, to name but a few.

Leseprobe

James Gracey

DARIO ARGENTO

For my Father and Mother

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Mum, Dad, Scott and Chloe for all the smiling and nodding as I endlessly enthused about all things Argento.

From the bottom of my ventricles I would also like to thank the following people for endless encouragement, eye rolling and proof-reading abilities of the highest order: Emma Kelly, John McAliskey, Caroline Ryder, Alastair Crawford, Lucy Wood, John Kerr Mitchell, Craig Smith, Terri McManus and Shauneen Magorrian, all of whom also successfully managed to avoid watching anything that even remotely resembled an Italian horror film throughout the course of this project – which was no mean feat! Thank you so much guys.

Thank you to the following for all their support: Christine Make-peace and Dylan Santurri at Paracinema magazine, Amber Wilkinson at Eye for Film and Francis Jones, Jonny Tiernan and all at AU.

‘Diolch yn fawr’ Ernest Mathijs and Mikel Koven, for sharing an inclination towards the darker side of cinema and corrupting the mind of a simple slasher-movie fan. Thanks also to Vikkie Taggart, for introducing me to ALL the Dario Argento fans and to Michael Bugajer for his helpful suggestions.

I’d also like to express my sincere gratitude to Sean Keller, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni and Marco Werba for their valuable time, insight and generosity.

Last, but certainly not least, many thanks to Anne Hudson for all her guidance and advice, and to Ion Mills and Hannah Patterson for providing me with the opportunity to write about one of my favourite filmmakers.

Sanguis Gratia Artis!

CONTENTS

Title page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: Symphonies in Red

2 The Animal Trilogy

3 Darkness & Milan

4 Blood Runs Deep

5 Italian Gothic

6 Return to Yellow

7 Dark Diaspora

8 Aesthetics of Blood

9 The Neo-Animal Trilogy

10 Blood, Sex & Tears

11 Artistic Arteries: Argento’s Work as Producer

12 Sadistic Scripts: Argento’s Work as Writer

Bibliography

References

Copyright

Plates

INTRODUCTION: SYMPHONIES IN RED

For over 40 years now the breathtakingly violent and stylish films of Dario Argento have been shocking and terrifying audiences around the world. To watch an Argento film is to indulge in a totally visceral experience. Elaborate set pieces and dazzling cinematic artistry collide in a cacophony of blood and sinew. The camera is used like a weapon, ceaselessly prowling for its prey. Strange point-of-view shots align the viewer with both pursued and pursuer, implicating the audience in each ostentatious depiction of murder and mayhem. Attractive female victims glance back longingly as they flee in abstract terror, all too aware of their own vulnerability. At times almost sensual, each murder is filmed as though it were something more closely aligned with a sex scene; a frenzy of flesh and blood, culminating in a disturbing orgasm of bloody chaos. Lashings of bizarre and fetishistic images abound in Argento’s work. One such recurring image is that of the killer’s hands, clad in black leather gloves, fondling various sharp implements of death. The fact that Argento’s own hands usually stand in for the killer’s in these shots adds an additional dimension of perversity. Argento utilises images and sound, the very language of cinema, to further his twisted narratives in which logic is all but lost in a constant bombardment of nightmarish and extravagant style.

Argento is often referred to as ‘the Italian Hitchcock’ as he has made a name for himself creating scenes of terror and tension. Though Hitchcock’s work is marked by its staunch linearity, focused plotting, narrative and logic, in Dario Argento’s films these are often usurped in favour of atmosphere, technical prowess and provocative imagery.

Dario Argento was born in Rome on 7 September 1940. His father Salvatore was a well-respected and highly successful film producer integral to the international promotion of Italian cinema. Argento’s mother Elda Luxardo was a famous and influential photographer. The young Argento grew up in the film industry surrounded by the rich and the beautiful – one of his earliest memories was of sitting on Sophia Loren’s lap.

