Ca’ Foscari Honorary Fellowship to Dario Argento
Ca’ Foscari Honorary Fellowship to Dario Argento
The “master of horror” Dario Argento is undoubtedly one of the filmmakers who has contributed most to the construction of innovative cinematic grammar and coding at an international level. Each of his films, starting from the very beginning in 1970, is characterized by a complex plot, a visionary visual style, unconventional stylistic solutions, complex shooting textures, an avant-garde use of lights and an elaborate musical score. His first work The bird with the crystal plumage (1970) marked a turning point in the evolution of the detective genre, with the staging of an “impotent” detective with marked characteristics a parody, which inspired filmmakers all around the world.
Argento has directed 19 films and has worked as screenwriter and actor in numerous other movies. All his works have marked a fundamental point of reference for the experimentation of cinematographic languages, connected with various film genres. If with the release of Deep Red (1975) his cinema started to be enriched with supernatural elements, it was withSuspiria (1977), a story about a coven of witches told with a febrile tone, experimental score, garish lighting and baroque violence that he was acclaimed the undisputed master of the strategies of tension. From this moment on, his talent will be recognized as one of the most significant on the international scene.
Even if he is considered the “master of horror” par excellence, Argento has experimented with numerous genres, moving from the detective stories of his first films to a historical movie such as The Five Days of Milan (1973), which is inspired by the armed insurrection that took place in Milan between 18 and 22 March 1848, prelude to the first Italian War of Independence. Starting from Deep Red, Argento begins a period of film production that sees markedly horror films alternating with the stylistic features of the thriller genre, such as Terror at the Opera (1987), The Stendhal’s syndrome(1996) and Sleepless (2001).
In addition to cinema, Dario Argento also worked for the theater, taking on the artistic direction of the adaptation of Deep Red (2007), written by Claudio Simonetti, and then making his debut as a theater director of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbethopera (2013). He directed two more theatrical plays: Lucia of Lammermoor (2015) and Salomé (2017). His artistic vein has also extended to the world of television (for example, writing and directing some episodes of the American anthology series Masters of Horroror participating in the drafting of Dario Argento’s Nightmaresintended for the TV program Giallo) and video-gaming (with its independent video game Dreadful Bond).
After a period dedicated to writing, today Dario Argento has returned behind the camera for his new film Black Glasses.
About Dario Argento’s movies
Argento’s cinema had rarely gone so far in terms of lucidity and playful voracity. In its apparent rough invisibility, he has seen so many things, penetrating the darkness and the filmic device like few others.
Carlo Valeri, Sentieri Selvaggi, 2007
We are in the heart of Argento’s best cinema, which returns to its greatest past, calling the family (daughter Asia, his wife Daria) and the old collaborators (Simonetti for the music) with him.
Dario Zonta, ‘L’Unità’, 2 November 2007
If the extreme ambition of Dario Argento is to make his spectators wincing with every creak, looking under the bed and doubling the dose of tranquilizer, the ‘terrorist’ of Italian cinema can be said to be happy. It had been a long time since a film had scared so much and populated our sleeps with such barbarous nightmares.
Giovanni Grazzini, ‘Cinema ’75’
A film directed by Argento – thriller, horror or psycho-story – cannot be told. The reason is not that it would crumble in a flash, overshadowing the ending. The fact is that the form and the narrative substance of his works never stand up to the photo-chemical experiments to which they are subjected by this furious serial killer of our disciplined imagination. The silver light with spectral blades, the unsustainable bodies by Stivaletti, the excited editing seemingly usingdisc brakes by Walter Fasano, capable of sudden “surplace”, the pounding soundtrack, always break “the story”, they shatter each well set detail, preventing him from becoming an escamotage or a toy.
Roberto Silvestri, ‘the Manifesto’, January 3, 2004
