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Dario Argento (1940-)



"Horror is like a serpent, always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back. It can't be hidden away like the guilty secrets we try to keep in our subconscious."

Filmography
Features
L'Uccello dalle piume di cristallo / The Bird with the Crystal Plumage AKA The Gallery Murders(1970)
Il Gatto a nove code / The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971)
4 mosche di velluto grigio / Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)
Le Cinque giornate / The Five Days of Milan (1973)
Profondo rosso / Deep Red (1975)
Suspiria (1977)
Inferno (1980)
Tenebre / Tenebrae AKA Unsane(1982)
Phenomena AKA Creepers (1985)
Opera AKA Terror at the Opera (1987)
Trauma (1993)
La sindrome di Stendhal / The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
Il fantasma dell'opera / The Phantom of the Opera (1998)
Non ho sonno / Sleepless (2001)
Il Cartaio / The Card Player (2004)
La Terza Madre / The Third Mother AKA Mother of Tears (2007)
Giallo (2009)
Dracula 3D (2012)

Shorts
"The Black Cat" - Due occhi diabolici / Two Evil Eyes segment (1990)

Television
La porta sul buio / Door into Darkness - S01E02 - "Il Tram / The Tram" (1973)
La porta sul buio / Door into Darkness - S01E04 - "Testimone oculare / Eyewitness" (1973)
Ti piace Hitchcock? / Do You Like Hitchcock (2005)
Masters of Horror - S01E04 - "Jenifer" (2005)
Masters of Horror - S02E06 - "Pelts" (2006)

Books
Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by Maitland McDonagh (1993; expanded edition, 2010)
Art of Darkness: The Cinema of Dario Argento by Chris Gallant (2003)
Profondo Argento: The Man, The Myths And The Magic by Alan Jones (2004)
Dario Argento by James Gracey (2010)
Dario Argento by L. Andrew Cooper (2012)
A Complex of Carnage: Dario Argento Beneath the Surface by Jack Hunter (2012)

Web Resources
1990 video interview at Toronto International Film Festival - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
2001 video interview with Lamberto Bava
"Beauty, Brutality, and Three Tough Mothers" by Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times (2008)
2009 interview with Alex Fitch, Electric Sheep Magazine
2014 interview with Markus Lust, VICE
2016 interview with Eric Kohn, IndieWire

Forum Discussion
Synapse: Dario Argento Limited Editions
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The Cat O' Nine Tails
Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
The Third Mother (Dario Argento, 2007)
Giallo (Dario Argento, 2009)

Four Flies on Grey Velvet - German gray market edition

Read all about it, you guessed it, over at Tim Lucas' Video Watchblog.

otis wrote:Petition for Paramount to release Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Give the petition to LEGEND FILMS... they seem to be the Paramount spill-over company.

It's not my petition (I'm just one of the signees), but I'll pass your suggestion on to the guy who's organising it.

For those interested, Four Flies on Grey Velvet should be making it onto R1 DVD in Feb. 2009 according to this (and the Ryko link in the article).

Inferno (1980) Blue Underground (R1)

Plus: According to IMDB Phenomena is from 85.

golgothicon wrote:Inferno (1980) Blue Underground (R1)

Plus: According to IMDB Phenomena is from 85.

Fixed.

that 2 disc noshame set of Door Into Darkness is being released through mya communications in january. looks like MYA is casually picking up where they left off.

FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET is scheduled for Blu-Ray release in the near future from both Shameless in the UK, and Koch Media in Germany. The Mya DVD had a nice looking transfer but has been criticised for featuring a soundtrack that (bizarrely) seems pitched too low for the movie. (A bootleg version is floating around with the same transfer but the audio pitch-corrected back up to compensate). There's also a completely unconfirmed rumour that Blue Underground might have a shot at bringing SUSPIRIA out in the US on Blu-Ray, despite previous rights issues.

On another Eurohorror note, folks should check out the Kino page in the 'Boutique Labels' thread for another European horror director who will be getting the Blu-Ray treatment next year in the US.