Argento, a sickly child, was condemned to spend long hours in bed. As a result, he became an avid reader and indulged in such works as One Thousand and One Nights, Shakespeare and, perhaps most significantly, Edgar Allan Poe. It was through Poe’s vivid and feverish writing that Argento was first introduced to notions of death, the absurd and the mechanics of terror. Young Argento also loved to watch films, and it was as a youngster that he first viewed Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Unbeknownst to him, he would revisit the themes and indeed craft his own versions of this classic in much later life.

After graduating from high school and refusing to go to college, Argento worked for the Rome daily Paese Sera as a film critic. This, coupled with his father’s profession and a brief dabble in acting, instilled within Argento an enviable knowledge of all things cinematic.

Italian cinema was resplendent and in the midst of its ‘Golden Years’ during the sixties and seventies when Argento entered its arena.

Starting off strong at the beginning of the twentieth century, Italy was producing historical epics and utilising custom-built sets for its films before anyone else. Sensational scenes of violence and decadence echoed the country’s own illustrious and excessive history, with a rich past full of fantastical mythology to mine; it was inevitable that horror would find a home here. However, in the twenties Mussolini’s Fascists seized power and established Cinecittà, which at the time was one of the world’s most renowned and prolific production companies. Much of its output, though, until the fall of Mussolini in 1943, was given over to propagandist films.

Italian cinema had found its feet again by the sixties and it marked its return with a vengeance. Spaghetti Westerns had arrived, bringing high art and exploitative violence with them. Indeed, Argento’s first major break came with an invitation from Sergio Leone to co-write (along with Bernardo Bertolucci) the epic masterpiece OnceUpon a Time in the West (1968). This was at the age of 20. In Leone, Argento discovered a kindred spirit, a man who also thought and reasoned in images. His contribution to Leone’s screenplay would open many doors for Argento but it would be a few years more before he decided to direct one of his own scripts.

Also amongst the rabble of new directors on the Italian film scene were two that would have a profound effect on Argento.

Riccardo Freda directed a number of films that Argento has claimed had an immense impact on him, including the dark and disturbing L’Orribile segreto del Dr Hichcock/The Terror of Dr Hichcock (1962), in which a doctor sedates his wife in order to indulge his necrophilic desires, resulting in tragedy, and Lo spettro/The Ghost (1963), a perverse tale of revenge and dark desire. Even more of an influence, though, was the work of one of Italy’s most distinguished genre directors: Mario Bava.

Bava’s films were imbued with a distinct Gothic ambience, and it was he who would bring Italian horror into the modern age, setting his bloodied stories against the backdrops of fashion houses and bustling cosmopolitan cities. His work boasted a myriad of elaborate deaths and violence, all cut through with a distinct style and flamboyance that would eventually bleed onto Argento’s own filmic canvas. Bava single-handedly provided the blueprint for the giallo film with his films The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), widely regarded as the first giallo film, and Blood and Black Lace (1964).

GIALLO

Argento is famed for his lurid giallo films. Giallo (plural: gialli) is Italian for ‘yellow’ and the name originates from the trademark yellow covers of pulp crime-thriller paperback books that were extremely popular in Italy. Their literary counterparts were American hardboiled detective fiction by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. When the work of crime and mystery writers such as Agatha Christie and Cornell Woolrich were first published in Italy they were marketed as gialli.

In cinematic terms the giallo is rather akin to the French ‘noir’ film in that it has many identifiable traits and conventions and is easily recognised by a distinctive visual grammar, much in the same way as ‘slasher’ films, for instance. The giallo certainly predates the slasher and had an overwhelming influence on it.

Giallo films notoriously combine sex and violence, hyper-stylised and elaborate murders, lavish camerawork and set design, displaced protagonists who unwittingly stumble into the ensuing mayhem, ineffectual or nonexistent police and copious gore. Fashion plays a significant role too, especially in the killer’s fetishistic wardrobe of black leather gloves, dark raincoat and hat. Often the killer will have weighty psychological hang-ups. Everything weaves together in a weak and often convoluted narrative, frequently interrupted by scenes of startling violence and bloodshed. More abstract modes of detection are utilised rather than the usual logical deduction of ‘whodunit’-style movies.

