Review All Things DARIO ARGENTO!

So, any of you like his films?
I enjoy them very much, I think my favourite is Phenomena.

I really enjoy his work. It's been years since I've been an avid viewer, so the titles are sketchy, but yes, I do like the films. The last one I saw, however, was Dario Argento's Dracula, and it was crap.

I just want to know why he insisted on filming his own daughter naked so much.

Lets call it a european thing ;)

Lately I have been watching a lot of his films again. Some of them are directors cuts. There is just one problem with that, the extra footage is in italian. Its pretty weird hearing Jennifer Connelly and David Hemmings speaking in italian with a different voice.

Dario Argento (Italian: [ˈdaːrjo arˈdʒɛnto]; born 7 September 1940) is an Italian film director, producer, film critic and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror movies.


1970s

In 1968 Argento began working on his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, which was released in 1970 and was a major hit in Italy.

Argento continued to concentrate largely on the giallo genre, directing two more successful thrillers, The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972).

The director then turned his attention away from giallo movies, filming two Italian TV dramas and a period comedy (The Five Days) in 1973.

Argento returned to thrillers with 1975's Deep Red, frequently cited by many critics as the best giallo ever made. The film made Argento famous internationally and inspired a number of other directors to work in the genre (John Carpenter has frequently referred to the influence Argento's early work had on Halloween).

Argento's next movie was Suspiria (1977), a violent supernatural thriller. Lacking the constraints of the more conventional giallo subgenre, Suspiria is a semi-surreal work of art, where plot and character are secondary to sound and vision. Argento planned for Suspiria to be the first of a trilogy about "The Three Mothers", three ancient witches residing in three different modern cities. The second movie of the trilogy was 1980's Inferno. The Mother of Tears (2007) belatedly concluded the trilogy.

In between the making of the first two "mothers", in 1978, Argento collaborated with George A. Romero on Dawn of the Dead, earning a producer credit and also providing soundtrack work for the zombie classic. Argento oversaw the European release of the film (where it was titled Zombi) which was much shorter and featured much more of the score written and performed by Goblin.

1980s

After Inferno, Argento returned to the more conventional giallo style with Tenebrae (1982). He then attempted to combine giallo and supernatural fantasy in 1985's Phenomena, also known as Creepers, which was one of Jennifer Connelly's earliest movies.

Phenomena also showed Argento's predilection for using new technology, as evidenced by the film's several prowling Steadicam shots. Both films received a lukewarm reception upon their release (although each has been positively reappraised since).

Argento subsequently took a break from directing to write two screenplays for Mario Bava's son, Lamberto Bava: Dèmoni (1985) and Dèmoni 2 (1986).

Opera followed in 1987. Set in Parma's Regio Theatre during a production of Verdi's Macbeth, the production was beset by real-life misfortunes that Argento suspected were caused by the supposed traditional "curse" on the Shakespearean play. Argento's father died during its production, Vanessa Redgrave quit the project before filming began, he had problems working with his former long-time girlfriend and collaborator Daria Nicolodi on-set and the cast and crew were plagued by several minor accidents and mishaps.

In 1987-88, Argento produced a TV series called Turno di Notte, which had 15 episodes.

1990s

During the early 1990s, Argento was in the process of collaborating with Italian director Lucio Fulci on a horror film. Due to financial trouble, the project was continually postponed. The film would be later be directed by Sergio Stivaletti as The Wax Mask, with Argento and Fulci both receiving screenwriting credits.

His 1996 film The Stendhal Syndrome was the first Italian film to use computer-generated imagery (CGI). Moreover, the film's opening scene was shot in Florence at Italy's famed Uffizi Gallery. Argento is the only director ever granted permission to shoot there.

He later directed 1998's The Phantom of the Opera and 2001's Sleepless.

2000s and 2010s

2004's The Card Player, earned a mixed reception: some fans felt the film was too mainstream, with little of Argento's usual flourish.

In 2005, he directed an episode of Masters of Horror, a Showtime television series, called "Jenifer".

Soon afterwards, Argento directed an adaption of the F. Paul Wilson short story "Pelts" for season 2 of the same series.

Argento finished the final film of his Three Mothers trilogy, The Mother of Tears, which is set in Rome and centers on the titular "third mother", Mater Lacrimarum.

He announced that he had started working on a 3D remakeof Deep Red, but subsequently this project was shelved due to the commercial failure of Giallo in Italian cinemas.

Argento signed on to produce the American remake of his cult film Suspiria.

On 4 March 2011, it was announced that Rutger Hauer had signed on to play Van Helsing in Argento's Dracula 3D, which was scheduled to begin shooting in Budapest later in the year. It was released on 19 May 2012.


Critical decline

Starting with 1998's The Phantom of the Opera, Argento's films have been generally poorly received by critics and fans alike, including Argento scholars such as Maitland McDonagh.

Fangoria wrote in 2010, "over the last decade, standards have slipped. For a filmmaker who was always so precise in his construction and cutting, his later films such as The Phantom of the Opera and The Card Player are sloppy, stitched together so carelessly that they leak vital fluid. Gradually, the kaleidoscopic style that once characterized his films has slowly blanched away."

This is largely due to low box office returns of his films, as well as difficulties in finding producers.