The genius of Giallo films, the most aesthetic form of blood, is the Italian director, producer, screenwriter, and actor... Here is the life of the master of Italian horror cinema and what he brought to the big screen.
Dario Argento was born in Rome in 1940 into an artist family. His interest and talent in art emerged in his childhood, thanks to his producer and director father, Salvatore Argento, and his photographer mother, Elda Luxardo. The films he watched brought him closer to cinema and led him to become a film writer during high school. He devoted himself to improving himself in the field of cinema, keeping his education at school in the background. Argento, who started with small-scale projects and turned into the legend of Giallo today, brought great success to the horror and thriller genre of Italian cinema. Probably because he was born into an artist family, he included his daughter Asia Argento in many of his projects. We see the influence of names such as Edgar Allan Poe, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Gustav Jung in the messages they give in their films. We feel Poe's image of a beautiful and dead woman and Freud's theory of the negative effects of childhood traumas on our lives in almost every film of his.
Dario Argento (born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. His influential work in the horror genre during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, has led him to being referred to as the "Master of the Thrill" and the "Master of Horror".
If you watch an Argento film, you enjoy the visceral experience. We can recognize repressed, hidden traumas within us. Argento presents us with a visual feast the reflection of Jung's mother archetype. The past is the infrastructure of our future. Exclusion, worthlessness, and the emotions and situations we are exposed to that develop outside of us are not just simple childhood traumas but shape us into the identity we have today. Mostly, we try to achieve justice and revenge with our instincts. In Argento's films, sometimes the bad mother figure appears, sometimes our differences are called ugliness and humiliation by those around us, and sometimes it emerges with the dark secrets we witness.
Following in the footsteps of Mario Bava, who is considered the creator of Giallo, Dario Argento created a trend with his own style. While witnessing blood in its most aesthetic state, we come across many traces of itself. The hand with the black leather glove that we see in most of his films belongs to Argento, and while that hand sometimes stalks its prey, sometimes it can blow up light bulbs with the murder weapon, and sometimes it tries to destroy your house and destroy the evidence. The camera is used like a weapon, constantly chasing its prey. Points of view immerse the viewer in that horror, and you become both the victim and the hunter. Both chasing and being chased are the style of Argento's camera. The color transitions, which we especially witness intensely in Suspiria, provide visual satisfaction. When things are about to get intense or the bloody hand of time is turning, the music that comes into play will make you say "Yes, this is an Argento movie" once again. Musicians with unique styles such as Goblin and Claudio Simonetti made great contributions. Sometimes they even worked on Argento while he was still writing the film. Goblin in Profondo Rosso, Keith Emerson in Inferno, and Claudio Simonetti in Tenebrea have done wonders.
Although Dario Argento is often called the Italian Hitchcock, they are actually very different. While in Alfred Hitchcock's works, the narrative has a logical and focused steady flow, in Argento's work, a dynamic transfer, technical skill, and atmosphere are at the forefront. Nevertheless, Argento pays homage to him with images in some of his films. This greeting is most common for Mario Bava. Because Argento describes him as his master, and he is truly the biggest building block for Bava Giallo.
The architectural and artistic masterpieces we see in his films also reflect how special he is in this field. Rome's beautiful architectural structures, pleasant streets, and the works of Italian painters and sculptors allow us to breathe in the darkness of the film. The shape of the murder scenes, the people trying to solve the case, and the feeling that everyone in the movie could be a potential murderer are also indispensable elements. What is very striking and prejudiced in Argento's style is the brutal killing of women in his films. Although this makes Argento seem misogynistic, it is actually a misperception. If you pay attention, you will see many women who follow the killer like a detective while trying to solve the murder. These women are brave and risk death to reveal the truth. The man is just a cowardly criminal who has not been able to face his trauma. Do you think it's more terrifying to be killed or to be murdered?
This journey, which begins by writing Western films, turns into a deep red flowing symphony as Argento develops and finds his style. Pornographic reflection of death and violence becomes one of the main features of his films. The transfer of inner emotions with fear and anxiety to light and stage design is the symbolic expression of Argento's cinematic reality.