In the seventies and eighties, the genre was rife throughout the cinemas of Italy, shocking audiences with its combination of exploitative violence and stylish chic.

Argento would pick up the baton from Mario Bava and essentially do for the giallo what John Carpenter did for the slasher film with Halloween (1978). Following in the footsteps of Bava, Argento firmly cemented the popularity of the embryonic giallo flick, marking it with his own inimitable style and blood-soaked grandeur. Argento is one of the few directors working in cinema today, particularly horror cinema, who still retains full control over his work. Were it not for those pesky censors, of course, Argento would answer to no one.

AESTHETICS OF BLOOD

Allegations of misogyny have been hurled at Argento with great gusto since the beginning of his career. Film critic Mark Le Fanu once stated that Argento was preoccupied with ‘devising novel and increasingly nasty ways of killing his female characters’.1 However, this is an oversimplification of Argento’s work, ignoring the director’s fierce intellectualism, grasp of filmic language and technicality, and overlooking the fact that men aren’t any safer in an Argento movie, though their deaths aren’t filmed as longingly.

Other directors accused of misogyny have at least attempted to defend their work. For example Brian De Palma, whose earlier films such as Dressed to Kill (1980) and Body Double (1984) were labelled misogynistic, has stated:

Women in peril works better in the suspense genre. It all goes back to The Perils of Pauline (1914). If you have a haunted house and you have a woman walking around with a candelabrum, you fear more for her than you would for a husky man.2

However, Argento has never appeared to openly defend himself. When he makes statements such as, ‘I like women, especially beautiful ones; if they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man’3 he doesn’t seem to be attempting to allay such criticism. This perhaps fits in more with Argento’s aesthetic and painterly approach to his work and his affinity with the female form. If one looks careful y at his work, while it undeniably features bountiful images of beautiful women being stalked and slain, gender politics have never been straightforward. Men are killed with equal abandon and Argento has joked that he is an ‘equal-opportunities killer’. In Argento’s work, the age-old stereotype of women as the weaker, fairer and therefore more vulnerable sex is utilised as much as it is subverted. His films are headed by strong female characters. The killers are quite often women defending or avenging themselves against malicious masculinity. This opens up yet more labyrinthine avenues of ambiguity and sexual intrigue.

What adds even more fuel to the allegations of misogyny levelled at Argento is his audacious casting of partner Daria Nicolodi and daughter Asia in frequent roles. Argento and Nicolodi embarked on a passionate and often stormy relationship when they shot Deep Red. Their relationship resulted in some of Argento’s greatest works. Nicolodi initially acted as a muse for the director – however, their relationship wasn’t without its darker moments. Critics have suggested that it is possible to trace the disintegration of this relationship throughout Argento’s films.

While appearing as a radiant heroine in Deep Red, the characters Nicolodi would later portray all met with increasingly violent and bloody deaths. In Inferno she portrays a neurotic and timid woman torn to pieces by demonic cats in an eerily blue-lit attic. While she survives events in Tenebrae she is not unscathed and her character is pushed to the brink of insanity. In Phenomena she is hacked to pieces by a cut-throat, razor-wielding chimpanzee. Opera would mark the last time they would work together for many years. In this film Nicolodi is shot through the head while looking through the peephole of a door. In typical Argento style, the camera follows the bullet in slow motion through her eye and out the back of her head as she is hurtled backwards through the air in slow motion. In their most recent reunion in the conclusion of Argento’s ‘Three Mothers’ trilogy, Mother of Tears, Nicolodi appears as a spectral mother providing advice for her daughter from beyond the grave.

This problematic relationship between Dario and Daria seems to have been revisited a number of times by Argento in his onscreen relationship with his daughter, Asia. Adding to the somewhat disturbing and distinctly Freudian undertones already evident in his work, Argento has directed his daughter in a number of films where her characters are drugged, raped, beaten and only narrowly avoid being murdered. What is apparent, though, is that father and daughter have collaborated on films that stand out in both their careers as edgy, powerful, problematic and utterly compelling works.

