Prelude to the Sighs: Dario Argento's Suspiria

            A girl runs dashing into the rain. She hails three taxis before one stops to pick her up. There is nothing blatantly out of place with the scene, yet it is unnaturally bathed in dizzying red and green and yellow glows. Slowly, distantly, emerge the strains of jarring, erratic music layered over discordant, whispered voices – “La la la la la la… WITCH!!!” And so begins the delirious trip down the rabbit hole that is Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977).

            Suspiria has often been labeled as Argento’s career-defining masterpiece. The legions of fans devoted to his unique filmography are frequently divided between this film and his preceding giallo opus Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso) [1975]. In the mid-1970s, Argento was undeniably at the height of his career. His first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (aka L’ucello dalle piume di cristallo) [1970], announced his presence as a major new talent. But after half a decade of being the ‘Italian Hitchcock’ it was time for a change.

            Suspiria, roughly translated ‘the sighs’, was a major departure for Argento in almost every way. Aesthetically it retains many benchmarks of his early works, yet exaggerated by vibrant colors and even more so by practically tuneless jazz-influenced music by Claudio Simonetti. The most dramatic shift is thematic. Where every preceding film Argento made centered on the giallo blueprint of stylized violence combined with Hitchcockian mystery, Suspiria takes a sharp left turn into the supernatural.

            At its core, the film is a simple story. Suzy Bannion comes to Germany to enroll in a dance academy boarding school, supposedly the best in Europe. There she encounters strange happenings – maggots, drugged wine, disappearances, and murder. And the otherworldly suspicion that her school is run by a coven of witches!

           

Art is not often synonymous with horror filmmaking. Cinematic explorations of death or evil are so many times relegated to easily digestible personal dramas or historical epics. Films such as Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) make ample use of evil as a thematic element or dramatic subject. Yet it is this self-aware philosophy aimed at making sense of the senselessness that drives such works from sincerity into the realm of pretense.

Central to the effectiveness of Suspiria is its preoccupation with evil. No rhyme, no reason - just evil for evils sake. This is what sets the film apart from the pretentious ruminations that occupy your modern neighborhood cineplex. In truth, Argento’s movie doesn’t seek any sort of answers. Witches commit evil because they can and that’s it. There is no mystery to it. Perhaps the art of the film is revealed because of this stubborn refusal to explain anything.

The only scene of exposition to be found (where Suzy goes to meet a professor to find out about witchcraft) does not really provide all that much information beyond what we need to know. In fact, it serves primarily to further the audience’s sense of foreboding, rather than lend any explanation to the seemingly unconnected series of murders and strange happenstance.

This does not mean Suspiria does not have a plotline, it does. It’s just a very simple one. The fact of the matter is that story just isn’t the point here. What is happening and why takes a backseat to the aesthetic look and feel. This is classic Dario Argento.  In a day in age when plot is considered paramount, this may seem off-putting to the everyday viewer. But one willing to delve a little deeper will find that dazzling, psychedelic wonders await within.

Anyone familiar with the director’s work knows the signature one-two punch of sight and sound that identifies a picture as an ‘Argento film’. For all the departures from form to be found in Suspiria, the aggressive scoring and indelible visuals (including the trademark ‘hands of the murderer’ sequences) are completely intact and better than ever! No filmmaker understands the potential of color like Dario Argento. Here every frame is awash in neon hues. The resultant mesmerizing color palette is as responsible for setting the mood in each scene as the actors and actresses. The steady camera work is remarkably precise, yet never feels forced or unnatural, realizing each frame as its own sort of moving still life. The end product is a film that seems a sort of living, breathing watercolor painting filled to the brim with fairy tale horrors beyond count.

            Just as responsible for this artistic impact is the score composed by Claudio Simonetti and his instrumental rock band Goblin. Having previously been discovered by Dario Argento and employed for Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso), Goblin provides an electric, aggressive sound that not so much compliments a film as it assaults the viewers ears.

            In Suspiria, the soundtrack is a startling amalgam of electric rock, experimental free-form (á la The Doors’ Horse Latitudes), and avant-garde jazz. The music fades in and out at odd and inopportune moments. The effect is the audience is kept in a state of unease that works expertly to the films advantage.

