Dario Argento

Agreed! Compare it to Carpenter's work. Carpenter has some "longish" expositions, but I think his expositions actually are needed and helpful because they successfully pull you into an atmospheric world every time (and he usually has a killer soundtrack that "lays out the carpet"--as he puts it). Dario's expositions are there just to add to the mystery and story element seems like, and are not tremendously needed to get the main points across. I can probably list some exact examples. For instance, I remember watching a 10 minute scene in Deep Red. I understand exactly what Dario was doing for the scene, and the first 4 minutes for example, do not add to the mystery, plot, or the suspense at all...it seems like complete filler material. I'm hoping that I'm not alone in thinking this--hopefully my attention span is staying nice and full as it always has been!


I agree that tighter editing should be done for his films. Many of his films are about 110 minutes long. They would be much better with some careful editing to drop them around 90 minutes; standard movie length.


Remember, that even stoners don't like the long and over-tedious stuff. Long and tedious stuff gets even more apparent and bothersome in that state of mind. I would think that even if they were stoned during editing, that they should have caught this right off the bat. Maybe they were on something else. I do enjoy the quirkiness and the techniques that Dario uses and I still plan to see more of him as they really lay out his style. I just think that with some better editing, they would be much more rewatchable.


Deep Red is a great watch, though!



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Originally Posted by Brian Conrad /forum/post/20809810


It's interesting to note that many of those films were made MOS (Motor On Sync)

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I prefer the story that says "MOS" stands for "mit out sound."

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so they ADR'd all the dialog even the Italian. Apparently that allowed carpenters to continue working on adjacent sets rather than shutting down during a scene. Can't imagine how difficult that might have been for the actors though.

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In most Italian film productions of the era, the cast was made up of a multi-national mix of actors all speaking different languages. They would read their dialogue in whatever their native tongue happened to be, and everything would be dubbed over later.


Fellini, for example, was famous for not even writing the dialogue to his movies until post-production. He'd have his actors read their grocery lists or say whatever came to mind. He also like to yell direction at the actors while the cameras were rolling.

I've only seen a handful but Suspiria tops the list. I wasn't sold on the hype after my first viewing years ago but I've grown to appreciate it more on subsequent viewings. I thought Deep Red was just OK. FFoGV could have been decent but a lot of it didn't make sense to me. Seemed like the editing was off on it. Maybe a revisit is in order.


1. Suspiria

2. Tenebrae

3. Inferno

4. Deep Red

5. Opera

6. Four Flies on Grey Velvet


Fenders have you seen Stage Fright? Directed by Dario's protege Michele Saovi - who also did Dellamorte Dellamore aka Cemetery Man. I thought it was a good time. If you like Argento's giallos then check it out.

I remember being turned onto Argento a few years ago during October Horrorfest. I ordered the trilogy (Suspiria, Inferno and Mother of Tears) and had some mixed feelings about the set. The one thing that I commented on (especially with Suspiria) was that the voices clearly did not match what the actors were actually saying and that their facial expressions seemed way out of context at times. Later, someone pointed out how he used actors from several different nationalities and that they were all speaking in their native languages. This came as a surprise but it made sense with what I was seeing.


One thing I didn't know that was pointed out earlier in this thread was that they were not even speaking lines that had anything to do with the film (grocery lists, etc). Now that, to me, is pretty bush-league. It definitely explains why some of the scenes seemed so out of place in Suspiria. I still enjoyed the films for what they were but it was hard to ignore how ridiculous some of the scenes were. I am still up to try out more of Argento's work though. Maybe Deep Red needs to make it into my Horrofest list this year.


EDIT: Ok, just read back through this thread and it appears that the grocery list thing was something that Fellini did, not Argento. My bad. Although, it still seems quite plausible that perhaps Argento was using the same technique in his movies.

Argento is only for those who can look beyond the filming techniques of the 70's. The dubbing is going to be noticeable and many cannot deal with it.


Then, when he got into the 80's and had more actors working under him who actually spoke English, he fell apart creatively (more on that below). His mega-budgeted OPERA is such a piece of garbage that it boggles the mind and it was all downhill from there (my opinion of course, but the script is truly lame).


For me, all of his films are worth watching up to Tenebrae, which is my second favorite. Deep Red is tops for me and Suspiria third (it would be first, but it's a case of all the good stuff being front loaded, so it kinda peters out in the 3rd act).


Inferno is worth watching once. Plumage and Cat 'O Nine Tail both entertain and have good camerawork. Even Four Flies is kinda cool.


Phenomena is a mess. It has some really outstanding scenes and atmosphere, but the script was written by the monkey that appears in the film.


Trauma... Again, the script was bad. Just rotten and filled with implausibilities.


Then you get his later stuff and it ranges from disheartening (Sleepless) to cover your eyes bad (Phantom of the Opera, Mother of Tears, the Card Player, Stendal Syndrome).


Argento no longer can make films that cost more than a budget four door, so not only are the scripts bad, but the films look incredibly cheap.


I think it all goes back to the loss of his muse, Daria Nicolodi.She co-wrote Deep Red, Suspiria and Inferno. When she left him, Argento lost his better half. Literally.