With Asia killing off her mother, albeit onscreen, in Scarlet Diva, it would appear that the Argento clan work out their issues and exorcise relationships through their work; in front of cinema audiences and in fiendishly violent ways.

It’s interesting to note that Argento’s other daughter Fiore didn’t fare much better when she appeared onscreen in Demons, Phenomena and The Card Player (she prefers to work behind the camera). It has also been suggested that Argento’s relationship with his mother was fraught with strife, hence his Hitchcockian obsession with the monstrous maternal figures that lurk in many of his films.

All this speculation only adds to the absurd and macabre reputation Argento has cultivated for himself in his exploration of the darker side of human nature and catharsis of dark thoughts. At times it appears he relishes it.

EXQUISITE DEATH

Argento has been influenced by an almost encyclopaedic array of literature, art, philosophy and indeed cinema. It is the morbid writing of Edgar Allan Poe, however, that Argento has specifically cited as a major influence on his work. It may come as no surprise when viewing Argento’s films and the very precise way he sexualises the victims and perpetrators within his work to discover that Poe was also preoccupied with sex and death and the shadowy realm where the two are locked in a twisted embrace. Poe claimed in his essay ‘The Philosophy of Composition’:

I asked myself – of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy? Death was the obvious reply. And when, I said, is this the most melancholy of topics most poetical?

When it most closely allies itself to beauty: the death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

It is in this fascination with the ‘aesthetics of death’ that Argento is most closely aligned with Edgar Allan Poe. Argento himself has said:

On reading Poe as a child it disturbed me and left me, for a long time, feeling strange and slightly sad… When I began to make films, I recognised that my themes had some affinity with the events told by Poe in his stories, his hallucinatory worlds, his bloody visions… In my solitary moments when some frightening idea strikes me and I think: with this I will make a film – Poe’s handsome and intense face watches me, warns me to pay heed, to be careful.4

Perhaps it is simply an interest in women and an Edgar Allan Poe-inspired morbidity – and investigating how the two work when unified – that have propelled Argento along his trajectory of sex and death. Regardless, it is obvious that Argento is compelled, to use Jungian terminology, to gaze deep into the dark mirror of the psyche and peer at the uncanny things that live in its depths. This swirling of sex and death is lured into even darker, deadlier territory by Argento who once remarked:

In such an intense physical act as murder, a very sensitive, somehow deeply erotic relationship is established somewhere between the killer and his victim. There is something unifying between these acts, an erotic act and a bloodthirsty act… the orgasm of death and the sexual orgasm.5

This seems to reiterate the notion that Argento draws influence from the world of art and literature and, as stylish as his films are, they certainly don’t lack subtextual meaning; in fact they lend themselves quite well to critical analysis. One only has to look at the depiction of women and death in the images created by the painters of the Renaissance – graphic and passionate representations of the melancholy and ecstatic deaths of women, such as Hans Baldung’s ‘Death and the Woman’ – to see where Argento’s influences stem from.

This amalgam of art, death and violence was also commented on by director Lucio Fulci when he dryly declared ‘violence is Italian art’. Indeed, Italy’s past is soaked in blood and glory and it is celebrated in its art and culture rather than reviled. The great Italian Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Caravaggio created baroque and majestic works of art celebrating the volatility of their heritage. The darkly romantic texts of Boccaccio and Dante revel in hellish descriptions of live burials and descents into Hell. Opera, too, is deeply passionate and contains violent outbursts and perverse love and death. The voyeuristic impulse to watch scenes of violence is thousands of years old – public execution, anyone? Roman gladiators? Boxing?

Early Italian cinema also excelled in pushing the boundaries of sex and violence: Francesca Bertini was arguably the first bona fide star of cinema to appear partly naked on screen. The Italian historical epics and sword-and-sandal films were amongst the first to depict full-scale bloody battles and intimate close-ups of gory deaths. Spaghetti Westerns and gialli followed suit, ensuring Italian movies became almost synonymous with violence, sex and glorified death. Zombie and cannibal films by the likes of Lucio Fulci and Ruggero Deodato would embrace and intensify this preoccupation with striking images of abject terror and bloodshed.

