Dario Argento

Mother of all delays

Apparently even the film actually being in the can isn’t going to prevent further delays, because the latest news is that the Italian theatrical release of The Third Mother may be postponed until September, from the previously estimated April or May. On the plus side, we may get to see an official trailer soon.

DVD review: Masters of Horror: Pelts

Anchor Bay have put together a decent package for Pelts. The film is one of the weakest products to which Argento has ever attached his name, but it’s hard to find fault with the transfer or the quality of the (admittedly somewhat limited) extras. In any event, Argento completists are going to want to own this no matter what, so it gets the strongest recommendation I can give, considering the quality of the film itself.

Dario Argento cashes a pay-cheque with Pelts, his contribution to the second season of Masters of Horror. I investigate Anchor Bay’s R1 DVD, courtesy of DVD Pacific.

Deep Red… the Musical?

Oh my…

Mother of god, it’s the Mother of Tears!

Source: Dark Dreams

It’s only a few seconds, and it doesn’t appear to have been colour timed yet, but the first honest-to-god footage of Dario Argento’s upcoming The Third Mother has materialised online in a Cinecittà promo video hyping up this year’s major Italian movie releases (fast forward to around the 2-minute mark).

At this stage, it’s a little hard to form any definite opinions on the film, and the poor image quality and (I assume) lack of finished colour timing mean that this is unlikely to be respective of the final product, but this has got me quite psyched.

The Year in Review

2006 - the year of HD

Note: I’m not going to cover worldwide hot topics like the execution of Saddam Hussein or the continued botch-job that is the situation in Iraq. This is simply a set of personal musings about my own experiences this year.

On a technological front, by far the biggest development on the HMS Whimsy this year was the arrival of an HD DVD player - a late change from our original intention to pick up a Blu-ray player. Originally, I had expected to perhaps have half a dozen titles in high definition by the end of the year, but have in fact ended up with 21 (plus another two that Lyris bought). Certainly a number of these are films that I probably wouldn’t have bought had their been a better selection available, but still, if you’d told me that, a mere six months after its launch, the format would included crystal-clear copies of Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood, not to mention more obscure cult titles like An American Werewolf in London and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I wouldn’t have believed you. All in all, HD DVD got off to a great start in 2006, with I only hope will continue to be bettered in 2007.

Including both standard definition and high definition, I bought or received for review a total of 107 DVDs. I wrote 66 reviews for DVD Times (two down from last year’s record of 68), and went to the cinema a whopping two times. I watched 216 films (including those watched more than once), 99 of which I had never seen before. These tended to be of the more obscure variety, although I did see a number of “major” (both in the sense of being “important” and of being blockbusters that just about everyone ended up seeing) titles that had, for one reason or another, passed me by until last year, including Trains, Planes & Automobiles, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Blade Runner, Tout Va Bien, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Collateral, Corpse Bride, The Piano Teacher, Theatre of Blood, A History of Violence, V for Vendetta, 5x2, Bitter Moon, Walkabout, Fritz the Cat, Vertigo, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The Descent, The Constant Gardener, Serenity, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, Duck Soup, Strictly Ballroom, The Fifth Element, Ghost World, Cars, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Being John Malkovich, Black Sunday, The Omen (remake), Witchfinder General, Topaz, Torn Curtain, Casino Royale, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Miami Vice, Basic Instinct and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Quite clearly, this list features some real gems and some absolute garbage, including gems that I thought would be garbage and garbage that I thought would be gems.

