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Argento was born in Rome on 07th September 1940 the son of movie producer Salvatore Argento. He started his career as a movie critic for the Rome daily Paese Sera.
He became a professional screenwriter aged 20 and joined Bernardo Bertolucci in writing the screenplay for Sergio Leone’s epic western Once Upon A Time In The West in 1967.
Several screenplays later, Argento caught the attention of Goffredo Lombardo, head of Titanus, an Italian film company, and consequently made his directing debut in 1970 with the bird with the crystal plumage. His father Salvatore was the producer on all his films up until ‘profondo rosso’ when Claudio Argento took over.
He has always taken a great interest in all aspects of the film making process to ensure that the end results is as near to his original vision as possible. He was certainly one of the first directors to see the possibilities of the steady cam and luma crane and has used them to their full potential. He even helps compose the music for some of his films, most notably profondo rosso, suspiria and dawn of the dead. |
| Many of his films are considered to be ‘giallo’. Giallo meaning yellow, which in turn came from the yellow covers of the penny-dreadful horror/thriller paperbacks that were sold in Italy. He has directed 18 films, ‘the bird with the crystal plumage', 'the cat’o’nine tails’, ‘five days in milan’, ‘four flies on grey velvet’, ‘profondo rosso’, ‘suspiria’, ‘inferno’, ‘tenebrae’, ‘phenomena’, ‘opera’, 'two evil eyes', ‘trauma’, ‘the stendhal syndrome', ‘phantom of the opera’, 'nonhosonno', 'il cartaio', 'ti piace hitchcock?', 'la terza madre' and 'giallo'. For more details see the filmography section. |
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He has also been involved in producing/writing films for others such as his protege Michele Soavi. Argento has also worked on three series for Italian television. In 1972, ‘The Door of Darkness’, in 1987 ‘Giallo’ & ‘Turno di notte’ in 1988. There are also three documentaries on Argento and his films, ‘dario argento's world of horror’, ‘dario argento: master of horror (dario argento's world of horror 2)’ and ‘the world of dario argento 3’.
Argento has even opened up a store and museum in Rome called ‘Profondo Rosso’. The store is comparable to Forbidden Planet in London, and has memorabilia from many horror, sci-fi and fantasy movies. In the basement of the store there are special effects from some of his films.
In November of 1997 Dario made a run for political office in Rome. |
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Giallo
(pronounced 'djallo, plural gialli) is an italian 20th century genre of literature and film, which in italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. In the English language, however, it is used in a broader meaning that is closer to the french fantastique genre, including elements of horror fiction and eroticism.
The word giallo is Italian for "yellow" and stems from the origin of the genre as a series of cheap paperback novels with trademark yellow covers.
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