Author of Violence in the Arts, John Frazer, has commented that:

It is in violent encounters that one is required most obviously to reaffirm or reassess one’s own values and to acknowledge the necessity of having as strong and clearly articulated a value system, as sharply defined a self, as much alertness to others and as firm a will as possible.

Despite the criticism his films receive for their violence, Argento still continues to explore violence and dark deeds, exposing the weakness of values and morality and struggling against established conventions throughout his blood-splattered oeuvre. Quentin Tarantino, another purveyor of violent movies who was heavily influenced by Argento, once said: ‘As a filmmaker, when you deal with violence you are actually penalised for doing a good job.’6

As a result, Argento has become the epitome of everything audiences love and hate so much about Italian cinema; his stylish scenes of death and mayhem are amongst the most shocking in the history of cinema.

OPERATIC EXCESSES

This stylisation, verging on the pornographic, of violence and death is one of the main traits associated with the films of Dario Argento. At times, the director uses an expressionist style, revealing the influence on him of the likes of FW Murnau and Fritz Lang. Inner feelings of dread and anxiety are expressed outwardly through the set design, lighting and camerawork. Symbolic potential is exploited at the expense of cinematographic realism. Maitland McDonagh, author of Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of DarioArgento has stated that watching an Argento film is like having a ‘vivid and complicated nightmare from which you can’t wake up’.7

Two of Argento’s most revered and startling films, Suspiria and Inferno, are supernatural horror flicks that play out like cruelly dark and twisted fairytales. Vivid colours and beautiful lighting simply drip out of each frame and an ever-present sheen of livid red lighting devilishly presides over proceedings. Extreme colours and overwrought images are all characteristic of ‘vintage Argento’. While stylistically different from Argento’s gialli films, they are no different when it comes to presenting scenes of violence and death.

Argento’s ever-prowling camera haunts his entire body of work, showing the viewer everything in exquisite and gory detail. Images of beautiful women tiptoeing around vast buildings alone at night while curtains billow in an eerie breeze contain hefty sexual undertones. The sexual connotations are often as over-the-top as the murder sequences. Audiences are further manipulated and even disorientated by Argento’s jagged editing techniques. Often cutting from extreme close-ups to wide-angle shots and point-of-view shots, the viewer is immersed in a kind of visual delirium, constantly on edge due to the fact that it is apparent anything can happen and potential danger lurks in the corner of every shot.

Never one to be satisfied simply trying to repeat past glories, Argento likes to forge ahead experimentally and defy expectation as he goes. Like many auteurs, Argento surrounds himself with people he trusts. Much like Lynch or Cronenberg, he collaborates with the same people time and again and, whilst his films may vary in style and, indeed, quality, there is a definite organic evolvement.

Despite his reputation and being a household name in his native Italy, much of his recent output has gone straight to video/DVD elsewhere. Argento has amassed a huge cult following, however, and his fans can be as scathing as critics when it comes to each new film. Harking back to the director’s ‘golden era’ in the seventies and eighties, they are constantly longing for a ‘return to form’.

Argento has never been one to give in to what is expected, though, and fiercely continues to develop and experiment with widely different approaches to his bloody subject matter. Rather than complete his proposed ‘Three Mothers’ trilogy at the height of his popularity, Argento chose to return to the giallo with his next film Tenebrae.

Ever ahead of the pack, Argento utilises the most cutting-edge equipment and technology to enhance his dark visions: he was the first director to use CGI in Italy with The Stendhal Syndrome. In casting international stars – and, until recently, his films were always made without sound so actors could be dubbed in post-production – it is obvious that Argento has always aimed to appeal to a wide audience with a view to internationally distributing his work. The dubbing in many of his films, while initially distracting, doesn’t really detract from the overall experience; in fact, if anything, it adds an uncanny and slightly creepy sheen to proceedings.

