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Dario Argento

DARIO ARGENTO

giallo The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

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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

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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?