            The title theme ‘Suspiria’ is sensual, childish, and evocatively unsettling. Like the children’s lullaby in Deep Red, it is used to telegraph the unknown. The simple melody played on a glockenspiel calls to mind a music box with a dancing china ballerina – oddly appropriate for a film set in a dance academy, and yet inexplicably ominous at the same time.

            The combined effect of audio and visual is an off-balance sort of atmosphere, as though the audience has been transported suddenly into a sinister sort of déjà vu fairy tale. A waking nightmare of witches, murderous illusions, and rooms filled completely with barbed wire. Such evil depicted with callous disregard for decorum often descends into exploitation and throw away double bills such as Torso (aka Il corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale) [1973] or Thriller: A Cruel Picture (aka Thriller- en grym film) [1973] – both of which feature an endless barrage of salaciousness, depravity, and violence.

            Yet Suspiria circumvents these conventions while somehow simultaneously displaying the evils they shamelessly exploit. Therein lay the art of the film and the brilliance of Dario Argento. He seems to understand the deep-seated psychological roots of human fear – the unknown, the supernatural, the mystical – and the need for us to vent these apprehensions vicariously. The colors, sounds, conspiracies, dark corridors, unexplainable bumps in the night… All serve to channel our subconscious fears and turn them into an onscreen experience. This is the art of Suspiria.

            After the film’s success, Argento would continue his career with many successful films in the 1980’s and 1990’s, including Inferno (1980; a sequel to Suspiria), Tenebre (1982), and even films starring his daughter Asia Argento like The Stendhal Syndrome (1996). But in spite of the brilliance of these later works, none would match the operatic power and artistic heights of Suspiria.

            Like all of his films, Suspiria cannot simply be watched, it must be experienced. Truthfully, despite the author’s best efforts, this analysis is woefully inadequate in doing the film justice. Quite simply, it is a ‘must-see’!

            So go check it out! Like the iconic poster declares: “The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of Suspiria, are the first 92!”

God's Will: The Last Temptation of Christ

            Let me begin by first saying that the Jesus Christ I believe in, have given my life to, is definitely not the person that is the focal point of director Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. But neither is he Scorsese’s picture of the Son of God. The image of Jesus presented here is the central character to Nikos Kazantzakis’ 1953 novel of the same name. Indeed, the title card says as much when the film begins – “This film is not based upon the Gospels but this fictional exploration of the eternal spiritual conflict.” So it is not about Christ at all, really, but instead about the internal struggle in all of us, as humans, to understand the divine and, in light of that divinity, to discern our own purpose.

            I must admit, even before I saw the film, I was confused as to why there has been so much controversy over it. At heart, I am a very intellectual person and therefore have never been able to escape the thought that all we know about the life of Christ comes from a book written by several different people, all from their own respective points of view nearly two thousand years ago. Add to that the fact that the original transcripts of these writings are long gone and the versions we have now have been translated and translated and translated so many times at varying degrees of accuracy that the result is essentially tantamount to a sort of millennial game of telephone. Just stop for a second and think: how badly does a single phrase get botched when passed around the room for five minutes between fifteen people? Now multiply that by two thousand years, dozens of languages (some no longer spoken), practically seismic shifts in the way doctrines have been interpreted, and then filter that through the lens of science and sifter of history. What do you have? The answer is simple: Faith.

            Faith that the God you worship has preserved His message for generations upon generations. Faith that you have been endowed with sufficient faculties to pick apart and understand that message. Faith in the purest, simplest sense. From this perspective, The Last Temptation of Christ may very well be the most accurate and profound depiction of the person of Jesus Christ ever committed to film because it is the only film that deals with the heart of the struggle we have as humans to have faith in a God so far beyond our own comprehension. Every other film I can think of that deals with the life of Christ centers on his actions. From Cecil B. Demille’s King of Kings (1927) (and its 1961 remake) to The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) to The Passion of the Christ (2004), all of these films relate the life of Christ – his miracles, his teaching, his death, and of course his resurrection. But The Last Temptation of Christ is the only one that endeavors only to explore the person of Christ, specifically his humanity.

            The point in saying all of this is to implore each viewer to take the film on its own terms. As an individual work of art it does not claim to portray the Jesus of the Bible, nor does it desire to slander God and those who follow Him. Rather it is a filmmaker’s own personal faith journey. Unlike the purposefully satirical Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (1979) or the terrible, blatantly antagonistic Year One (2009), Scorsese’s film does not seek to be irreverent nor does it desire to rewrite Scripture. It wants to wrestle with the mystery of Christ – the paradox of someone completely God and yet completely human. Like Kazantzakis’ novel, the film does not pretend to have answers to its questions. And it certainly does not build itself upon a proselytizing of beliefs.