DREAMING IN RED: A BLOODY LEGACY

The influence Argento’s films have had on horror cinema, particularly American slasher movies, is overwhelming. In one of the earliest examples of this subgenre, Bob Clarke’s Black Christmas (1974), there are nods aplenty to Argento: the lurid lighting, stalking camerawork, close-ups of prying eyes and the use of an ornate crystal unicorn as the means to a bloody end. John Carpenter found much inspiration too in the likes of Deep Red and Suspiria and craftily paid homage to Argento with Halloween (1978), a film considered to be the seminal slasher film. Carpenter also plunders Argento’s use of insects as agents of telepathy and harbingers of doom in his underrated Prince of Darkness (1987). Even Martin Scorsese was affected by the work of Argento when he directed After Hours (1985), with its series of increasingly nightmarish set pieces and logic-defying narrative progression. Numerous shots of people wandering down empty and eerily lit corridors and streets easily recall the work of Argento.

It would appear that with the proposed remake of Suspiria (something Argento is adamant he has nothing to do with), the long-awaited conclusion to his revered ‘Three Mothers’ trilogy finally completed, and his current film, simply entitled Giallo, boasting a cast of credible big names such as Adrien Brody and Emmanuelle Seigner, Argento is experiencing something of a revival. Audiences are interested in his work: revisiting past glories and reappraising initially misunderstood works.

In the breakout indie hit Juno (2007), various characters discuss the work of Dario Argento and debate the merits of Argento and Herschell Gordon Lewis, the title character stating, ‘Dario Argento is so the master of horror.’ Lucky McKee’s haunting and melancholy May (2002) unfolds as a loving homage to Argento. Rodman Flender’s cult hit Idle Hands (1999) also wears its Argento influences on its bloodied sleeve, as does Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s Phenomena-tinged Mushishi (2006), as it follows the exploits of a mystical doctor who uses his telepathic link with insects to conquer evil forces. French director Pascal Laugier even went so far as to dedicate his unflinchingly intense art-house shocker Martyrs (2008) to Dario Argento.

It is not just ‘cult’ filmmakers that emulate Argento, though. Quentin Tarantino pays homage to Argento in the scene in DeathProof (2007) when we are introduced to the second group of female characters as they stroll through a car park, unaware they are being photographed by the perverted Stuntman Mike. The scene is accompanied by the strains of Morricone’s music for The Bird with theCrystal Plumage; airy, sexy and tinged with danger. Indeed, Tarantino nods as much to Argento as he does Samurai movies in Kill Bill:Vol 1 (2003) when Sophie has her arm lopped off in a geyser of blood à la Tenebrae. Argento’s hip and cult status has been sealed. Even a stage musical of Deep Red has begun its tour of Italy!

With a renewed interest in Argento’s movies, audiences are now viewing them from a fresh angle and in the context of their influence on the likes of Quentin Tarantino et al. With his latest offering, the director looks set to introduce his beloved giallo movies to a whole new generation, tired of remakes and re-imaginings.

With the recent revival of extreme violence and brutal torture in the horror genre as exemplified by the likes of base cinematic experiences Hostel (2005) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005), sometimes nicknamed ‘torture/horror-porn’, Argento’s brand of terror is still shrouded in a tapestry of Gothic elegance and highly sexualised fervour. It plays out in a different arena of punishment where the violence is just as brutal but the presentation more considered and opulent, even lyrical. Argento continues to create feverishly violent films with a level of artistry rarely seen in horror cinema.

Argento once said, ‘I am in love with the colour red. I dream in red. My nightmares are dominated by red. Red is the colour of passion and the colour of the journey into our subconscious. But above all, red is the colour of fear and violence.’8

He has also playfully remarked in many interviews that after making all these films, he would ‘probably be a good killer’.9

While he is still dreaming in red, we will no doubt bear witness to more of Dario Argento’s frenzied, lurid and nightmarish compositions of exquisite and ecstatic deaths, rife with a morbid and dark sensuality, for some time to come. And, as you are reading this book, I am sure you will agree with me that this is not a bad thing at all.

