The purpose of
my dissertation was to look in the genre of film; Giallo. I wanted to look at the artistic values of the genre that I
felt deserved to be recognized on a greater scale and as a possibility to be
referenced at an academic level, for the way the genre explores the use of
colour in film. What I was asking was, could high art exist in low art?
For my research
I looked directly into the giallo films
of the past, paying closer attention to the works of director Dario Argento in
particular. The main body of my research was to read the only existing book
dedicated to the giallo genre. The other half of my research studies was spent reading recent academic books
that looked into the use of colour in film.
I found out
through my dissertation and research that the giallo couldn’t be paired with the likes of such high art genres
like neo-realist cinema and with those films by high acclaimed directors such
as Fellini and Antonioni. Even though I felt that after all my research that
the giallo showed
interesting uses of colour in film that should be considered high art and has
history steeped in the contextualized symbolism with Italy’s ties in post war trauma
with strong links to Mussolini.
From this
dissertation I think that the most interesting question to follow it would be;
why can’t high art and low art be bridged together? Why do they have to be such
separate entities?
I would like to thank my contextual tutor Sally Hall for helping me develop my
initial ideas for my dissertation and helping me construct the structure of the
format of this dissertation, helping me gain a greater understanding of my
area of interest and getting the most out of my research. I’d also like to give
special thanks to fellow BA Hon(s) Film Arts student; Robert Cooper, who has
helped me with my disciplined approach to writing the dissertation and the
development of my research time through organized group study sessions during
our own time, which helped me to put more time into my research and writing,
which would have been much less if I had been left to my own accord and relied
solely on self-motivation.
For my dissertation,
I will be looking at the film genre giallo; and
why I believe that the genre deserves to be held in higher regard from an
artistic and movement within film history, rather than being grouped together
with other examples of low budget exploitation films. I will look into what
makes the genre standout and what artistic merits I believe make the giallo warrant a closer look by
film academics.
My starting
point will be to look at the history of the giallo and see where it first began and where its origins lie
in and how the genre was received; and how the genre molded into the form it is
perceived today as your typical genre piece (the birth of the masked killer).
From there I will look at the genres swift transition from Black & White
film to Colour, looking at colour theory and look at examples of how the giallo makes great use of colour
within the mise-en-scene incorporating wonderfully vibrant colour palettes.
Further exploration of colour will then move into talking about fetishism
in giallo particularly
looking at Director Dario Argento and his fetishist obsession with the colour
red.
The main body of
my research will then look into Dario Argento himself and how he applied all
the characteristics of the giallo genre
(which he himself helped build) into a more supernatural horror approach,
paying close attention to Suspiria (1977)
and Inferno (1980) as prime
examples of how he used the supernatural genre to build upon the use of colour
within giallo and build
upon and explore greater uses of different colours giving them more meaning
within film.
And finally I
will look at the rapid decline of the giallo, look at the modern day attempts to revive the genre and how successful they’ve
been and then conclude by giving my opinion on whether the giallo can still be relevant in
modern day cinema and whether the key elements from the genre can be still as
effective in modern day cinema.
Just by looking
back at the history of the giallo and
its recognized birth, automatically, controversy strikes as to why
this genre of film has been kept in the dark from an artistic standpoint and
rather labeled as an exploitative genre.
The giallo takes
its name from a series of lurid thrillers with trademark yellow covers (giallo means 'yellow' in Italian),
which first appeared in Italy in
1929. Typically Latin in nature, the giallo took
the staid crime novel and spiced it up with doses of sex, glamour and violence
- and great soundtracks. (Kerswell, 2010 p44)
What Kerswell is
saying here is that the giallo took
inspiration from the lurid thriller novels that were popular travel reading
material; and to make them stand out from traditional crime thrillers,
the giallo added elements
of sex and violence that would excite and please a cinematic audience looking
to be entertained.
The
later giallo filmmakers
tend to be contextualized within other forms of exploitation horror cinema,
although often they worked in as many different genres as were being produced
within Italian cinema at the time-mondo documentaries, zombie pictures, police
action films (poliziotto), and sex
comedies. So most histories of giallo cinema,
such as are available, contextu-alize the genre within the history of Italian
horror cinema, rather than the crime film, with Mario Bava unofficially
credited with inventing the giallo as
a cinematic genre. (Koven, 2006 p3)
What I think
Koven is trying to say here, is that because of the later forms of the giallo grew more into the
exploitation genre of film making of the time, with the increased amount of sex
and graphic violence being shown; the genre itself lost it’s original identity
and has since become shoehorned into the history of Italian Horror rather than
it’s true roots which would be more akin to the crime thriller; this lead to
Mario Bava being recorded as the father of the genre, even though there had
been previous films based on the source material.