In terms of television, meanwhile, I watched the first two seasons of Veronica Mars and the final season of Alias. I also went through the entire seven-season run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with its steadily diminishing returns post-Season 5 gradually driving me towards the brink of suicide (I exaggerate). The long-running medical drama Casualty also celebrated its 20th anniversary, with the launch of the first three series on DVD - it’s anyone’s guess how long they will continue this, given that each series becomes progressively longer, until they eventually run for more or less the entire year. Speaking of Casualty, that particular show shocked me in delivering perhaps the best two hours of television I’d seen all year, with the much-heralded return of former writer (and Waking the Dead creator) Barbara Machin for a one-off guest writing gig. Much to my delight, the magnificent Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace was finally released on DVD, although the same team’s follow-up, the satirical chat-show Man to Man with Dean Learner, turned out to be a huge disappointment. The fifth season of Spooks also aired, and, while it was suitably engaging, it sacrificed some of the subtlety of previous years in favour of increasingly unbelievable conspiracies and hostile takeovers. Oh, and on the TV/film front, Channel 4’s dedicated film channel, FilmFour, became free in July, providing the UK with its first free-to-air channel dedicated to movies.

After over a year’s worth of procrastination, I finally recorded a new fan commentary, this time for Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso. Once again, feedback for this seems to have been largely positive, although it’s anyone’s guess what I’ll think of it myself when I finally brave listening to it again.

The Third Mother, the long-awaited conclusion to Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy (started with Suspiria and Inferno in 1977 and 1980 respectively), finally went into production, wrapping at some point in late November/early December, with a projected May 2007 release date. Argento also helmed another episode in the American Masters of Horror television series: Pelts turned out to be less shameful than 2005’s Jenifer, but a far cry from his home-grown exploits nonetheless. Meanwhile, the much-feared Hollywood remake of Suspiria was finally axed.

After much talk of the two companies going their separate ways, Disney bought Pixar and instated John Lasseter as the joint president of feature animation for both studios. Shortly before the end of the year, it was announced that, following the release of Meet the Robinsons, Disney would be abandoning CG animation entirely and returning to the hand-drawn realm in which it made its name.

Once more in the animated world, John Kricfalusi, the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show and the industry’s last great hope, started up an excellent blog in February. July also saw the release on DVD of Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes, containing six new installments featuring everyone’s favourite dog and cat duo, three of which had never even aired on TV. Sadly, there seems to be no indication that sales of the DVD have persuaded Paramount to order more episodes.

I got into computer games this year to a far greater extent than I had for some time, picking up Guild Wars: Factions, Guild Wars: Nightfall, The Movies: Stunts and Effects, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Legend, as well as replaying Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Icewind Dale II, Starcraft: Brood War and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Lyris also picked up the new Nintendo Wii console in November, resulting in much enjoyment as all on sundry made asses of themselves waving its newfangled controller about. Oh, and Blizzard Entertainment “postponed indefinitely” (read “cancelled”) its troubled console action game Starcraft: Ghost, much to the disappointment of the three or four people that still cared about it.

I also bought rather more technological gadgets than is normal for me: I picked up a digital camera in February, and a swish new widescreen LCD monitor in June. I also replaced my Creative Zen Micro MP3 player with a Sony NW-HD5 in November, and made the mistake of buying an nVidia-based video card for my computer in December (the replacement ATI model will hopefully arrive soon after business returns to normal after the New Year holiday).

In September, I finally finished my MLitt, handed in my dissertation, and, much to my shock, was awared a Distinction. Unable to find a job, I went on unemployment benefit - what fun.

Oh, and on the web site front, September saw a new site design and a return to Movable Type as a publishing platform after slightly over a year with Blogger. In November, meanwhile, I finally got sick of my useless host, Fuitadnet, constantly screwing up and making life difficult, and moved to Donym, where the rent is cheaper and everything runs much more smoothly to boot.

Trauma Profondo

Dario Argento’s 1993 US production Trauma is often considered to be something of a loose re-imagining of his 1975 classic Profondo Rosso - during its development, it was even referred to (probably jokingly) by its original co-writer, Gianni Romoli, as “Deeper Red”. The two films are certainly thematically very much alike, containing so many of the staples of Argento’s gialli - the damaged male protagonist, the terrifying mother figure, the black gloves, etc. However, I never realised how visually similar they were until I read this article by Guillaume Bryon. The text itself is in French, but don’t worry if you can’t read it: by far the most revealing elements are the various screen captures comparing compositions and events in Profondo Rosso with those that resurfaced 18 years later in Trauma.