Notes – INTRODUCTION: SYMPHONIES IN RED

1 Review of Tenebrae from Films & Filming (Sept 1983)

2 Clover, Carol J, ‘Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film’ in Barry Keith Grant (ed), The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (University of Texas Press, 1996), p 77

3 Ibid, p 77

4 Jones, Alan, Profondo Argento: The Man, the Myths & the Magic (FAB Press, 2004), p 195

5 Fuchs, Christian, Bad Blood: An Illustrated Guide to Psycho Cinema (Creation Books, 2002), p 295

6 Knapp, Laurence F (ed), Brian De Palma: Interviews – Conversations with Filmmakers Series (University Press of Mississippi, 2003), p 143

7 Quotation from Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror (2000) (TV), dir Leon Ferguson

8 Fuchs, op cit, p 292

9 Ibid, p 293

THE ANIMAL TRILOGY

L’Uccello dalle piume di cristallo/ The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

‘Bring out the perverts.’

Directed/Written by: Dario Argento

Produced by: Salvatore Argento

Music by: Ennio Morricone

Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro

Edited by: Franco Fraticelli

Production Design: Dario Micheli

Cast: Tony Musante (Sam Dalmas), Suzy Kendall (Julia), Enrico Maria Salerno (Inspector Morosini), Eva Renzi (Monica Ranieri), Umberto Raho (Alberto Ranieri), Raf Valenti aka Renato Romano (Professor Carlo Dover)

Also known as:The Gallery Murders, Phantom of Terror, Bird with GlassFeathers

Synopsis

American writer Sam Dalmas is temporarily residing in Italy attempting to find a solution to his writer’s block. Wandering home one evening, he passes by an art gallery and witnesses a struggle between a woman and an unidentifiable figure. Rushing to try and help the woman, Sam becomes trapped between two sets of glass doors and helplessly looks on as the assailant stabs the woman and then flees, leaving her to writhe in agony on the floor of the gallery. Sam relays to the police what he saw, though he can’t help but think that he has forgotten a key piece of information. The police believe the attacker was also responsible for a bout of recent murders and, with their encouragement, Sam sets about trying to uncover the mystery and find the killer, putting his own life and that of his girlfriend in grave danger.

Background

Dario Argento wrote The Bird with the Crystal Plumage for himself, loosely basing it on a Fredric Brown novel called The Screaming Mimi.

He had grown tired of seeing his previous screenplays get handed over to directors he thought were less than competent at turning his words into images and, having enjoyed the various thriller aspects in his prior scripts, Argento was interested in expanding these ideas into a full-length feature and investigating the machinery of fear. He wanted to create a noir-type mystery thriller set in Rome, something that was quite uncommon at the time, with the exception of Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Blood and BlackLace (1964), both released almost a decade before. With a $500,000 budget, filming began in August 1969.

The cast features Tony Musante, who had previously starred in the Argento-penned The Love Circle (1969). Something of an egotist, it is reputed that Argento’s tentative relationship with actors stems from his experiences working with Musante: amongst other things, the wayward actor allegedly telephoned Argento many times in the early hours demanding character ‘motivation’. Suzy Kendall, who had previously appeared in Circus of Fear (1966) with Christopher Lee, portrays Sam’s girlfriend Julia.

Goffredo Lombardo, the head of Titanus Studios, was impressed with Argento’s previous work as a writer and agreed to give him the chance to direct The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Lombardo hated the early rushes he saw and even wanted to replace Argento, but was convinced by the director and his producer father, Salvatore, to trust them to deliver.

So unconventional was the film that its preview for Titanus executives was something of a letdown. They thought it was too different and offbeat to become a hit and believed that, by showing the killer at the beginning of the film, Argento was being too progressive. It was only when Lombardo noticed how shaken his secretary was after viewing the film that he realised Argento’s brand of horror might just do well at the box office. When the film opened, positive reviews and gradual word of mouth ensured that it went on to become a box-office success both in Europe and abroad.