Despite the fact
the gialli’s roots are
deeply set in the thriller genre that can best be summed up as simply as murder
mysteries; looking into the lurid thrillers that were being released in Italy
at the time, they were predominately Italian translations of British/American
writers including some household names and highly respected writers like Agatha
Christie and Ellery Queen for example; yet despite having these roots in well
respected works within literature, the giallo has
become no more than a exploitative horror genre that it seems, only has what can
best be described as a cult following outside of Italy. And it seems that not
just the miss-interpretation of the giallo with
regards to genre, but also its birth with Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962)
commonly regarded as the invention of the genre. It was actually released
almost 20 years after the first giallo film.
Literally the first giallo film was made under Mus-solini's nose toward the end of Italy's
participation in the Second World War. Luchino Visconti's Ossessione (1942), although mostly
heralded as the first neorealist film, since the film is loosely based on James
M. Caine's novel The Postman Always
Rings Twice (1934), is also the first giallo film. (Koven, 2006 p3)
Here Koven is
pointing out that Ossessione (1942)
is actually the first giallo film
and pre-dates Bava’s The Girl Who
Knew Too Much (1962) (commonly labeled the first giallo film) by 20 years.
What I feel this
points out is a certain phobia that film academics and film theory writers have
with the possibility of high art being linked with any genre of film that is
considered to be low art or exploitive, in turn indirectly labeling those films
to be less valuable than those considered high art. But it is not the murder
and the violence that makes a film a giallo,
it is the work of the lurid thrillers with their yellow covers. Of course the
genre grew on to be more violent and graphic but to deny the genre it’s history
just because some might feel it tarnishes a highly regarded genre is
unacceptable. The film Ossessione (1942)
itself does have significant links to the giallo genre that bursts into peak during the 1960s and 1970s
when the surrounding history of Mussolini crops up again in genre again, this
time not surrounding the release of the giallo film but the effects of Mussolini on the characters
within the genre.
The gialli were
not intended for consumption in the first-run theaters in Italy or
meant to circulate internationally through film festivals and art-house
theaters. These films circulated on the margins of Italian, European, and
International film exhibition-the drive-ins and
grindhouses, rather than the art houses. They appealed to the
most salacious aspects of literary crime fiction, thereby making these films
closer in spirit to horror films than to mysteries. (Koven, 2006 p16)
Koven here is
pointing out that the giallo wasn't
intended to be viewed by the same audience of those in the high art population
being shown in various art houses; the giallo was
being targeted to the audience of the drive-ins and the grindhouse scene where the
audience is purely looking to be entertained and the narrative can almost play
as a second fiddle, as it's target audience would have a more relaxed approach
to consumption.
And within this context, not only in terms of
production but perhaps more importantly consumption, a traditional
aesthetic consideration of the giallo alongside high-art
filmmakers such as Fellini, Bertolucci, and Antonioni cannot work. The giallo is not high art; it is
vernacular in its mark-keting, consumption, and production. (Koven, 2006 p16)
Here I think
that Koven really hits the nail on the head as to why the giallo and the high art works from
Italian directors of the same era are kept from being linked. He points out
that the aesthetics and consumption and production are so vastly different and
the giallo itself cannot be
considered high art therefore trying to juxtapose the giallo with the high art movement wouldn't be complementary or
beneficial to either the high art or the exploitative horror.
But returning to
the birth of the giallo as
it is seen most commonly today; there are 3 films that together give birth to
the traditional giallo that
became hugely popular in the 1970s and early 1980s. Though it was Mario Bava
who is credited with creating the genre as we know it, beginning with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962)
and again 2 years later with Blood
and Black Lace (1964) it isn’t until Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)
that the giallo’s identity
is set in stone and the masked killer becomes infamous.
Bava's The
Girl Who Knew Too Much (La
Ragazza che sapev troppo) (1962) established the giallo films' narrative structure: an innocent person, often a
tourist, witnesses a brutal murder that appears to be the work of a serial
killer. He or she takes on the role of amateur detective in order to hunt down
this killer, and often succeeds where the police fail. Two years later, Bava
further developed the genre with Blood
and Black Lace (Sei donne per
l'assassino) (1964). This film, although the narrative structure is quite
dif-ferent from Girl, introduced
to the genre specific visual tropes that would be-come cliched. Specifically,
the graphic violence was against beautiful women; there were many murders
committed (in Girl, all the
victims ware stabbed the same way, but in Blood and Black Lace we see stabbings, strangu-lations,
smothering, burnings, and other violent acts); but most important is the
introduction of what was to become the archetypal giallo killer's disguise: black leather gloves, black
overcoat, wide-brimmed black hat, and often a black stocking over the face.
(Koven, 2006 p3-4)
Here Koven is
telling us how Mario Bava created the now considered traditional giallo; he first points out that The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962)
builds the narrative structure of the giallo and
2 years later with his next film Blood
and Black Lace (1964) Bava creates the graphic murder sequences adding
more creative techniques and weapons that were missing in Girl and also adding the famous
image of the giallo killer;
dressed in disguise with black leather gloves etc…The combination of the two
creating what is now consider the traditional giallo.