PS. I may have posted this before (the article was originally published over a year ago), but it’s worth repeating for those that didn’t catch it the first time.

Release date for The Third Mother?

I just noticed that, over at Medusa Film’s In Arrivo (coming soon) section, La Terza Madre (The Third Mother) is listed with a release date of May 11th 2007. I wonder if this is final or just speculatory.

New Third Mother photos

Source: Dark Discussion

Éditions è®e has posted a summary of Bernard Joisten’s upcoming Crime Designer: Dario Argento et le Cinéma, a French book on Dario Argento. The main point of interest in this article, however - for me, at any rate - is two black and white still photographs taken on the set of The Third Mother in Turin. The first, especially, shows some very nice decor and suggests that all those promises of a return to the baroque look of Suspiria and Inferno weren’t just marketing-speak. Of course, since the primary draw of these first two films was their outrageous use of colour, these black and white stills probably don’t do the film justice (and, indeed, much of the final colour will be achieved in post production through a digital grade), but even so, the more of these tantalisingly fleeting glimpses I see, the more excited I am about the film.

Site problems

If you’ve been having trouble accessing this site in the last few hours, it’s because my host, Fuitadnet, are currently upgrading their service, and in doing so are transferring all of the data over to new servers. Depending on your web host, you may or may not be able to see the site.

Unfortunately, the backups Fuitadnet used were decidedly out of date - going back to around November 20th. Luckily, Movable Type managed to maintain an archive of all my news posts, so restoring them was a simple matter of hitting the “Rebuild Site” button. Unfortunately, it does mean that a number of the files uploaded to the site in the last couple of weeks have to be uploaded again, including my Profondo Rosso commentary. As such, the commentary is currently not accessible, but should be back online in the next hour or so (curse my slow upload speed!).

Update, December 4, 2006 09:12 PM: Everything should now be in its proper place once again, although a number of web hosts still seem to be unable to access the site.

Update #2, December 4, 2006 11:42 PM: A couple of comments seem to have been lost in the resulting chaos, including one may in the New Lizard DVD on its way (buy it!!!) thread.

Update #3, December 19, 2006 06:17 PM: Fixed dead link.

Dario Argento film rankings

Updated to include Pelts and to reflect my own personal changes in taste since I last did one of these.

• 1. Suspiria (1977) 10/10
• 2. Profondo Rosso (1975) 10/10
• 3. Opera (1987) 10/10
• 4. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) 9/10
• 5. Inferno (1980) 9/10
• 6. The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) 9/10
• 7. Tenebre (1982) 9/10
• 8. Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) 8/10
• 9. Phenomena (1985) 8/10
• 10. The Card Player (2004) 7/10
• 11. The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1971) 7/10
• 12. Non Ho Sonno (2001) 7/10
• 13. Trauma (1993) 6/10
• 14. Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005, TV) 6/10
• 15. Door into Darkness: Eyewitness (1973) 6/10
• 16. Masters of Horror: Pelts (2006, TV) 5/10
• 17. Door into Darkness: The Tram (1973, TV) 4/10
• 18. The Phantom of the Opera (1998) 4/10
• 19. Masters of Horror: Jenifer (2005, TV) 3/10

Who knows where The Third Mother will end up?

Pelts: an Argento/PETA co-production

It’s no secret that I didn’t think much of Jenifer, Dario Argento’s first episode in the Masters of Horror anthology series. Actually, that’s something of an understatement: I thought it was phenomenally bad, dethroning The Phantom of the Opera from its position as the worst thing he’d ever directed. Its problem, for me, was that it could have been directed by anyone - and by that I don’t mean that it didn’t “look like an Argento film” (whatever that means), which is what the episode’s defenders invariably try to twist my words into. Rather, it was the sort of bland, anonymous point-and-shoot affair that any semi-competent director for hire could have pulled off. Basically, if it hadn’t said “a film by Dario Argento” at the start, virtually no-one would have paid it a blind bit of notice, making the decision to fly Argento over from Italy to direct it a rather pointless endeavour. Jenifer was more a vehicle for its star/writer Steven Weber than for Argento, making the decision to market the episode around Argento’s name rather than Weber’s disingenuous at best, downright dishonest at worst.

