“The
sound… it looks wonderful.”
This quote from director Dario
Argento may sum up the lion’s share of everything that makes his masterpiece Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso [1975])
such an indelible mark on the world of cinema. It is a film that can never be
simply watched. It must be experienced.
By 1975, Dario Argento was a
well-known, eagerly sought-after talent in the Italian film industry. He had
already completed his ‘animal trilogy’ – a triumvirate of films that comprised
his first three efforts; The Bird with
the Crystal Plumage (aka L’ucello dalle piume di cristallo [1970]), The Cat O’Nine Tails (aka Il gato a nove
code [1971]), and Four Flies on Grey
Velvet (aka 4 moschi di velluto grigio [1971]). With the success of his
loosely linked trilogy, Argento was proclaimed as ‘The Italian Hitchcock’.
Making three films in two years
could be trying on any director, and Argento was no exception. The next three
years saw him releasing a half-hearted comedy, and guest directing an episode
of the television series La porta sul
buio. However, before he embarked on his career-defining film Suspiria (1977), Argento decided to
direct one more giallo, a work that would come to characterize the genre: Profondo Rosso.
Giallo is a specifically Italian
genre of film. Perhaps the best way to describe it is as being the unholy
offspring of American film noir and Jack the Ripper, raised by Sherlock Holmes.
In its literal definition, the word giallo
is Italian for ‘yellow’. This designation supposedly arose from the long-lived
series of pulpy crime novels known as ‘Il
Giallo Mondadori’ (as in Mondadori Publishing House, Inc.) The series was
easily recognizable due to the trademark yellow cover. It was not a far leap,
then, to ascribe the moniker to a new genre of horror film that put a dark
twist on what was typically light pulp fiction.
Dario Argento did not invent the
giallo film. Indeed Mario Bava’s Blood
and Black Lace (aka Sei donna per l’assassino [1964]) may well lay good
claim on that ground. But Argento is certainly the master of it. If his ‘animal
trilogy’ may be seen as molding his style, then Deep Red is without a doubt the perfection of his craft.
The film centers on a jazz musician
in Italy, Marc Daly (played by David Hemmings, now famous from his starring
role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up).
Marc witnesses the murder of a woman who claims to be a psychic. Aided by
attractive reporter Gianna (Daria Nicolodi in her first of many roles for Argento), he sets himself about solving the mystery.
But there is one clue he can’t seem to recall – “A challenge to my memory” as
he puts it.
The simplicity of the set up is
incredibly deceiving, since there is patently nothing simple about an Argento
film.
Giallo, and Argento films in
particular, relies heavily on atmosphere. Plot, and especially character
development, is secondary. To most of us, being brought up on the endless flow
of Hollywood popcorn and bubble gum fair, this might seem to be the exact wrong
way to go. I cannot count all the times that I have heard or read someone
ranting about how terrible a movie was because it didn’t have a plot. Let us
take a moment and weep for the decline of art in American culture… Moving on - In
the case of Deep Red there certainly
is a plotline, a very twisty one in fact, but it is just not the point.
The result of this divorce from
story structure is that the film plays like a sort of day dream – or should I
say a nightmare? The events do not matter nearly as much as the setting does.
It is all about how it looks. This is
the first point at which Argento transcends the boundaries of his craft and
dives headlong into artistry.
There are two layers to the film
that make it the immersive experience it is – the visual and the auditory. Both
are unique to the time and place in which they are created. The visual design
of Profondo Rosso is a
color-saturated palette rife with inky blacks, bright reds, and overall solid
shades. This is made even more so by the distinct grain pattern of the film
stock belonging solely the 1970’s.
Argento pairs this dazzling color
scheme with his signature dynamic camera work. Largely avoiding both the
handheld and the static, he keeps the camera moving smoothly with an
intentional self-control that sets the pace for the film even more directly
than the script. In fact, it is all too apparent how planned each shot is. The
mystery unveils itself with images first and foremost, relegating plot devices
and story to the backseat. Each type of camera movement employed is so distinct
that we as the audience can tell at a moment’s glance whether we are following
the characters, investigating a strange noise, or possessed of the killer in
Dario Argento’s trademark point-of-view sequences.
The director’s command over his
audience is of paramount importance, and his greatest weapon is undeniably his
camera. Argento understands this principle in a way few in the modern cinema
do. Suspense in Deep Red is built not
only by the mystery, or the camera work, but by a series of apparently
unrelated visual cues. One motif in particular stands out. While not nearly as
blatant or stomach-churning as Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Profondo
Rosso features a theme of animal cruelty. Unlike Deodato’s film, all of the
instances in Argento’s work are the result of movie magic. Nevertheless, each
instance – a bird impaling itself on a crochet needle, two dogs fighting, a
lizard stuck with pins, etc. – serves to heighten our sense of unease. It as if
Argento wishes to remind us that the world he has dragged us into is not
ordered and safe. The protagonists may not necessarily prevail in the end, and
even when danger seems far from present, nature is at constant war with itself.
The polished, electric veneer of the film is subtly interrupted by these
startlingly bleak moments. The result is an audience constantly on the edge of
their seats.
The second layer is the remarkable
sound design. In the United States, sight and sound in the cinema are
inextricably connected. The music may be added after principle photography, but
most of the dialogue and at least the ‘everyday’ sounds are captured by boom
microphone in real time along with each take. In Italian cinema in the 1970’s
and 80’s, this was not the case at all. Partly it was the system, but
predominantly it was for financial reasons. The Italian movie industry made it
standard practice to film silent, and add the
entire soundtrack after the fact. This allowed for a wider audience base.
In other words, studios could hire an international cast of actors (American
actors were cheaper since they came to Italy to find work and also more marketable),
each could play their part in their own language, and then the entire film
could be dubbed in English for the international release and Italian for the
domestic. The setup worked well with low-budget films generating revenue in the
United States and Europe.
But there was another effect the
process revealed. There is an eerie sense that the audio is separate from the
images. This instills a sort of misplaced feeling, an impression that the sound
is layered like a thick veil over top of the visual. Naturally, this
disassociation could very easily become distracting. One needs look no further
than the patchwork (yet still highly entertaining) filmography of Lucio Fulci
to see ample evidence of such pitfalls. Yet Argento masterfully uses this
quirky attribute to his advantage. He takes the opportunity to thoroughly coat Deep Red in a cloak of pulsating sound
waves. Most impressive of all is the earth-shattering electric score by Claudio
Simonetti and his instrumental rock band Goblin. At once playful and appallingly
sinister, Simonetti crafts a score that very nearly defines the film. Argento
would team up with Goblin again for Suspiria,
Inferno (1980), and other later works.
The use of sound in Profondo Rosso is made even more impactful
by the brilliant placement of silence.
Constant music assaulting one’s ears has become the order of the day in post-millennial
Hollywood. Rather than take such a route, Argento augments his approach by fading
the music out completely in many scenes. Instead, all we hear is a
breath-taking silence broken only by Marc’s footsteps in a hallway, or the
creaking of some unknown evil on the rooftop. The wall of sound that blasts at
the precise moment is made all the more effective when coming from the sonic
void.
For all this, the magic of Profondo Rosso is not in the sight, or
the sound, but in the experiencing. I mentioned before that the film is not one
that is watched, it is taken in. A personal statement – there is no film I have
ever seen (and I’ve seen plenty) that is as rewarding with multiple viewings as
this one. So go, explore it for yourself!
Dario
Argento’s Deep Red.
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