The year 1970 is generally considered the key
threshold for giallo cinema,
due to the international success of Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L'uccello dale piume di cristallo) (1970), which takes the innocent
eyewitness who becomes an amateur detective through a grisly series of murders
from Bava's Girl and adds
the graphic violence and iconically dressed killer (black hat, gloves, and
raincoat) from Bava's Blood and
Black Lace. It is this combina-tion that really defines the giallo film as it is more commonly
understood. An av-alanche of similar films was quickly brought out by Italian
producers looking to cash in on Argento's success, all using combinations and
variations on the com-plexity of the mystery, with the
standard giallo-killer disguise. (Koven, 2006 p4)
Here Koven tells
us how director Dario Argento with his film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) (which combines both
elements of Bava’s The Girl Who Knew
Too Much (1962) and Blood
and Black Lace (1964) to create the traditional giallo) and it’s international success
created the opportunity for more Italian filmmakers to direct giallos in it’s vein as producers
were keen to use Argento’s film as a template for financial gain.
Not only
does The Bird with the Crystal
Plumage (1970) become the film that sets the rollers in motion for
the giallo to take off into
commercial success, but it is also the starting point for Dario Argento to
becoming the widely regarded master of giallo and
ultimately becoming the only director with the power of his internationally
recognizable name to be able to continually direct gialli after the genres apparent demise in the late 1980s.
Looking at the
typical mystery killer that is ever present in giallo, on the surface they may just looked like a fashionable if
not fetishistic dressed generic murder; but if we delve a little deeper into
the killers identity and background then we find out some interesting facts
that could very well prove that these killers might just have deeper meaning
than just being you mad psychopathic killer.
Let us remind ourselves that these movies are thirty
to forty years old now, made (predominantly) in the early 1970s. The characters
are approximately in their thirties and forties, which means the characters
would have been born between 1930 and 1950 If the past trauma these films'
killers experienced was in childhood, or experienced by their par-ents, doing
the math, we find they are traumas occurring during World War II under
Mussolini's Fascist rule. (Koven, 2006 p109)
Here Koven
points out an interesting fact about the giallo killers, that the characters including the killers
themselves would have been children during the Mussolini era. The killers in giallo tend to suffer from past
trauma from their childhood and I think Koven here is trying to make the
allegoric connection between the giallo killers
and those of the children growing up under Mussolini’s Fascist rule.
Most gialli killers
have experienced some kind of trauma in their diegetic pasts, which erupts
murderously in the diegetic present. Take, for example, the films of Dario
Argento, whose films often rely on the revelation of some kind of past trauma
to explain their murders. In Bird, for example, we are told a psycho
killer attacked Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi) as a young girl, and she was lucky
to be left alive. It was this trauma that sparked off her own murder spree,
which the film is about. (Koven, 2006 p104)
Here, Koven is
telling us that most of the killers in giallo do suffer some trauma in the childhoods and it is this trauma that is the main
reason behind them growing up and committing murders. This I feel provides a
strong argument that the killers themselves and their pasts are directly linked
to the traumas of those Italians that grew up under Mussolini’s rule. I
personally feel that this can be read as a genuine fear amongst Italians that
the trauma’s of Mussolini’s Fascist era could have unforeseen effects on future
generations, especially the young generation growing up under his rule, who
might be more mentally venerable to suffering from long term trauma. The fear
of the medically unknown can be quite a scary prospect, of which Italy was
unable to predict how far the traumas caused by Mussolini would stretch into
the nation’s future.
The films' audiences are likely to be ap-proximately
the same age as the characters, so they either would have had early childhood
memories of the war or been more than familiar with their parents' experiences.
Are these films reflecting the more cultural explanation of 1970s Italian
disassociation resulting from fascism, military defeat (con-sider how many of
the audience members or their parents would have been soldiers during the war),
and postwar reconstruction? (Koven, 2006 p109)
Here I think
Koven clearly adds more evidence to support the connection between Killer and
Mussolini; he points out that the films’ audience themselves would be of an age
close to the characters themselves and would reflect on their and their parents
own experiences of life under Mussolini’s reign; this I feel wouldn’t be such a
far stretch for the Italian audience to make a connection between the films
killer and Mussolini himself. Further to this Koven adds;
This death can take a number of forms, but one of the
most popular is throwing the killer off of a cliff or other high place. This method
of death seems to be a metaphoric "fall," whether echoing Satan's
fall from Heaven, or our fall from Eden.
The fall is almost always spectacular, filmed in slow motion and in such a way
as to maximize the visual power of the image. In particular, in Lu-cio Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling, Don Alberto's
fall is not only in slow mo-tion, but Fulci includes insert shots of the
physical trauma the killer's face re-ceives by smashing into the cliff's rocks
on his way down. (Koven, 2006 p107)
Here I feel
Koven is making the connection between the gialli killers death on screen to the fall and demise of
Mussolini’s Fascist reign; he points out that the falls themselves are filmed
in a certain way that draws out the screen time of how watching the killer fall
to his death, even taking the time to include close ups of the physical
injuries incurred on their descent.