As such, I was prepared for more of the same with Pelts, his contribution to the show’s second season. My expectations were so low that I couldn’t possibly have been disappointed, and as such it’s perhaps not entirely surprising that Pelts is better than I expected. Certainly, it’s still pretty clear that Argento is slumming it, calling “cut” and “action” and picking up a pay-cheque for his efforts, and it’s still pretty near the bottom of the barrel as far as his impressive filmography goes, but it’s nowhere near as embarrassing as Jenifer. Heavily flawed, sure; ultimately pointless, of course; but this time at least there are a few hints to suggest that a filmmaker with actual talent is behind the lens.

The plot, this time, is somewhat more suited to the tastes of Argento, a vegetarian who has owned several cats and believes we should be doing more to protect the rights of insects. Basically, a poacher (John Saxon, who previously appeared in Argento’s classic Tenebre - that’s two big names slumming it) and his dimwitted hick son butcher a bunch of raccoons (or “coons”, as they call them, in one of the script’s less than subtle racism allegories), with an eye to making a tidy profit on what they both agree are the finest pelts ever seen. Junior bashes in Papa’s head with a baseball bat, however, prior to mashing his own face in one of the loathsome pair’s own gin-traps. Enter Jake (Meat Loaf - yes, Meat Loaf), the furrier to whom the pair intended to sell their goods. Seemingly unconcerned by the two dead bodies in front of him, Jake pockets the pelts and, stricken by their beauty, plots to make the finest coat known to man - with an eye to convincing his favourite lap-dancer, Shanna (Ellen Ewusie), to let him fuck her in the ass (I’m not making this up).

The film’s most impressive moments come during the opening titles, which are set against moody shots of the furrier’s various pieces of equipment, most of them dripping with blood. Argento certainly lays on the gore thick and fast here, some of it successfully, some of it not. Of the various extended death scenes, the best is that of a seamstress who sews up her own eyes, nostrils and mouth (nearly all of the deaths are self-inflicted). Less impressive is that of a man who tears out his own innards: it’s just the same Z-grade schlock peddled by Troma, only with more convincing effects. Likewise, the cinematography, by Attila Szalay (who also shot Jenifer), is highly variable: the scenes in the strip-club are the best, with copious amounts of red, blue and purple back-lighting that at times manages to evoke that of Suspiria, albeit greatly toned down; many of the exteriors, however, look flat and lifeless, with Jake’s visit to the poachers’ hut looking as bad as Jenifer in terms of lack of imagination. By and large, though, this “film’s” look is a massive step up from that of its predecessor.

Script and acting are another story, however. The plot was adapted by first-timer Matt Venne from a short story by F. Paul Wilson. I’ve not read the source material, but I can’t imagine it being particularly inspiring, given that it’s essentially just a series of grisly suicides, seemingly stemming from coming into contact with the pelts. As such, you can find the same themes of transferral and infection of the mind that are present in Jenifer if you want to attach an auteurist reading to these episodes - personally, I don’t. These are not “Dario Argento films” in the traditional sense, given that he receives no writing credits on them, instead seemingly having picked his favourite from a list of pre-existing screenplays. The performances, meanwhile, verge on embarrassing. Meat Loaf chews the scenery like nothing on earth, screaming, slavering and stomping around with a face that could curdle milk, while even the reliable John Saxon struggles to make anything of his one-dimensional role. The characters are all flat in the extreme, as it happens, and Argento, presumably realising he wasn’t going to get anything approaching a decent performance out of Ellen Ewusie, instead has her spend the bulk of her screen-time with her breasts out. Oh, and there’s a good old-fashioned gratuitous girl-on-girl sex scene too - the Masters of Horror team presumably think that this sort of thing, in addition to gallons of karo syrup, can be considered “pushing the boundaries”, but it all reeks a little of desperation. The two women look so uncomfortable during their sex scene that it’s hard not to feel sorry for them.