Comments

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage features traits now commonly associated with Argento’s body of films: the somewhat sketchy characterisation and wandering plot; spectacular techniques that exist for their own sake and don’t contribute to driving forward the narrative but are simply used to astound the viewer; almost fetishised depictions of violence and death; a seemingly androgynous murderer garbed in a dark raincoat and black leather gloves; voyeurism and spectatorship; the misinterpretation of key events and the ‘stranger abroad’ protagonist. The plot and characters come second to style and atmosphere in an Argento film.

The titular bird refers to a rare Siberian specimen found in a zoo in Rome. Its bizarre call is heard in the background of a pivotal phone call from the killer to Sam, thus helping him track down the perpetrator.

Style/Technical

Argento has cited the work of Fritz Lang as a major influence on his own work, particularly in terms of editing and frame composition. A number of scenes in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, particularly the ones set in the fog-cluttered streets of Rome after dark, echo similar nightmarish street scenes in Lang’s disturbing M (1931).

The film was photographed by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who would go on to lens Apocalypse Now (1979). Utilising zoom and telephoto lenses, Storaro and Argento approached the film with an experimental spirit still evident today, and the film has a dazzlingly stylish look that influenced a slew of pale imitations.

Argento really shows his true colours in depicting the scenes of murder and mayhem. Such style and aplomb have rarely been glimpsed in the horror genre.

Unconventional editing techniques were also employed by Argento, resulting in some rather unnerving and disorientating effects. Frequently cutting from extreme close-ups to wide-angle shots, he conveys perfectly the sense of visual and aural fragmentation of an event slowly being pieced together.

The film is peppered with flashbacks to the scene in the gallery as Sam becomes obsessed with solving the case. These aren’t signalled like traditional flashbacks, though; they are simply slotted into the narrative, resulting in an off-kilter and delirious pace of events.

Like the majority of Argento’s work, The Bird with the CrystalPlumage was shot without sound, with a view to dubbing the film in post-production for the international market.

Themes

Voyeurism and spectatorship, major preoccupations of Argento’s, are played out in Bird in scenes such as the one where Sam, trapped between the glass doors of the gallery, is forced to watch an attempted murder, and Julia, trapped in her apartment, helplessly looks on as the killer hacks through the door, very, very slowly. This forced spectatorship foreshadows the somewhat overtly sadistic forced gaze evident in Opera and it exquisitely highlights Argento’s concerns with subverting the detached spectatorship of cinema audiences; essentially holding their fixed gaze in much the same way as the unfolding events hold the attention of the characters enveloped within them. The threat of violence is usually only a blink away in an Argento film. Quite literally in the case of Opera.

The main character is a writer, another familiar ‘Argentoism’. He is in Rome to try and alleviate his writer’s block and supports himself by writing rather dry research papers on zoology. As a direct result of the madness he is plunged into while trying to solve the case, his writer’s block disappears and he feels rejuvenated, revelling in this chaos.

The ineffectual police are a mainstay of Argento’s work. In fact, until The Stendhal Syndrome, The Card Player and Giallo we don’t really follow the police in their investigations; the story is always based around the amateur sleuth, usually an artist of some kind, be they a musician, singer or writer.

Also evident are a number of oddball characters typically featured in Argento’s early work: the crazed artist who exists on a diet of cats; the pimp with an amusingly unfortunate speech impediment; and the police line-up of sex perverts and a misplaced transvestite (‘Ursula Andress belongs with the transvestites not the perverts’ – Inspector Morosini).

Notions of gender are somewhat subverted in The Bird with theCrystal Plumage as the killer is revealed to be a woman undergoing a bizarre psychological transfer instigated by viewing a painting that reminds her of a long-repressed trauma. The fact that this traumatic event was also the inspiration for the artist who created the painting is indeed a key to unlocking the mystery.

Femininity is usually equated with passivity; thus when Sam sees Monica struggling with an unidentifiable figure he misinterprets what he is seeing – wrongly assuming that Monica is being attacked by a man and that she is the hapless victim. The overtly sexualised nature of the murders would also suggest a male killer; this highlights Argento’s capacity for subverting conventions. The twist ending also relies on a similar presumption on the part of the audience. It is also