week of 1/15/03
 
 
 

'Picture Show'
By Gary Carden

Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror
Color. 97 minutes - DVD $17.99 - Image Entertainment.


This remarkable DVD presents a mesmerizing biography of the Italian (horror) film-maker Dario Argento. The film includes testimonials from an impressive assembly, including such American icons as John Carpenter (“Vampires”), George Romero (“Night of the Living Dead”) and the musician Alice Cooper, who considers Argento to be the world’s greatest master of “visual nightmare.” A series of testimonials from actors include such notables as Piper Laurie, Keith Emerson and Jessica Harper. There are also “on the set” documentations of Dario at work with his father, brother and daughters (both actresses who talk candidly about their father’s love of “operatic gore.” The film also includes a generous assortment of Dario’s most horrendous and visually stunning scenes.

For anyone unacquainted with Dario’s 12 most famous films, be forewarned: An appreciation of such films as “Suspiria” “Deep Red” or “Opera” is definitely an acquired taste. When most American audiences encounter a Dario film for the first time, the response may be a kind of moral outrage and repugnance. In addition, the films are not “linear” in composition. That means that action and plot do not progress in a conventional manner, but appear disjointed and dream-like. Consequently, there may be considerable uncertainty as to where and when the action is taking place. Character relationships are uncertain, motivation is whimsical, acting is often wooden and uninspired, and endings are often abrupt. In other words, Dario’s films may not make any sense to the average moviegoer.

To an ardent Dario fan, such considerations are inconsequential. The true merit of an Argento film is artistic. Frequently, color, lighting and composition come together in a visual blend that is breathtaking. Suddenly, in the midst of a chilling horror scene, the viewer finds himself looking at lush and sensual colors that merge in a kind of animated painting. A rain-washed street bathed in moonlight, the facade of an ancient cathedral or the gradual spread of a blood stain from a sheer nightgown to the mosaic tile in a bathroom — all is rendered with an artist’s eye for effect. John Carpenter notes that “Dario has little or no interest in actors or character development. His primary love is composition, color and texture.”

After viewing six Argento films, I am beginning to understand what Carpenter means. Although I am not quite sure what “Suspiria” is about, I will never forget the image of the blind man crossing a moonlit street before a towering church ... just before his guide dog turns on him and rips his throat out. I am not likely to forget the musical score in this scene either — a staccato organ beat with a strange vocal score of whines, screams and sighs. Certainly, I have to concede that there is nothing as innovative as this technique in American horror films. Then, there is the surreal underwater sequence in “Inferno” in which the actress Eleonora Giorgi inexplicably enters an abandoned building, finds an opening in the basement into an underwater world and plunges into a subterranean house filled with Victorian paintings, plush carpets and floating corpses. Why is she there? Why this foolhardy descent? Well, she dropped her car keys, you see! But, all of those troubling questions are forgotten in the strange, hypnotic silence of this drowned house where fish flit through the pastel waters. [Or consider the monstrous cloud of insects that descend on Jennifer Connley’s dormitory, which is an equally disturbing scene, or the visual pyrotechnics in “The Stendhal Syndrome” in which the heroine is literally engulfed/absorbed by paintings in an art museum.]

There are numerous disturbing themes that run through these movies. One of the most prominent is the murder of beautiful women. Often, they are decapitated, impaled or slashed to death. When Argento is questioned about these gory episodes, he answers good-naturedly that he simply likes to murder beautiful women. Indeed, some of his most stunning (and horrifying) visual effects have to do with the gruesome murders of women, such as a tracking shot that follows a bullet through a keyhole and through the victim’s skull, or a brutal stabbing that is filmed from “within” the body of the victim.

Another theme that Dario readily acknowledges is the large number of voyeuristic tracking shots — scenes that appear to be filmed from the point of view of an assassin. Dario concedes that he is merely making a frank acknowledgement of the “peeping Tom” nature of watching/making film. We are all voyeurs. Perhaps this is most apparent in his film “Opera” in which his tortured heroine is bound, gagged — and her eyes forced to remain open (a line of needles taped to her face to keep the eyelids raised). She is an unwilling voyeur, forced to watch the murder of her friends in an old theater amid thunderous arias and baroque stage sets.

Dario also readily admits that he dislikes most actors, finding them egocentric, selfish and petty. He complains that they are nothing more than a “necessary evil.” Dario’s frequent disparaging comments about actors caused George Romero to note that he often felt that Dario would be content to make films with computer-generated actors.

Among the influences on Argento are two of special note: the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and the films of Ingmar Bergman. Dario has repeatedly noted that Poe’s tales are the prose equivalent of horror film. He has filmed several Poe short stories, the most notable being “Two Evil Eyes” which contains a scene from “The Pit and the Pendulum” that ranks with this director’s more bizarre. Dario’s debt to Bergman is largely reflected in his painstaking attention to composition. Light and shadow, and a tendency to use pulsing reds and neon blues are prominent in all Dario films.

At some point in his career, Argento was dubbed “the Italian Alfred Hitchcock” by a glib journalist. The name is remarkably inappropriate. As his daughter, Asia, notes, Hitchcock is Dario’s opposite. He is linear, logical, detached and structured — all of the things that Dario isn’t. However, Argento does share one personal quirk with Hitchcock — he is in all of his films. However, he restricts his appearance to the gloved hands of the killers who wield knives and axes.

At present, there is a growing Dario cult in America. Restricted largely to major universities, he is acquiring a following among university students and film buffs. When he makes personal appearances at film festivals and attends awards ceremonies, he is frequently pursued by fans carrying Argento posters for him to sign.

Perhaps what is most disconcerting about this film is the remarkable dichotomy between this tiny, wildly energetic man and the content of his works. At work, he appears to be a sort of manic elf, racing about excitedly, supervising all of the technical details himself. Weighing less than one hundred pounds, he resembles nothing so much as a slightly demented child who has been given the opportunity to make his most devious and imaginative dreams a reality.