I've never seen anything by Argento. Is Suspiria a good starting place? And my local specialty theater is playing a 35mm print of it this month. If I miss the screening, how badly will I regret it?

Shakespeare wrote:I've never seen anything by Argento. Is Suspiria a good starting place? And my local specialty theater is playing a 35mm print of it this month. If I miss the screening, how badly will I regret it?

It's a fantastic starting place and, yes, you will regret it, if for no other reason than because you'll miss seeing those gorgeous primary colours and sweeping tracking shots in 35mm on a big screen.

I can't imagine anything better to see on 35mm than Suspiria so if you like a good old fashioned horror fun it's a run don't walk situation.

Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event—
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't.

knives wrote:I can't imagine anything better to see on 35mm than Suspiria so if you like a good old fashioned horror fun it's a run don't walk situation.

Suspiria on 35mm should be mind blowing experience especially if the theater has a decent sound system,sound is extremely important part of that film.Goblin,by the way,played here in Finland yesterday,unfortunately I couldnt make it...

Some notes on the new Shameless BD of Four Flies courtesy Land of Whimsy. (Be warned, there are spoilers.)

Looks very good,time to replace an ancient Dutch VHS.I think the only Argento bd that has pleased M.Mackenzie until now is French release of Tenebre.

Are there articles / books that have been written about The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in particular that folks can recommend?

The region free blu-ray released by Arrow comes with a booklet on the film, plus numerous other extras.

Isn't that one in the wrong AR though?

I recently watched Deep Red for the first time (the 126 minute version, which is referred to as the "director's cut" on the original Arrow blu, though apparently it's the opposite on the Blue Underground release. What's the story here?) It's my third Argento after Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Suspiria, and, while I liked the others, this is the first one with which I really connected. What sticks with me most about it is the sense that, in the last third or so of the film's runtime, it largely leaves behind physical locations and moves into some other sort of psychic realm. There are the earlier shots of the murderer's possessions - physical symbols of repressed memories - scattered across a black background, an apt visual metaphor for individual memories floating in the crevices of the human mind.



Increasingly, though, the film moves into this abstract territory the deeper Marcus gets into the mystery (and to recovering his own subconscious memory of what the "missing painting" from the beginning of the film looked like.) I haven't yet watched the shorter cut, but I understand that it eliminates many of the scenes taking place in the "house of the screaming child," which seems like a shame considering how essential those scenes are to transitioning the film's setting from Italy (albeit a strange one filled with Edward Hopper-esque cafes and motionless extras) over to this nebulous, psychic space.



The film increasingly takes place at night, with more and more of the image's details lost in the shadows.



I don't know if it's by chance or by design, but the film has the perfect aural accompaniment to this setting. I'm not talking about the Goblin score (as amazing as it is!), but instead of the sparse foley effects, where only occasional sounds interrupt the silence, in the same way that a baby doll or a human face or some long repressed memory surface from the void of the human mind.

Anyway, I've rambled long enough. Maybe I'm stating the obvious or maybe I'm not even making any sense. I know that this film is widely regarding as a masterpiece today, but is anyone aware of its reception (both in Italy and the US) upon release? I'd really appreciate any links to some of the film's contemporary reviews.

Emak-Bakia wrote:I recently watched Deep Red for the first time (the 126 minute version, which is referred to as the "director's cut" on the original Arrow blu, though apparently it's the opposite on the Blue Underground release. What's the story here?).

As I understand it, the 126 minute Italian cut was Argento's original cut, whilst the shorter 105 minute cut was made simply for export, but Argento has since expressed a preference for the latter. An English dub was created only for the 105 minute cut, so if you watched the longer version in English you will have noticed the film jumps back and forth from English to subtitled Italian.

Thanks for the information. I watched it with the Italian track, though I'll definitely be trying the English track upon rewatching.

I do highly recommend watching Deep Red with the English soundtrack (in whichever cut), as David Hemmings' vocal performance is terrific.

The English dub is on the whole better, but Daria Nicolodi's performance works better in Italian. I miss her sexy, husky Italian in the English version.