I don’t really have much else to say. It’s better than Jenifer, but once again it uses the Argento name to market a generic, poorly-written splatterfest that any number of no-name directors for hire could have pulled off. The Argento of old would have been able to direct this sort of thing blindfolded and with one arm behind his back, but at least there are a handful glimpses of the old spirit, even if they are present here in a greatly dumbed down form. Pelts is ultimately really just a means to an end - apparently it is thanks to his Masters of Horror work that The Third Mother is being made at all. Them’s the breaks, I guess, and, as such, I’m willing to accept half-baked Argento if it ultimately leads to some sort of a return to form. 5/10.

PS. PETA did not in fact have anything to do with the making of Pelts, in case anyone was under any false impressions. I’m sure Argento has more sense than to associate with such an organisation.

Pelts?

Pelts, Dario Argento’s episode in the second season of the Masters of Horror television series apparently aired last night. I’ll offer my thoughts as soon as I’ve got my hands on a copy, although, given how bad Jenifer was, I’m more than prepared for the worst. But hey - maybe I’ll be wrong.

Giallo Fever!

He’s a new blog that all you giallo obsessives will want to add to your bookmarks folder: Giallo Fever is run by Keith Brown, the webmaster of the excellent Kinocite and author of the dissertation Genre, Author and Excess: Dario Argento’s Deep Red and Suspiria. The blog has been live for less than a fortnight, but already it contains a number of fascinating posts and observations on giallo cinema. The main focus is on Argento’s films, which is absolutely fine as they are, in my opinion, the most fruitful from an analytical perspective. If you have any interest in these films, be sure to check this great site out!

Oops, I did it again - Profondo Rosso commentary

Well, it’s finally done: all 126 minutes of Profondo Rosso (or thereabouts - there are a handful of brief blank spots) have now been commented on, and the files are ready to be downloaded. It took a little longer to get another commentary up and running than I would have liked (over a year, to be precise), but I’m very happy with this one, and think it’s much better than its predecessor. On this track, I talk about everything from Jung to Michelangelo Antonioni to being scalded by espresso machines!

Once again, the commentary is split into two halves, to make it easier for people who want to burn audio CDs and not have to wrangle with chopping it in two to fit the 80-minute time limit themselves. Each half is accompanied by a “beep” sound to allow you to synchronise the track with the film. For Part 1, synchronise the beep with the first credit appearing on the screen; for Part 2, synchronise it with the first shot inside the police station (01:11:20 on the Anchor Bay DVD).

I would recommend running the film at a low level of volume in the background when you listen to this commentary.

• NTSC version
  (use this version if you have the US Anchor Bay or Italian Medusa Film release)
  Part One (24.2 MB, MP3 format)
  Part Two (18.7 MB, MP3 format)
  
  
• PAL version
  (use this version if you have the UK Platinum Media release)
  Part One (23.2 MB, MP3 format)
  Part Two (17.9 MB, MP3 format)

If you don’t have one of the three versions listed above, you may have to try pot luck. Broadly speaking, if the running time of your copy is around 126 minutes, use the NTSC version; if it’s closer to 122 minutes, go for PAL. Also, bear in mind that this commentary was intended to be listened to in conjunction with the full-length uncut version of the film rather than the shorter English export version.

Hopefully you’ll find something in this to enjoy, even if I don’t happen to come up with any wildly original interpretations or observations. I was inspired by a number of sources, including my own dissertation, from which I re-use a couple of passages (which, if you’ve read it, you’ll probably be able to spot). This one is filled with a lot less “ums” and “ers” than my Suspiria’s commentary, too, so it should be less of a headache to listen to.