            For every license taken with the Gospel story, there is a scene dramatized directly from the Bible. The Sermon on the Mount is a wonderful example! After saving Mary Magdalene from stoning, Jesus tells his first parable. The scene is inspiring and recognizable, and innocently punctuated by his audience’s humorous misinterpretation of his message, “Kill the rich!!!” “No wait, I said LOVE! Not kill!” In one short moment, the film seems to be self aware; as if it knows that it is being scrutinized. If they ‘get it wrong’, so what? Jesus’ own audience missed the point even when they were there to hear it! The Last Temptation of Christ is endeavoring to wrestle with Christ’s humanity, and it is not afraid to make mistakes along the way.

            Truthfully, what better way to wrestle with the human nature of Christ than to examine the temptations of being human? The titular last temptation is not in fact a sin as we would understand it. The Jesus of the film is not tempted to steal, murder, or slander. He is tempted to live a normal life – a life with a family, a good wife and children and grandchildren. This ideal is in fact one of the great goals of life that we are all taught from an early age. This is what to strive for! Yet for Jesus, this temptation would mean abandoning his purpose, and condemning the world to an existence apart from God.

            Scorsese chooses to portray Jesus Christ as a man unaware of his divinity. If the films decriers were to choose an aspect to focus on, this should probably be it, instead of the temptation sequence at the end of the film where Jesus glimpses what could await him if he should choose to give in and live a normal life. There is a certain, unavoidable logic to the concept of Christ as we understand him. To be completely God as well as completely human, he must be unequivocally aware of his identity as the Son of God.

            In spite of this, the director’s decision to portray him as unaware serves as a marvelous template for which to paint his picture of the human versus divine struggle within each of us. In the film, the divinity of Jesus is revealed as he finally commends his spirit to God and willingly becomes the sacrificial lamb for humanity’s sin. In his mind’s eye he screams, “I want to be Your son! I want to be the Messiah!” And then, it is accomplished.

            It is as if Scorsese is telling us that to overcome our humanity, we must give ourselves to God. The struggle between two halves is not truly a struggle at all, but rather our own stubborn resistance to the will of God, and the plan He has for our lives. This is stated no plainer than in an early scene where Jesus is talking to his mother Mary. He hears a voice telling him he is more than he seems. Fighting it causes him great pain, and Mary says, “How do you know it is God? What if it is the devil? Devils can be cast out.” And Jesus replies, “What if it is God? You can’t cast out God, can you?”

            Indeed you cannot. That is the story of the entire picture. No matter if Jesus chooses to disobey or not, God will not leave him alone. He goes through phases trying to understand God’s will and carry it out. First he believes his message is to be exclusively love. After his fasting in the desert, he tries to marry love with action, with revolution. Yet neither of these concepts, together or apart, is enough to satisfy the drive to reconcile his humanity with God’s nature. He finally comes to the idea that he must sacrifice himself to gain this reconciliation, though he does not understand why he feels that must be so. In the end, all of his attempts to understand are revealed to be the same sort of resistance. Understanding is not so much attained through doing as it is through abandoning one’s self to the love, mercy, and divine plan of God.

            When Jesus declares, “I want to be the Messiah!” he is not making the declaration of himself as an ultimate purpose or defining action. What he is really revealing is his final willingness to be whatever God has meant him to be all along. He is giving up his resistance, his humanity, in order to give himself fully to God. It is in this that he is revealed to be God, because who truly has the power to do such a thing, except the Lord himself?

            In the end, The Last Temptation of Christ is not about Jesus. Therefore it is not a heresy. It is about us – about our own constant resistance to God. Our own inability to comprehend a Creator that loves us, judges us, gives us grace, and asks only for love in return, yet wills us to reach beyond ourselves. When you watch this incredible, soul-searching film, remember: It is not Jesus Christ you are seeing, it is your own duality, the human and spiritual natures that make you a child of God.