These falls are given tremendous amounts of on-screen
time, so they must have some meaning beyond just narrative closure. Perhaps reading
a lapsar-ian metaphor into them is excessive, but the films seem to welcome
such analysis.(Koven, 2006 p108)
Here Koven
points out the prospect of the metaphor of the killers fall to death and that
of the fall of Mussolini; surely with the amount of screen time given to this
falls it cannot be just a case of giving the film it’s narrative closure; yes
there will be the argument that these falls and deaths are drawn out to allow
more explicit violent scenes for the films audience to enjoy, but I feel there
is more than enough evidence that we can strongly argue that these falls to
death can be directly linked to the metaphor of the fall of man; with the man
being Mussolini in the case of the giallo killer.
Koven notes that
“The real past trauma is a historical one: the defeat and emasculation of Italy in
the war and under fascism. And this trauma has been haunting Italians ever
since.” (Koven, 2006 p109)
Koven here is
pointing out that the trauma of Mussolini and the war has continued to haunt
Italians and I’d argue that the giallo killers
and their murders on screen are a visual representation of this traumatic fear.
If we ignore Ossessione (1942) and take Mario
Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962)
as being the first giallo film,
then it becomes apparent that not only is Bava’s Girl the birth of the traditional giallo but it is also the only giallo that is shot in Black & White. The interesting
question is; why for so early in the life of a genre did the giallo move from Black and White
film to Colour? Was it just a case of timing; with the widespread introduction
of colour in cinema? Or was there something more to the genre itself that leant
more towards the use of colour on screen than the monochrome of Black and
White?
Comparing color to sound, Kalmus described color as
the next logical step in film's historical trajectory, "tending towards
complete realism." While helping to mold film's vision "according to
the basic principles of art." her approach aimed to produce what she
termed an "enhanced realism" (Dalle Vacche and Price, 2006 p31-32)
This idea of
enhanced realism would really emphasize the horror of the giallo greater than it would being
shot in black and white; the idea of seeing a murder being committed in colour
seemingly being more realistic adds greater impact to the murders that
are being shown in gialli.
Namely, Bazin very deftly offers a theory of color in
film that ultimately allies cinema with painting, such that color becomes the
constituent feature of art, whereas black and white simply documents reality. (Delle Vacche
and Price, 2006 p51)
The idea of
black and white visually implying the documentation of reality when applied to
the genre of horror, can certainly remove some threat on screen from the murderer;
the audience might find themselves detached from what is happening on screen.
Though the timing of the common place use of colour in film and the birth of
the giallo did pretty much
coincide with each other, I would argue that the giallo genre itself wouldn’t have been as popular as it was
(even if only on a vernacular level) if they were shot in black and white.
Mario Bava's Blood
and Black Lace opens with a credit sequence unique in gi-allo cinema: each of the actors
featured in the film are given their own tableau, bathed in a combination of
red and green chiaroscuro lighting, with appropriate black spots. (Koven
2006, p151)
Whilst Mario
Bava had made a name for himself with his expert use of light in previous
films, he quickly adapts to colour straightaway with his second giallo film Blood and Black Lace (1964); his
chiaroscuro lighting effect in the opening title credits give the film a very
artistic feel and using his skill in lighting, he sets the tone for future giallo films to experiment with the
use of colour, beyond just the simple effect of “enhanced realism”.
Clip 1. Blood and Black Lace (dir
Bava, 1964)
The usual reaction of a color upon a normal person has
been definitely determined. Colors fall into two general groups. The first
group in the "warm," and the second the "cool" colors. Red,
orange, and yellow are called the warm or advancing colors. They call forth
sensations of excitement, activity, and heat. In contrast, green, blue, and
violet are the cool or retiring colors. They suggest rest, ease, coolness.
Grouping the colors in another manner with gray suggest subtlety, refinement,
charm. When mixed with black, colors show strength, seriousness, dignity, but
sometimes represent the baser emotions of life. (Dalle Vacche and Price, 2006
p26)
Bava opening the
film, combining the warm colour of red with the cool of the green; in
chiaroscuro style lighting you could imply these two colours with the black
spots are telling us the seriousness of the use of colour in the film and it’s
cool characters are going to be set in a heated active story that will give its
audience a strong sensation of excitement.
When any two colors are placed together, the first
emphasizes in the second the characteristics which are lacking in the first. (Dalle Vacche
and Price, 2006 p29)
Bava, by placing
both the red and green directly casting across the films characters in the
opening title sequence is creatively getting the most out of each colour; this
allows him to keep his creative chiaroscuro lighting style whilst only having
to cast two colours to portray something far greater. The lighting for the
title sequence has various different shadings of colour, which looks so vastly
different when compared to the chiaroscuro of black and white film.
In black-and-white film there is but one way to
achieve extreme contrast: through the difference between black and white. In
the color image there are as many extreme contrasts as there are basic colors. (Dalle Vacche
and Price, 2006 p54)
Bava’s
chiaroscuro lighting, though has varying different set ups for each
actor/character in the sequence, manages to keep them all as a rather blank
canvas, not letting too much known about their personas, but with the beautiful
shadings of colour and the combination of red and green, aside with odd splashes
of blue; the sequence itself conveys a mysterious visual feel to it, using
colour coding introduce the audience to the films atmosphere.
