Dario Argento

Dario Argento is a Réalisateur and Italian Scénariste born the September 7th 1940, with Rome (Italy).

Biography

Youth

Dario Argento was born with Rome in 1940. Wire of the producing Salvatore Argento and the fashion photographer Brésil ienne Elda Luxardo, it bathes as of its more young age in the universe of the cinema what will help it much at its beginnings of realizer. Nevertheless, during its adolescence, its relationship with his/her father is rather poor. He then decides to give up the college and to flee the family home to travel, initially to Italy then abroad. During this running away, he will live of expédients (he will be in particular plunger in modest restoring Paris IEN). On its return, he is engaged as critical for various magazines like the Roman daily newspaper Paese Will be . Its criticisms are in advance on the events which will take place later a few years in the Années 1960, in Italy and elsewhere: he expresses opinions with counter-current there, denouncing the censure on several occasions, trapping the reader more accustomed to critics conformists and consensual. It is during this period that it becomes aware of its talent of writing and decides to become scenario writer.

Beginnings

In 1967, in collaboration with Sergio Amidei, it writes its first scenario for the film Scusi, lei E favorevole O contrario? realized by Alberto Sordi . Will follow a Cord, a Colt of Robert Hossein (1968), the stagione dei sensi , the rivoluzione sessuale , Probabilità zero , Comandamenti per a gangster , the Legion of damnés the ( the legione dei dannati ) of Umberto Lenzi and Metti una will be has cena Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. In addition to its participation in the scenarios, it will coréalisera Five triggers of gold ( Oggi has to me… domani has you! ), Five armed men ( a cinque esercito di uomini ). It is however not credited with the credits with this last.

In 1969, Sergio Leone, eager to be surrounded by young film enthusiasts calls upon him and Bernardo Bertolucci to write the scenario of the film It was once in the West . This experiment is for him a revelation and it decides to be put at the realization.

Giallo

Little time afterwards, on vacation in Tunisia, Bertolucci makes him read Screaming Mimi (translated into French under the title the Beautiful one and the animal ) of Fredric Brown which he dreams to be able to adapt to the screen. None them not being able to obtain the rights, too much high, Dario Argento are inspired some to write to the scenario of the Giallo the Bird with the crystal plumage , which it wishes to carry out itself. Unfortunately, being realizer beginning, it does not find financing. He and his/her father creates then the production company SEDA (for S alvatore E D ario has rgento) and joins the Titanus of Goffredo Lombardo for coproduire film (Goffredo Lombardo will test, in vain thanks to the contract of Argento , to replace it after only 10 days of turning). The film will leave in 1969 and will benefit from an unexpected publicity, although macabre: a serial killer prevails in the area of Florence since 1968.

At the beginning of its career of realizer, it concentrates mainly on the Giallo. These films, just like the novels with yellow cover (yellow Giallo meaning in Italian) of which they are claimed, mix mystery and murder and take as a starting point the suspense films American to which are added scenes Baroque S of violence and excesses. Mario Bava is generally seen allotting the paternity of the kind, but it is the passion of Argento for this one which allowed the popularization of Giallo apart from Italy. This kind brought to him the recognition, and its single vision, the statute of author. Its style is then influenced by Mario Bava, Sergio Leone, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini.

After having carried out two others thrillers with success, the Cat-o'-nine-tails in 1971 and Four gray velvet flies in 1972 (these two films as well as the precedent form what some baptized the animal trilogy ), it moves away from the Giallo , carrying out two episodes of the televised series Carried It sul buio as well as a comedy, Five days in Milan ( Cinque giornate in original version), in 1973. Demolished by criticism, this film is that which Dario Argento less appreciates in its work. It returns to the thriller in 1975 with the Shivers of the anguish , often regarded as best Giallo never carried out. This film brings an international recognition to him and inspires many other realizers. It marks also the beginning of a long collaboration with the group of progressive Rock Italian Goblin .

It is during this period that, from its connection with Daria Nicolodi, is born his/her daughter, Asia Argento.

Supernatural years

Its following film, Suspiria , left in 1977, is a supernatural thriller extremely violent one and is regarded by much as its best film. Released of the constraints of the more conventional format of the giallo, Suspiria is an unreal test where the history and the characters have less importance than the sound or the image. Argento had expected that this film would be the first opus of a trilogy on the three mothers ( MATER suspiriarum , MATER tenebrarum and MATER lachrimarum ), three former witches living in 3 different modern cities (Freiburg, New York and Rome). The second shutter was Inferno in 1980, goes even further in the pure art. The trilogy of the three mothers is completed today thanks to the third opus left to Italy on September 31st entitled: Veined Terza with Asia Argento and Daria Nicolodi

In 1978 it takes part in the scenario and with the realization of the Paddle of dead the of George Romero and takes care of the Montage of the European version of film renamed Zombie. It will find Romero in 1990 for the realization of the Film to sketches Two eyes malefic inspired of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

After Inferno , it turns over to conventional Giallo with Tenebrae in 1982 then undertakes to combine giallo and supernatural in 1985 with Phenomena , one of first films of Jennifer Connelly. This film shows also the attraction of Argento for new technologies with its many catches with Steadicam. These two films are fairly well accommodated at their exit (although both were revalued thereafter) and Argento decides to move away temporarily from the realization to write two scenarios for Lamberto Bava, the son of Mario Bava , Demoni in 1985 and Demoni 2 in 1986

Opera leaves in 1987 and was, according to Dario Argento, a “very unpleasant experiment”. Being held during the production, with the Scala of Milan of the Macbeth of Verdi, the sudden film of many incidents that Argento suspecta caused by the “curse” weighing on Macbeth. The father of Argento dies during turning, the main actor, Vanessa Redgrave, countermands himself before the beginning of turning, Dario has more and more evil to work with his/her partner and collaborator Daria Nicolodi, and the actors and the team are the prey of minor incidents. The film is not a success in spite of the quality of the work of Argento on the color and the composition, and of the virtuosity of its play of camera.

The years 1990

In spite of this failure, of a test of Hollywood production, Trauma in 1993, and of a version of the the Phantom of the Opera in 1998, it continues to innovate. He is for example the first Italian realizer to use images generated by computer ( cgi ) in his film of 1996, the Syndrome of Stendhal . In these three films his/her daughter Asia Argento appears with the casting, which thus marked its beginnings in the cinema with solids main roles.

Critical studies

Its work or not comprises a profusion of allusions, obscure, with other films, with the literature, since the traditional Greeks to the popular novels, with the policy, the theories on the cinema or the literature, and even with its own films. This dense network of allusions, compound to its negligence of the history, its setting in detailed scene, its obsession for the scenes of dead Gore like its unforeseeable and erratic movements of camera are difficult to interpret.

Little work on him was published: the two more important publications are a study of Maitland McDonagh, Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams off Dario Argento , and a collection of posters and tests critical published by Gallant Chris entitled Art off Darkness . In France, Jean-Baptiste Thoret devoted several studies to him including, in 2002, Dario Argento. Magician of the fear , published by the Books of the cinema.

Although work on him is very few and are not published very often more, it acquired a network of fans in Italy and in the rest of the world. He is recognized little besides in the United States. Its kind of predilection, Giallo, is almost not recognized and its films are often seen labelled “Slasher Trash” or “Film of horror”, and are hardly diffused but in specialized rooms or schools of cinema.

Selective catalog of films

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