Growing Violence: Peckinpah's Cross of Iron

            The War Film, just like any genre of filmmaking, has a distinct ebb and flow to its popularity. Horror cycles through stretches of slashers, hauntings, and remakes both foreign and domestic. The current phase for romances seems to be an endless output of Nicholas Sparks adaptations and comedy is indisputably ruled by Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen. For the most part, every genre of film is always in some way present. War, however, is unique in that it goes through long periods without being present at all. These ‘dry spells’ – arguably the result of social and political atmosphere – are almost invariably followed by sudden floods of films, often kicked off by a new and daring entry in the genre.

            A few examples of this… the 1960’s were filled to the brim with patriotic films about World War II. Aside from the lesser known genre from Italy known as ‘Macaroni Combat’ (obviously a pairing with ‘Spaghetti Western’), the 1970’s does not boast a wealth of war films. Now, before you yell out Apocalypse Now (1979) or The Deer Hunter (1978), I am compelled to state the former is at its core a creative adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the latter is much more about life after Vietnam, not the war itself. In any case, it was not until Platoon (1986) won four Academy Awards and opened the gates for a rush of pictures about the Vietnam conflict that the genre exploded once more. Incidentally, a very similar situation was created for a second time with the release of Saving Private Ryan in 1998. Since then we have had The Thin Red Line (1998), The Patriot (2000), Band of Brothers (2001), Enemy at the Gates (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), The Lost Battalion (2001), Windtalkers (2002), We Were Soldiers (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Flyboys (2006), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), and finally The Pacific (2010) – a late-comer to be quite honest. Things have arguably slowed down again (the only entry of late being 2012’s Act of Valor). But I am of the opinion that it is when the audience believes it has ‘seen it all’ that filmmakers take the time and effort to make something truly special. Such is the case with Sam Peckinpah’s 1977 film Cross of Iron.

            Cross of Iron is undeservedly obscure in the canon of American war films. In fact, it is much more likely that the average movie-goer would recognize titles such as To Hell and Back (1955) or Pork Chop Hill (1959). Of course, this might easily be explained away by its company upon release: Star Wars… Also, it may not have helped that it focused on World War II, a conflict audiences were frankly bored with by that point, as well as the fact that it centered on a platoon of Nazi soldiers on the unfamiliar Russian front. Though Sam Peckinpah was well-known and loved as the director of The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971), his films were already being lumped in with associations of art and pretense. The cinematic atmosphere in Hollywood in 1977 was fresh, exciting, and all about the blockbuster. Chalk up one more casualty to Steven Spielberg and his damned Great White thrill ride.

            Though many overlooked films from decades past have found a new life on home video, Cross of Iron still wallows in the dungeons of hard-to-find. The UK seems to have a healthy respect for great masterpieces, as the film has recently been given a stunning new blu-ray transfer – exclusively on Region B. For those of us on this side of the pond, we will have to make do with Hen’s Tooth Video’s average dvd for $19.95 plus shipping. Curses. Nevertheless, it is an experience well worth the expense. For Cross of Iron is most certainly one of the greatest war films ever made!

            There are three overriding themes present in Cross of Iron: The folly of heroism, the burden of leadership, and the concept of war as life. The last is easily the most forward and pervasive, but the other two are equally hard to miss. This comes from the simple truth that heroism and leadership are both inextricably linked to the waging of war; therefore as Peckinpah explores the connections between wartime and living, he very naturally explores these concepts as well.

            Corporal (soon to be Sergeant) Steiner – played the great James Coburn – is introduced at the beginning of the film as what we assume will be the classic war hero archetype we expect. This expectation is quickly and effectively dashed however, when we see his callousness towards the death of young boys used as forward guard by the Soviet army. He also apparently contradicts himself by allowing one of them to live, even refusing to shoot him when ordered to by the new “heroic horse’s ass” Captain Stransky. Steiner is staunchly independent and dismissive of his commanding officers even as they laud and praise him for his selfless bravery in combat. He does not style himself as a hero, and challenges the audience to forgo thinking of him in any such way. Heroism is just another word for foolishness. The audience can see as much when Lieutenant Meyer leads the counterattack against Soviet forces and ends his birthday with a bayonet and a bullet.

            Indeed, Steiner knows all too well what comes from being a hero. When Stransky demands an answer as to why he did not search for one of his platoon members gone missing, Steiner replies that it seemed “unwise to risk the safety of the platoon for just one man”. This is a principle that he will disregard later on when his entire mission becomes to get his men home at any cost, but even as he takes revenge for the dead, he stops just short of its completion. It is as if he knows that the ultimate retribution for the injustices of war would make him a hero, and that is something he will never allow himself to be.