Let me know what you think of it!

Warning: this track contains spoilers for The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Strip Nude For Your Killer! If you’ve not seen the former, you may wish to do so before listening to this track. If you’ve not seen the latter… well… don’t bother.

La Dolce Morte: a brief review

I finished reading Mikel Koven’s La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo last night, and thought I’d say a few words about it.

First of all, as I mentioned before, this is an excellent study, and nothing else like it exists. Academics, for the most part, tend to shun gialli anyway, assuming them to be unworthy of serious study, but, even when one looks at things from a less scholarly perspective, there is a real dearth of available books focusing on this genre, with perhaps the only English language title dedicated to the giallo being Adrian Luther Smith’s Blood and Black Lace, a guide that is exhaustive in its breadth but, for that very reason, lacks depth.

Generally, it seems that most scholars ignore gialli because they don’t consider them to be “good” cinema, lacking the sophistication and “art” of the more highly regarded Italian films by the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini. Even those who do study giallo films tend to be dismissive of the bulk of the genre, focusing on the films of Dario Argento or Mario Bava at the expense of all others. Maitland McDonagh, for example, who was the first scholar to seriously study Argento, in her book Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds claimed that the “outlandish titles” of the non-Argento gialli are “the only interesting things about them”, effectively rejecting an entire genre, barring the output of one of its most prominent directors.

Koven’s argument is that such scholars are looking at these films in the wrong way. He points out that they were originally intended to be played to a working class, non-critical audience who had little interest in sophistication and intelligent plotting, preferring instead to be entertained by a parade of sex and violence. Viewing these films instead in terms of “vernacular cinema”, he therefore argues, removes the need to justify these films as being “artistic” (which, he claims, most are not), instead looking at them from the same perspective as their original intended audience. He builds a very convincing case for this over the course of ten chapters, establishing first the nature of the giallo and of its audience, before going on to dissect specific traits of these films - e.g. the role of the detective, attitudes towards modernity, the influence of the giallo on North American slashers. In doing so, he refers to a commendable number of titles, although there is, as usually tends to be the case, something of an over-reliance on Argento’s films.

Koven’s approach is, therefore, a perfectly valid one. The only problem is that I don’t agree with it, and at times I found his continued refusal to view these films in anything other than vernacular terms to be something of a stumbling block. In a sense, I completely understand why he did this - anyone putting together a case study, no matter how broad the scope, must set certain parameters or run the risk of waffling - but it should be remembered that this book really only shows one side of the coin. Koven is, I’m sure, absolutely right when he argues that, say, The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972) was only ever intended to be watched as trashy entertainment, and that applying the sort of analytical methods that academics also apply to the films of Fellini and Antonioni is ultimately a poor fit. At the same time, though, to pass off the entire giallo genre as being “only” vernacular cinema is, in my opinion, unwise. I’ve already written at length about the films of Argento and a few select others that I believe can be analysed, at least partially, as art cinema.

To tar the entire genre with the same brush is therefore, in my opinion, problematic. There are certain traits that constitute a “typical” giallo (e.g. lots of sex and violence, screaming women and gallant male rogues saving the day), but what applies to The Case of the Bloody Iris doesn’t necessarily apply to Profondo Rosso (Argento, 1975). In looking at these films from a completely vernacular perspective, you run the risk of doing exactly what Koven accuses those who try to fit them into an art cinema context of doing. Yes, plenty of academics look down their noses at these films because they don’t fit the framework of a Fellini, but, if you try to put them in their own little box and claim that we shouldn’t even try to analyse them as art films, then you’re essentially just playing into the hands of the snobs, becoming apologetic for their very existence. (It’s a bit like what Stephen Thrower said in Beyond Cinema: The Films of Lucio Fulci: his argument was that talking about “justified” and “unjustified” violence was ludicrous, because, if a horror fan tries to defend his favourite gore scene in such terms, he is merely playing into the hands of the censors and automatically on the defensive.) By removing the need to justify them as “artistic”, on some level you prevent them, and their study, from being considered respectable at all.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression: I liked this book very much. It was an enjoyable read with a coherent argument maintained throughout, and I would like to think that it will pave the way for studies of the giallo from a variety of different perspectives. Ultimately, though, it only represents a single viewpoint, and one that, whatever the author’s intentions, seems a little one-sided in its focus.