As with Blood and Black Lace (1964) and
later with Argento’s The Bird and
the Crystal Plumage (1970); it’s very apparent that fashion plays a big
role in the early era of the giallo;
with the 1960s fashion of Italy being glamorously captured on film, it is here
that the use of colour is really able to show its value as with much of the
fashion at the time in Italy, colour played a huge role in its identity and if
the giallo had stayed in
the black and white, then a lot of the glamour would have been lost within the monochrome
shades of black and white, but with the introduction of colour the giallo shines vibrantly within the 60s
and 70s and to a later extent 1980s of fashionable Italy.
Mario Bava might be considered the father of the giallo, the main director behind the giallo becoming a successful genre, was Dario Argento; who now recognized as the iconic master of the giallo. After his first entry into the genre with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970); where he created what is now considered to be the traditional format for the giallo. What makes Argento’s work within the genre stand out from the rest, is not just his rather graphic approach to the use of violence on screen, but his stunning visuals, creative camera movement and from his colourful cinematography it was apparent that he was open to being creative and experimental with the use of colour in his body of work, especially with the colour red.
Argento once said, 'I am in love with the colour red, I dream in red. My nightmares are dominated by red. Red is the colour of pas-sion and the colour of the journey into our subconscious. But above all, red is the colour of fear and violence'. (Gracey, 2010 p24)
Taking from Argento’s own quote, he does come across as a man who has a genuine obsession with the colour red, and from looking at his body of work, there does seem to be connotations of fetishism and the colour red itself; not only with the use of graphic visuals of spilt blood, but also his applied use of the colour red in other areas of his films. He has always had misogynistic criticism thrown in his direction because of the nature of his films and their depiction of graphic violence towards beautiful women.
Gracey notes that “The fetishisation of weapons and murderous implements occurs frequently in Tenebrae, particularly in the flashback sequences fea-turing a woman 'orally raping' a man with the heel of her bright-red stilettos.” (Gracey, 2010 p91)
The fact that Argento goes out of his way to show a rather fetishist approach to torture, with a woman using her stilettos to choke her victim; her shoes are bright red adding to the scenes fetishism. I think that what Gracey is saying is that Argento is not only being creative with the use of what his killers use as weapons for murder, but he also makes a point of revisiting the colour red wherever possible, the use of the red stilettos in Tenebrae (1982) adds a kinky tone to the torture, and is glorified with their bright red finish which exemplifies Argento’s fetishist approach to murder.
Tovoli claims that Tenebrae was perhaps even tougher to light than Suspiria and the vaguely futuristic look was a challenge he relished tackling. The result is a striking looking film bathed in bright whites, with sporadic slashes of bright primary colours. (Gracey, 2010 p87)
I find it interesting to hear that Argento chose to have a giallo film bathed in bright whites; whilst on the surface this might seem like a rather unusual choice for a director making a genre film to work so boldly with a colour that could be deemed to be an almost non-colour, and coming away from the use of vibrant lighting, it actually turns out to be a masterstroke; as because the film is bathed in bright whites, when the use of primary colours comes into shot in Tenebrae (1982), they standout far more; therefore having a greater impact on the audience. It’s also key to note that you could argue that Argento’s fetish of the colour red reaches a new high in Tenebrae (1982), as what better way for blood to be seen than on a bright white background, it is also by far Argento’s most bloody outing in the giallo genre, which you could argue: that he is over indulging in the use of the blood shed.
Clip 2. Tenebrae (dir Argento, 1982)
In this clip from Tenebrae (1982) is a prime example of how Argento manages to use bright whites to make the redness of the victims blood standout greater. It is also worth noting the amount of blood that is sprayed across the white wall as the victim has her lower arm chopped off; the spray of blood is so excessive it borders on the ridiculous, but it’s evidence that Argento himself is bordering on the obsession with the colour red. As the woman turns away and her blood sprays against the wall, what we see as a result is a screen that has a base colour of bright white and then half covered in bright red, Argento then follows this up this shot with a close up shot of an axe penetrating the victims back and we see the blood seep through the victims white dress, holding the shot until almost half of the screen is covered in red, and finally he cuts to the victim falling to the floor; as she turns around it is revealed that her dressed is soaked through with blood. The set itself; the walls, floor and appliances are bright white which makes sure that red is the only colour that holds our attention in the scene.
Even early on in Argento’s giallo career it became apparent that he had an eye for colour and for the colour red in particular, in Howard Hughes book Cinema Italiano talking about the cinematographer’s work on The Bird with the Crystal Plummage (1970);
Hughes notes that “Storaro's Eastmancolor Cromoscoped images bathe the screen in colour-coded symbol-ism, usually involving lurid reds or bright whites.” (Hughes, 2011 p229-230)
Hughes here touches on something with regards to Argento and his use of colours within The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970); taking note of the use of bright whites and lurid reds, though he says that this use of colour is a form of symbolism, he doesn’t really expand this further which is a real shame, as he implies that there is a contextual method of symbolism used by Argento within the film with his use of the colours which red plays a huge part of, but he doesn’t elaborate on this, leaving us the reader to go out and view the film making up our own opinions.