            The irony of Steiner’s refusal to be a hero is that his choice forces him to be the ideal in leadership. As Captain Keisel (played by David Warner) says, “Steiner is a myth. Men like him are our last hope.” Peckinpah uses the setting of an army in full retreat as an opportunity to put the various burdens of leadership under the microscope, and to examine the reactions of those forced to bear them. Colonel Brandt (James Mason) is the tired, seasoned leader. Captain Keisel is cynical, but undeniably loyal. Captain Stransky is everything detestable – manipulative, self-serving, with a monstrous superiority complex – and Steiner simply loves his men. Each of these personalities must clash, whether fruitlessly or by necessity, with the monster of war. And in turn, each outcome is vastly different.

            Above all, the gorilla in the room is the war. Unlike many seminal classics such as Full Metal Jacket (1987) or the aforementioned We Were Soldiers, Cross of Iron never presents the audience with a glimpse of the home the soldiers incessantly talk about, nor the fabled peace that existed before and surely will come to exist again. The war has always existed, it seems. Or at least, it has existed so long that our characters can remember nothing else.

            This concept of war as life unveils itself directly in two jarring scenes. The first takes place at a rear-area hospital. Soldiers there are visited by a high-ranking officer who presents them with a gift of vegetables (rare for enlisted men in wartime). The green, healthy, growing things – a symbol of life in all cultures – are then ravenously attacked by the patients, like a horde of zombies after brains.

            The second scene happens much later, when Steiner and his platoon, marching back to friendly lines, come across a group of female Soviet soldiers. Though Steiner tries his utmost to keep his troops from engaging in any sexual activity with the women, he is not entirely successful. The result is two of his men meeting their fates at the hands of these femme fatales. Even sexuality, the very process by which life is created, must end in war and violence.

            Sergeant Steiner cannot comprehend the thought of going home, even when faced with the possibility. His nurse implores him, “The violence must end! It must!” He only laughs. A chance romantic encounter with her at the hospital ward is utterly shattered when he promptly suits up to return to the front. “Do you love the war so much?” she asks, “or are you afraid of what you will be without it?” He leaves without a word and only smiles again once he rejoins his men.

            If Steiner sees the war as his existence, Captain Stransky sees it as simply an opportunity for advancement. Much like the ill-fated Lieutenant Dyke in Band of Brothers, he only wishes to use his assignment in combat to continue his climb up the ladder. When Colonel Brandt asks him why he wanted any such post, he replies, “I want to win the Iron Cross.” Even as they laugh about his answer, there is an uneasy atmosphere that more than lightly intimates it was only half a jest.

            It is only Colonel Brandt, and his aide-de-camps Captain Keisel, who seem to have any notion whatsoever that life will go on long after the war is over. And even then, only the Colonel is capable of planning for it. “What will we do when we lose this war?” he asks. “Prepare of the next one,” Keisel answers. Even Keisel, for all his awareness and cynicism, is incapable of comprehending life without war.

            That does not stop Brandt from looking to the future, however. In the final death throes of the retreat, he forces Keisel to escape to Germany with the General’s staff. When he protests, Brandt simply says, “You're a brave man, braver than you think you are. One of these days there will be a need for brave civilians, had you thought of that? In the new Germany, if such a thing is allowed to exist, there will be need for builders, for thinkers, for poets. I begin to see now what your job is to be. I will make this my final order to you; you will search out and contact all of these better people, as you call them, and together you will take on the responsibility that goes with survival.”

            In the end, that is Peckinpah’s charge to his audience, to us. In this time in history, when war is everywhere: The USA and Terrorism, Africa and Itself, North Korea and Everyone. The need is for those who will look to peace. War is not life, even if we believe it so. The art of Cross of Iron is this: It is a declaration of war on war.

            The final scene of the film synthesizes these three themes and molds them together to cement Peckinpah’s ultimate statement. Steiner finds Captain Stransky in the abandoned command post as the Soviet Army overruns their position. Rather than kill him for the injustices he has committed, Steiner conscripts him into service and hands him a machine gun.

            “Alright,” Stransky says, “I will show you how a Prussian officer can fight!”

            “And I will show you,” Steiner replies, “where the Iron Crosses grow.”

Profondo Rosso: The Art of Silence

“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.