Update, December 19, 2006 05:58 PM: Fixed dead link.

Alan Jones on The Third Mother

Source: Dark Dreams

Straight from the Turin set of Dario Argento’s concluding chapter in the Three Mothers trilogy, all-round Argento expert Alan Jones has provided a detailed report of what’s going on. It’s considerably less spoiler-intensive than his usual reports (Argento specifically asked him not to give too much away, because he wants audiences to be surprised), but a vast amount of new information has been conveyed, and I’ve decided to summarise what I consider to be the most important developments here.

• The title is definitely La Terza Madre/The Third Mother. “Mother of Tears” was the title Myriad Pictures wanted to use, but they are no longer involved with the project. Medusa is now funding the entire project themselves, having gone all-out due to fan anticipation.
• A lot of the information provided in Jones’ May 2006 script review is no longer accurate, as, in typical Argento fashion, the script has been in a constant state of flux and major changes have been made to scenes right before being shot. This includes the ending, which will be completely different from what was originally conceived.
• Shooting is expected to be completed in mid-December.
• The colour scheme, unlike the previous two films, will begin cold and muted, and gradually become richer and redder as the film progresses.
• Confirmed cast and characters: Asia Argento (Sarah Mandy), Adam James (Michael Pierce), Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Giselle), Udo Kier (Padre Johannes), Daria Nicolodi (Elisa - presumably Elise Stallone Van Alder, Sarah’s mother who appears to her as a ghost), Cristian Solimeno (Detective Enzo Marchi), Franco Leo (Monsignor Brusca), Tommaso Banfi (Padre Miseli), Valeria Cavalli (Marta), Silvia Rubino (Elga), Moran Atias (Mater Lachrymarum).
• Argento intends to have the film finished in time for the Cannes Film Festival 2007, and the UK premiere is expected to be at FrightFest 2007 later in the year.

A lot of exciting information to be sure. Exclusive set photos are expected to go online soon, and I’ll link to them when they become available.

Update, November 18, 2006 04:43 PM: Pictures are now available. I’ve changed the link to go to the dedicated page for the report at Dark Dreams, which contains the photos and should be more permanent than the forum post. To see the discussion, follow this link.

Commentary update

I spent a considerable part of today working on my Profondo Rosso commentary, and I’m happy to report that just under 33 minutes of material are laid down. It’s slow going, mainly because I want it to be as smooth and seamless as possible, so I’m going back over as many moments as possible that seem stilted or unnatural and re-recording them. This of course plays havoc with the synchronisation, given that, if the length of an early portion changes even very slightly, it’ll throw the remainder of the track out of sync.

I’m terribly afraid that I’m going to dry up at some point half-way through the track - I am, after all, recording for a 126-minute film (Suspiria, at only 98 minutes, was tough enough), so I’m going to have to dig out as many essays and articles as possible for inspiration. So far, I’ve rubbished Marcia Landy’s book Italian Film (according to her, the murder of the Jewish Helga is intended to make us draw comparisons between this and the Holocaust), slandered Strip Nude For Your Killer and spoken at length about the role of the supernatural in the film. Right now I’m just getting into the juicy stuff, namely women’s rights and arm-wrestling contests. Wish me luck!