Whilst Argento himself might actually explore the use of colour within the giallo, especially with the use of bright whites and creative lighting techniques using primary colours, it’s still clear that the colour red has a special place in his heart and he expresses his love for the colour throughout his body of work; in fact he at times does go the extra mile to have a personal touch with regards to the involvement of the colour red on screen.
"By 1975 [the black leather gloves] was a giallo cliche: the ritualistic adornment of leather, with its connotations of fetishism and sex, suggesting that [in Deep Red] the killer isn't just a psychopathic murderer but kinky with it" (Grainger 2000: 123). Even more playful, Argento also made it a habit in his films to don the black gloves himself in these sequences, partially as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock's cameos, but also, as Peter Bondanella noted, as "a humorous act of identification with his killers" (2001: 420) (Koven, 2006 p101)
Whilst the fact that Argento himself dons the black leather gloves of his film's killers, might be the main reason why he has been labeled as misogynistic by a number of critics, but this fact to me strikes as fetishist approach to how the colour red is used within his films, it could be argued that Argento isn’t happy enough with the redness of blood appearing on screen, but he himself has to be the one who physically makes this happen; with himself holding the weapons that penetrates the victims’ bodies causing the blood to flow. You might say that directing the colour red isn’t enough to appease his fetish; he himself has to be the one that paints the screen red, holding the symbolic brush that is the murder weapon of the killer.
During the late
1970s and at the beginning of the 80s, Dario Argento took a step away from the
traditional giallo film
genre and explored more into the world of the supernatural horror scene, but
whilst this was a change in tone from the norm for the director, he still
brought a lot of his applied techniques and visual identities that he had
become well known for within his previous giallo work.
In 1977 he
directed Suspiria, a film that
is largely seen as his stand out masterpiece of all his filmography; the
opening murder of the film has many traits that can be linked back to the giallo, though Argento this time decides
against the black leather gloves that he helped make famous within the giallo and technically he takes a
sidestep from the POV killer shot, the killer and his hand/weapon still take a
strong influence on screen, and whilst the camera work still implies a
voyeuristic approach in the build-up to the first murder, the killers striking
blows now come from the side of the camera not from directly behind.
Clip 3. Suspiria (dir Argento, 1977)
It is still
clear in this opening murder scene that Argento is still obsessed with the
colour red, but now that he's tackling a new genre he is now showing signs of
experimentation with various different colours. In the scene above there are
various different uses with the coolness of the colour blue; which is very
contrasting next to the vibrant brightness of the reds; it is very clear from
the beginning of Suspiria (1977) that
it's going to be a visually visceral experience in colour.
The films use of
vivid primary colours and outlandish set design is what makes Suspiria (1977) a standout piece of
filmmaking.
Suspiria is a visceral onslaught of vision and colour.
Argento bom-bards the viewer with lurid colours and renders them breathless
with his opulent set design, sado-erotic imagery and extremely sinister and
powerful soundtrack. This sensory excess defies the belief that horror emerges
from nuance and shadowy suggestion. Nothing is left to the imagination in this
film. (Gracey, 2010 p70)
What I think
Gracey is trying to tell us here, is that with Argento’s use of colour and
combined with the effective soundtrack, the audience is seemingly under
constant attack, whether it be visually or audibly. He manages to successfully
go against the rules of horror filmmaking by not leaving much to the audiences
imagination, and instead of areas of dark shadows and mystery, Argento visually
engages the audience with bright vivid primary colours that bleed across the
screen from all angles.
Fig 1. Stills
from Suspiria (dir Argento, 1977)
Luciano Tovoli shot Suspiria in garish widescreen Technovision. Blocks of colour -
predominantly red, black and white, occasionally icy blue or green - dominate
the screen, suggesting the malingering witchery lurking in the school. When the
practice hall is hastily converted into a dormitory with suspended sheets
(following an attic infestation of maggots) the room is bathed in throb-bing
reds and dark shadows. (Hughes, 2011 p242)
These images
from the scene that Hughes is discussing in the above quote are predominately
discussing Argento’s fascination with the colour red, this ‘loud’ use of the
colour red in the scene creates an unnerving atmosphere, the atmosphere in the
scene gaining in it’s eerie-ness, this supernatural change in tone has allowed
Argento to really exploit his passion for red, where he may have felt reserved
in his use of the colour in his giallo work;
here in Suspiria (1977) he
is able to bombard the audience with the screen awash with red, free from the
shackles of restraint it is here in Suspiria (1977)
where Argento’s love of the colour red is obviously there to be seen.
