Cinematic Style and Influence on the Italian Thriller Genre
Dario Argento (born September 7, 1940, in Rome) is a film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and critic. His father, Salvatore Argento, was a film producer originally from Sicily; his mother, Elda Luxardo, was a Brazilian fashion photographer of Italian descent. Argento attended a Catholic secondary school, but dropped out after two years and moved to Paris, where he lived for a year working as a dishwasher. Upon returning to Italy in 1957, the 16-year-old Argento began working as a film critic, writing for magazines and as a columnist for the Rome-based newspaper Paese Sera, where he developed a reputation for promoting genre films.
Influenced by the cinema of Hitchcock and Mario Bava, Argento went on to become one of the defining voices in Italian genre cinema. His pioneering work in the horror genre throughout the 1970s and 1980s, notably in the giallo subgenre, earned him the titles “Master of the Thrill” and “Master of Horror.”
While still working at Paese Sera, Argento also began writing screenplays. One of his most notable works during this period was as the story writer, alongside Bernardo Bertolucci, of Sergio Leone‘s Spaghetti Western epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
Argento began work on his directorial debut, the giallo film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970), which was a major hit in Italy. He continued to concentrate largely on the giallo genre, directing two more successful thrillers, The Cat o’ Nine Tails (Il gatto a nove code, 1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (4 mosche di velluto grigio, 1972). Along with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, these three films are frequently referred to as Argento’s “Animal Trilogy,” scored by Ennio Morricone, and inaugurated a brief but successful season of the Italian thriller.
The director then turned his attention away from giallo movies, filming two Italian TV dramas and a period comedy, The Five Days (Le cinque giornate, 1973). Argento returned to thrillers with Deep Red (1975), frequently cited by many critics as the best giallo ever made. The film made Argento known internationally and inspired other directors to work in the genre. Deep Red represents the perfect equilibrium of his baroque and visionary thriller style, incorporating elements of parapsychology and a violence that signaled his subsequent shift toward gothic horror, establishing a formula that would influence numerous national and international filmmakers.
Argento’s next film was Suspiria (1977), a supernatural horror. He planned for Suspiria to be the first of a trilogy about “The Three Mothers,” three ancient witches residing in three different modern cities. The second film of the trilogy was Inferno (1980). The Mother of Tears (2007) concluded the trilogy.
In 1978, Argento collaborated with George A. Romero on Dawn of the Dead, earning a producer credit and also providing soundtrack work for the zombie film alongside his long-time collaborators Goblin. Argento oversaw the European release of the film, where it was titled Zombi, which was much shorter and featured more of Goblin’s score.
After Inferno, Argento returned to the more conventional giallo style with Tenebrae (1982). He then attempted to combine giallo and supernatural fantasy in Phenomena (1985), also known as Creepers, which was one of Jennifer Connelly‘s earliest movies, and which showcased Argento’s predilection for new technology through its extensive use of Steadicam. Argento subsequently took a break from directing to write two screenplays for Lamberto Bava: Dèmoni (1985) and Dèmoni 2 (1986). He returned to directing with Opera (1987), rounding out his most celebrated period.
John Carpenter has frequently cited the influence Argento’s early work had on Halloween (1978). Despite not always receiving adequate recognition from Italian critics, Argento became an object of cult appreciation above all in France, where in 1999 a complete retrospective was dedicated to him at the Cinémathèque française, and in the United States, where an extensive body of critical writing about his work exists.
Argento had a professional and romantic relationship with Italian actress and screenwriter Daria Nicolodi; they met in 1974 during casting for Deep Red, and their daughter Asia Argento was born in 1975. Nicolodi co-wrote Suspiria and appeared in several of his films. Asia Argento would later become a significant presence in her father’s work, appearing in Trauma (1993), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), The Phantom of the Opera (1998), The Mother of Tears (2007), and Dracula 3D (2012).