Blue Underground re-releasing select Italian horror titles in 2007

Source: Fangoria

Blue Underground has announced that it will reissue a slew of Italian horror titles previously released by Anchor Bay on February 27. Dario Argento’s DEEP RED and INFERNO, Mario Bava’s SHOCK, Lucio Fulci’s CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING and Armando Crispino’s AUTOPSY will come with the previous disc extras and be available for a limited time only, each priced at $14.95.

Hmm, could be good, could be not. The optimist in me would like to think that these releases will feature brand new transfers and rectify some of the problems with the earlier releases - e.g. the frozen end credits for Deep Red, the lack of original mono audio on Deep Red and Inferno, the lack of subtitles on all of them - but the pessimist suspects that these are just the same discs repackaged. The almost identical cover art, and the very low recommended retail price, certainly don’t bode well.

Still, this might be a good opportunity for me to pick up a copy of the currently out of print Don’t Torture a Duckling to replace my copy which disappeared in the post this summer. And, if it gets more people to watch these films, so much the better. You know, if Blue Underground (or does Anchor Bay still have the rights?) has any sense, they’ll release a full blown 30th Anniversary Special Edition of Suspiria in 2007, to coincide with the release of Mother of Tears. And, while they’re at it, they can include the original 4-channel audio mix instead of the bungled monstrosity on the current DVD.

Giallo whimsies

This morning I received a copy of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film from Amazon.com. Billed as “the first academic study of the giallo film in English”, this 196-page book is the work of Mikel J. Koven, a film and television studies lecturer at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, who was good enough to send me copies of two of his giallo-related essays back when I was writing my dissertation. These chapters, it would seem, have been appropriated into the book, which attempts to discuss these films from a vernacular perspective - in other words, studying them from the point of view of the audiences they were originally aimed at rather than getting all caught up in notions of “quality” and “art”. (Most critics and academics tend to reject these films, and their study, because they don’t consider them high-brow enough.) I’ve only read the first one and a half chapters, but so far it seems like excellent stuff, and is the sort of study that the giallo genre sorely needs.

Oh yeah, and yesterday, I recorded the first 10 minutes or so of my Profondo Rosso commentary. I did three passes at it, but eventually came to the conclusion that, without a precise script, it’s very difficult for me to produce something that can actually be listened to (way too much “umming” and “awwing”). This morning, therefore, I rewrote what I’d recorded in script form, and will hopefully start recording from the start again tomorrow.

Yes, I will do another commentary

I’m going to record another audio commentary. I’m posting this now because I figure I’ve been stalling for far too long, and that if I’ve actually said I’m going to do it, then there is at least some chance that enough people will bug me about it to make sure I actually get it done. Then again, it didn’t do much good the last few times I said I was going to do this…

Anyway, I’ve decided this time that I’m going to do Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso (Deep Red to all you Neanderthals out there!), for a few reasons. First of all, I wrote an essay on it earlier this year, so I have some existing material to work with. Second of all, I want to cover myself because I’m not sure I’ll have enough material to talk through an entire film, so I’ve decided to go with a title that I feel is iconic enough that, if need be, I can turn it into a discussion of the giallo genre as a whole. Profondo Rosso is regarded by many as the ultimate giallo, and it’s also one of the few titles that pretty much anyone with an interest in the genre will own, so I figure it’s a safer bet than going with something pretty obscure like Death Laid an Egg or The Black Belly of the Tarantula.

I’d really like to make this one a little more freeform than before. I was listening to my Suspiria commentary (available here) recently, as well as the provisional material I recorded on Tenebre and A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, and I found them far too stilted for my liking. It’s obvious that I’m simply reading from a script, so my intention this time will be to have a selection of topics to cover, an attempt to basically pull a discussion out of my ass on the spot. How successful this will be remains to be seen - I’m not exactly a confident speaker, and my ability to improvise and come up with wacky anecdotes on the spot is not exactly great - but, having listened to a whole bunch of audio commentaries, including those by both filmmakers and critics, I’ve come to the conclusion that the non-scripted ones are the easiest to listen to.

Wish me luck! (And hope that I actually finish this one.)