Again 3 years
later Argento returns with another more supernatural horror title with Inferno (1980), and again vivid
primary colours play centre stage to the cinematography, with a heavy emphasis
on blue contrasted against Argento’s favourite red and in the scene below (the
underwater sequence) from Inferno (1980)
the water itself viewed from above seems a tranquil green almost turquoise
acting as a mid-range level between red and blue on screen; what Argento has
managed to achieve is a rather more edgy and supernatural atmosphere to the
scene and the film as a whole which draws in the audience attention to the
visual style.
Clip 4. Inferno
(dir Argento, 1980)
Vivid colours and beautiful lighting simply drip out
of each frame and an ever-present sheen of livid red lighting dev-ilishly
presides over proceedings. Extreme colours and overwrought images are all
characteristic of 'vintage Argento'. (Gracey, 2010 p21)
Gracey here
talking about Argento’s Suspiria (1977)
and Inferno (1980), notices
and picks up upon the visual style that Argento had become well known for in
his previous works in the genre of giallo (calling
it ‘vintage Argento’) is very apparently again applied to these two films,
despite taking a step away from the genre that created himself to be recognized
internationally, his visual traits still linger within his new direction.
When any two colors are placed together, the first
emphasizes in the second the characteristics which are lacking in the first.
(Dalle Vacche and Price, 2006 p29)
With both Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980), Argentos’ clever
use of using bold colours like red and blue against each other he is able to
extract greater meaning and visual representation from both than they would as
colours alone; and especially in the scene from Inferno (1980) above in which the colour green is added to the
scene; this allows Argento’s use of colour to greater present a supernatural
element to the reds and blues, that maybe wouldn’t have come across as well if
there wasn’t a colour next to it to pull out those characteristics which
wouldn’t necessarily be communicated to the audience as effectively.
Hughes notes
that “The photography by Romano Albini is Bavaesque in style, with glow-ing
blues and reds.” (Hughes, 2011 p243)
Here Hughes is
talking about Inferno (1980) and is
pointing out that the photography of Argentos’ film has a very similar a style
in lighting of those films of Bava (the ‘father’ of giallo) who has become very well known as being the master of
lighting techniques; and this is high praise for Argento’s film; and looking at
the use of colour it really stands out as being a high skilled and composed
piece of cinema.
Should red form part of a system involving any other
colours, the need to prevent it overwhelming them by assigning it a subsidiary
position runs the risk of making it seem no more than an accent, a marker of a
particularly dramatic moment, or causing it to be over-looked. (Coates,
2010 p84)
This is an
interesting quote from Coates he is saying that the colour red can lose it’s
effectiveness to have meaning if it becomes apparent that its place on screen
doesn’t capture the audience attention and can lose all meaning if it’s forced out by another bold strong colour dominating the scene. This I find
particularly interesting with regards to the two above films of Argento; his
passion for the colour red means that he has it onscreen but recognizes that
whilst he needs other colours to create a supernatural atmosphere for his film,
he makes a point of making the red lighting play a very powerful presence on
screen not only allowing the other colours to create the desired atmosphere but
also keeping that obsessive use of red noticeable to the audience; going by
Coates’ statement, this proves that Argento is fully aware that he cannot allow
the colour red to play just a small role in his films lighting, which for me
says that Argento has a great understanding of colour and lighting on the deepest
of levels.
As the 70’s came
to an end, so it seemed that the era of the giallo was dying off from the international scene; maybe
because of producers eagerness to cash on what Argento had started by in the
early 70’s it brought about a quick saturation in the market of gialli, this rapid production of trying
to replicate the international financial success from the previous films might
have created a rather over exposure to an audience that became just too much
and the audience for this had grown tired of the style of the giallo and found the rise of the
Slasher films from American to cure the itch for exploitive violence and sex
demand of what was the drive-in/grindhouse market.
While a few giallo films
were made in the 1980s, mostly by Dario Argento himself (Tene-bre, Phenomena,
and Opera), only Lamberto Bava,
Mario Bava’s son, was re-ally making gialli anymore,
with two films, A Blade in the Dark (1983)
and Delirium: Photos of Gioia (Le Foto di Gioia) (1987). Beyond the
1990s and into the new century, Dario Argento is still producing giallo films: Trauma (1993), The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), Sleepless (2001), The Card Player (Il Cartaio) (2004), and Do You Like Hitchcock? (Ti piace Hitchcock?) (2005). (Koven,
2006 p170)
Here Koven is
stating that the giallo had
already started it’s decline in the 1980s with only a select few directors
still releasing the traditional giallo and
beyond this into the 1990s and further it was really only Dario Argento who was
able to direct giallo in
the modern day; this is really only possible because of instantly
internationally recognizable name that he has created for himself and a gaining
a certain cult following over the years from his strong body of previous
titles.
