giallo

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

The Cat o’ Nine Tails

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Profondo Rosso

giallo

Suspiria

Inferno

Tenebrae

Phenomena

Opera

conceivable

Once Upon a Time in the West

Dawn of the Dead

Vice: How did you first move toward cinema? I know you started off as a film critic, but what were your first steps toward directing?

Dario Argento:

Once Upon a Time in the West

And the first film you directed was The Bird With the Crystal Plumage.

How did the Once Upon a Time in the West job work out?

When you first stepped behind the camera, you made gialli. Why did you choose this genre?

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

giallo

And after all that you moved on to the supernatural-horror phase.

Suspiria

Inferno

Phenomena

What were your influences?

Suspiria

In Suspiria you give a lot of attention to female clothing.

What attracted you to prog music for your soundtracks?

Profondo Rosso

And you were into them right away?

So your father was also your producer, and you’ve worked for many years with your daughter, Asia Argento. Have you always found it easy to work with family?

The Church

Trauma

Women, in general, are central figures in many of your films. Can you tell me about this? Many critics have defined it as an obsession.

What about your relationship with film critics? You started as one, but your relationship with the critics regarding your own movies has been very difficult, with many extreme ups and downs.

I wonder why they are so stubborn about it.

And is criticism even the same thing now as it was when you started?

How do you feel about this shift?

You mentioned your “rock ’n’ roll” side earlier. Did you ever get into that sort of hedonistic life?

Why?

Writing is a true loner activity. You must feel happy when you’re doing that.

Have you always worked rigidly from a script while shooting a movie?

Do you like working with actors?

Many of your movies are international coproductions. How do you work with language? Do you dub voices in for different territories?

Tell me about your collaboration with George Romero.

Dawn of the Dead

That’s an understatement.

Two Evil Eyes

Wow, that would have been interesting.

Land of the Dead

What do you think of the recent rebirth of the zombie genre?

And now, the zombies run. Do you prefer running or walking zombies?

And more generally, what do you think of this recent Hollywood fixation on remakes of classic horror movies?

Suspiria

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

Michael Haneke remade his Funny Games, identically, shot-for-shot, because Americans don’t watch subtitled movies and he wanted the film to reach a wider audience. Is this a reasoning you can appreciate?

You’ve said that the making of Opera was the most difficult time of your life.

Macbeth

Macbeth

La Traviata

Macbeth

Macbeth

So now do you think Macbeth is cursed?

Macbeth

When you think back over your filmography, is Opera the one you remember with the least pleasure?

Opera

Opera

The Cat o’ Nine Tails

Your death scenes are famous for being extremely well choreographed. Do you have a favorite death scene of yours?

What do you mean by “feasts”?

Come on.

Do you scare yourself with your films?