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deep red footnotes
cf. McDonagh op cit. pp. 108-110.
Wordless singing is a common feature of many 1970s gialli, with the voice being used more, in Kristeva-inspired terms, for its value as texure/chora than as a purveyor of more obvious linguistic meaning.
The last, of course, being Brooks' tribute to Hitchcock. Its giallo equivalent would be Sergio Corbucci's Atrocious Tales of Love and Death (1979)
cf. McDonagh. op cit. p. 77.
cf. Siegfried Kracauer Theory of Film: the redemption of physical reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1960.
cf. Needham op cit. p 135 for some examples of hybrid gialli.
The obvious reference point here would be William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973), a film which spawned the in-evitable Italian imitations such as Mario Bava's House of Exorcism (1975), although it is worth noting that Bava was unhappy with this cut of his own film, Lisa and the Devil (1973) by producer Alfredo Leone. See Howarth op cit. for a full analysis.
cf. Adrian Luther-Smith Blood and Black Lace: the definitive guide to Italian sex and horror films. Cornwall: Stray Cat. 1999. 'Introduction' .
cf. Needham op cit. p. 140.
For an examination of the role of fetishisation in film costume see Stella Bruzzi Undressing Cinema: clothing and identity in the movies. London: Routledge. 1997.
cf. Luther-Smith op cit; Needham op cit. p. 136.
cf. McDonagh op cit p. 115.
Argento interview on the US DVD of Deep Red.
The importance of sound rather than image in solving The Bird with the Crystal Plumage's mystery perhaps aligns it with Lang's M (1930) more than Hitchcock.
Daria Nicolodi has suggested that a Jewish influence is evident throughout Suspiria's production design: "Gi-useppe Bassan… combined his tastes with those of Dario and his Jewish background with mine. The set of Suspiria is a clear example of Jewish culture." (Quoted in Palmerini and Mistressa, p. 114.) It is ironic, then, that the most immediately obvious displays of Jewish iconography should be in Deep Red instead.
For a useful overview of the development of feminist film theory see Sue Thornham Passionate Detachments: An Introduction to Feminist Film Theory. London: Arnold. 1997.
Quite literally in many cases, given Argento's penchant for standing in for his murderers as performer.
On the set piece in Italian horror cinema see Totaro op cit. pp. 162-163.
Against this it can be noted that the giallo has sometimes been referred to as the telefono rosso or "red telephone" school of film-making, in ironic reference to the glossy "white telephone" films of the fascist era.
The frame, window and mirror metaphors come from Dudley Andrews' analysis of formative, realist and contem-porary (i.e. 1960s/70s) positions in The Major Film Theories.
cf. Howarth. op cit. p. 71.
Though, given the arguments of Colin MacCabe that cinema is organised around a hierarchy of discourses with the visual channel tending to assume a dominant position above the sound channel, it might be argued that Hitch-cock's film offers a different and equally radical challenge to conventional practice, as might indeed have been indi-cated by the notoriously hostile reactions to it. cf. "Realism in the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses" in Anthony Easthope (ed.) Contemporary Film Theory. Essex: Pearson. 1993. pp. 53-67.
We could thus draw a contrast with the competent, though equally gender-blinkered Inspector Moriosini in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
But not absolute, thereby showing the ridiculousness of Paul Coates' blanket statement that the private investiga-tor is unsuited to the - itself essentialised - 'German mindset'. cf. The Story of the Lost Reflection. London: Verso. 1985. pp. 64-65.
It has been suggested to me by Troy Howarth that Argento may himself have borrowed from the Pyjama Girl Case for Sleepless.
cf. Frank Burke Intimations (and more) of Colonialism. Essay at http://www.kinoeye.org/02/11/burke11.php.
As Needham notes, the detective and the analyst have much in common: "Along with psychoanalysis, detection was one of the great ends of nineteenth-century epistemology and it is by now a cliché to make the analogy between detective and analyst." op cit. p. 140.
For more on the doppelganger motif in Deep Red see McDonagh op cit. pp. 101-106.
While some of the gialli of Luciano Ercoli starring his wife Susan Scott/Nieves Navarro also exhibit something of a screwball comedy element, the breezy and campy qualities of films like Death Walks at Midnight (1972) are far removed from the deadly serious world of Argento's gialli.
Argento quoted on the French DVD of Cat o' Nine Tails, English translation and transcription at http://www.dark-dreams.co.uk/interviews/interview6.html
The presence of Clara Calamai as Martha, herself as an ex-actress, allows Argento here to make further intertex-tual references through the stills on Martha's wall of her - Calamai's - old roles, including Luchino Visconti's Ossessione which, as a free adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, could be read as a proto-giallo.
Ricci is actually played by a woman, Geraldine Hooper, a casting choice that like the transgendered Eva Rob-ins/Roberto Coatti in Tenbrae adds an extra frisson of gender confusion if one is aware of it, though Argento does not draw attention to the fact in either case.
cf. Barbara Creed, The Monstrous Feminine London: Routledge. 1993. pp. 139-140.
The Telephone segment of Mario Bava's 1963 anthology film Black Sabbath is a partial early exception, featuring a lesbian relationship that is presented in a surprisingly serious, comparatively non-exploitative manner, even if at the same time the spurned lover is engaged in a campaign of terror against her ex.
In The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Sam Dalmas encounters a swishy antiques dealer who seems to come on to him. However, that the man comments about not being bothered by his ex-employees lesbianism - "I'm no racist" - opens up the possibility of other interpretations, such as that both Dalmas and the viewer are misreading these self-same cues. In Cat o' Nine Tails one of the blackmailers is homosexual, though this hardly makes him stand out against a pervasive atmosphere of 'unhealthy' sexuality also including a quasi-incestuous relationship.
Having failed to crack his previous 84 cases, Arrosio feels that his success this time is inevitable. His mistaking correlation for causation along the lines of the "gambler's fallacy" and success this time round lead, ironically, to his demise. Although he does not mention the film, Aaron Smuts discusses similar notions of causality with reference to Deep Red at http://www.kinoeye.org/02/11/smuts11.php
There is clearly something to be said here about the equation of sexual 'perversion' and fascism, a point also evi-dent in the likes of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo (1975) and the Nazi-exploitation filone of the mid-1970s.
A similar device would also used within Sleepless, where Asia Argento supplied a macabre Roald Dahl/Edward Gorey style nursery rhyme for her father.
In Inferno and Tenbrae the theft of books, rather than their damage, leads to death. Outwith Argento's work a ge-neric link to Roman Polanski's neo-noir, Chinatown (1974) and the activities of investigator Jake Gittes is also per-haps evident.
The same story, of course, that has also furnished many psychoanalytic interpretations.
We might cynically question whether it would not have been easier for Martha to kill Daly there and then, rather than starting a fire and leaving him in the burning building.
Lucio Fulci would borrow the idea of burning books from Argento for his City of the Living Dead and The Be-yond.
I owe the starting point for this analysis to Needham's remarks: "I am confident in suggesting that the familiar black raincoat associated with the giallo killer stems from continental fashion trends in the 1960s and has since shifted its meaning over the decades to become the couture choice of the assassin by default in addition to serving as one of the giallo's most identifiable visual tropes." op cit. p. 136.
See, for example, Pupi Avati's The House with the Windows that Laughed (1976), Lucio Fulci's The Psychic (1977) and Antonio Bido's The Cat's Victims and The Bloodstained Shadow (1977 and 1978 respectively).
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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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