Sporadically, other filmmakers try to produce these
old-fashioned-style thriller, with varying degrees of success, either in Italy or
beyond. The best of the contemporary gialli,
Occhi di cristallo (Eros Puglielli,
2004), which I was lucky enough to catch at Edinburgh’s “Dead by Dawn” film
festival in 2005, while available on DVD in Italian, does not offer English
subtitles or an Eng-lish soundtrack. It seems that with the exception of new
films by interna-tionally recognized masters of the genre, such as Argento,
these thrillers seem to be made exclusively for the local, vernacular
audiences. And maybe that is as it should be. (Koven, 2006 p170)
Koven seems to
be taking the view that while the giallo is
still being made to this day, it has become on a much smaller scale and back to
the vernacular, where it’s true roots lie. It would seem that he is implying
that the giallo has no real
significance to an international audience and that it should solely remain in
the Italian third-run theatres.
While for a
while it might seem that the giallo would
just slip away into the memory of cult horror fans; in 2009 a French/Belgium
co-production film Amer (2009)
came out that paid homage to the giallo genre
and in particular it’s three most famous directors; Mario Bava, Dario Argento and
Lucio Fulci. The film itself recognized that the gialli narrative wasn’t that well structured and that the dialogue
played second fiddle to the visual experience; with this Amer (2009) almost consists of no
dialogue.
Clip 5. Amer (dir Cattet and Forzani, 2009)
In this clip of Amer (2009) we can see that it
makes such wonderful use of colours and is very reminiscent of Dario Argento’s
work and especially Inferno (1980)
in the underwater scene that I talked about in Chapter 5; the combination of
the bold uses of red, blue and green are so boldly used to create a very
atmospheric scene, and with the uses of such a variety of colours the film is
able to express the feeling of fear, mystery and the supernatural to the
audience through colour.
Clip 6. Amer (dir Cattet and Forzani, 2009)
The clip above
of Amer (2009) shows again
the desire of fetishism within the genre of the giallo plays such a strong role in the appeal of the giallo to the audience, the scene
seems to imply a playful approach to this fetishistic act as during the close
up of the woman’s mouth she slowly bites down on the metal seeming on her free
will; this can be interpreted as an symbolic act saying that the giallo of the 1970s themselves were
seductively playing with the fetishistic murders on screen.
Clip 7. Amer (dir Cattet and Forzani, 2009)
This final clip
above from the film Amer (2009)
shows it homage to the fetishism again of the giallo and the fashionable killer; seen here donning the
infamous black leather gloves; it’s also interesting to note that in this clip
the film seems to experiment with the colour blue, where we, as the audience
might expect the red, paying homage to the Argento’s fetish of the colour.
Instead this use of the cool of the stark blue in the scene I feel represents
the naturalistic and ease of approach of the genre back in the 1970s to show
such graphic and rather disturbing murder scenes, also could be read as how
cool and calm and undeterred approach to the point of view filming of such
graphic violence that the directors of the time had; especially with Argento, who as mentioned earlier, donned the black leather gloves himself from behind
the camera.
Whilst one of my
initial reasons behind writing this dissertation might have been to prove that
the traditional giallo can
still be relevant today to an international audience hasn’t quite developed
into the answer I was looking for, I still feel that with the evidence
discussed with Amer (2009)
and it’s homage to the giallo,
there is certainly enough within the genre to be adapted to the modern day
audience and something that can easily feel right at home in the art house
cinemas. Its stylistic visuals and almost complete neglect for dialogue could
really provide a starting point for a new era of art-house cinema, maybe not a
resurrection of the giallo but
certainly a new wave of genre filmmaking that is inspired by the genre itself.
Though the main
question that I had posed for my research was to answer can ‘high art’ exist
within ‘low-art’ and I think that the giallo genre
has shown plenty enough in it’s rich if not short lived history to provide
enough artistic qualities, especially with the marvelous and thought provoking
use of colour in film and not forgetting the symbolism with the Italian traumas
caused by Mussolini’s fascist reign. With the links to Mussolini and giallo dating back to the very
first giallo; Ossessione (1942) which managed to
get released under the nose of his fascist reign, there really should be a
clear recognition not just from film academics from the horror aficionados
that Ossessione (1942) was
the first giallo film as
well as being the first Itailan Neo-Realist film; no matter what the
genre, whether it be high brow art or exploitation each has the equal right to
their history and should be embraced and not ignored for the fear of being
tarnished just because a genre can be linked with another genre that doesn’t
fit within it’s artistic value.
There has always
been a gap between High Art and Low Art; it’s something that most people would
argue that has no connection, the art house/high art movement is completely
separate from the low art/exploitation form and the Hollywood movement, but I
feel that through my research and readings into the giallo, I believe that the genre itself manages to bridge the gap
between high art and low art; whilst the films of the genres didn’t play in the
art houses and first run theatres at the time and appealed more to the
grindhouse cinema and drive-in audiences, the films themselves show great uses
of colour in film and symbolize themes and atmosphere through their visceral
lighting techniques and style, and not forgetting the strong link between
the gialli killers and
Mussolini, there is plenty of contextual theory to be read into and it is this
quality that I believe can build bridges between High Art and Low Art; which
could allow for a better appreciation of the art of film as a whole.
