PROFONDO ARGENTO

THE MAN, THE MYTHS & THE MAGIC

 

 

By Alan Jones

Published by FAB Press, 2004

 

Reviewed by Michael Bolvary

 

    This is it--the most incredible book on Dario Argento ever produced.  Period.  This is the Holy Bible for Argentophiles.  All previous Argento studies--Argento's own Profondo Thrilling, Maitland McDonagh's Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds, Chris Gallant's Art of Darkness--pale in comparison.  This is Alan Jones' magnum opus, the ultimate book on Italy's ultimate horror director.

    Jones has been producing lavish articles on Argento's cinema for over 25 years, but here he really outdoes himself.  Everything you always wanted to know about Dario Argento, the man, the myths, the magic and the movies, it's all here---and more!  Think you know everything there is to know about Argento films and the people who helped make them?  This book will still be an eye-opener and will rekindle your passion for Dario Argento's movies, making you feel the pure excitement and fascination you felt when you first discovered them.

    This book should start with a disclaimer: "WARNING: If you love Italian horror movies, and you have other plans for today, DON'T OPEN THIS BOOK!  Unless you possess incredible will-power, you will find yourself hooked, addicted, and unable to break away until you've read it several times over."

    Instead, Profondo Argento begins with about half a dozen intros before we get into Argento's movies: Jones' dedication and his "about the author" intro, a preface by British film critic Mark Kermode entitled "Profondo Alan", a new introduction by Jones, a personal foreword by Dario Argento himself, a prologue and a brief preface detailing Argento's early years before he became a feature filmmaker with Bird with a Crystal Plumage.  Of all these forewords, Argento's is the briefest, but most interesting:

 

"Horror by definition is the emotion of pure revelation.

Terror by the same standards is that of fearful anticipation.

Throughout my career as a director, producer and writer dedicated to the task of taking audiences to places they never dared dream of venturing before, I have attempted to tread the fine line that lies between these two poles of cinematic experience--creating a universe where nothing and everything can ever be regarded the same way again.  If I have succeeded, it is because of you, out there in the dark, who have recognised and championed my efforts, and brought order to where only chaos and nightmare ever existed before."

 

    Alan Jones is as legendary a reporter as Argento is a filmmaker, and what he has done here is an Italian horror buff's reddest, wettest dream:  a compilation of critiques on every movie Argento either wrote, produced or directed--from Bird with the Crystal Plumage to The Card Player, with exposition on Argento's TV work as well--interspersed with articles on and interviews with every major player in Argento's creative universe: Dardano Sacchetti, Michael Brandon, Luigi Cozzi, Claudio Argento, Daria Nicolodi, Claudio Simonetti, Jessica Harper, Luciano Tovoli, George Romero, Keith Emerson, Simon Boswell, Fiore Argento, Ronnie Taylor, Michele Soavi, Tom Savini, Gianni Romoli, Sergio Stivaletti, Julian Sands, Chiara Carelli, Nick Alexander, Max von Sydow, Stefania Rocca, Liam Cunningham, Roy (Fabrizio) Bava, Carla Alonzo, and .... uh, who did I forget....?  Oh, yeah, Asia Argento! Every page is adorned with excellent stills, posters and photos--some in colour, some in b/w, some new, some old, all great.  Complete technical and creative credit lists on every film Argento has had a hand in are also reproduced. 

    Best of all is the text itself--Jones writes with such a great mixture of poetic passion and fanboy fervour, balancing the entertaining with the informative, that it's simply a joy to read.  This stands alongside Stephen Thrower's Beyond Terror--The Films of Lucio Fulci as my all-time favourite horror film reference book. (Even though Jones overhypes Phantom of the Opera and, like almost every other genre critic, pans the underrated Phenomena.) 

    What's my personal favourite part of this book? That great passage between the front and back covers! Actually, I like the obscure, personal anecdotes that Jones drops in here and there, as well as the new bits of information that I, at least, never knew before.  Some examples:

 

--Alan Jones has been trying (unsuccessfully) to convince Argento to let him play a murder victim in one of his films for years.

--Argento tried to film the opening of Suspiria in a real rainstorm, but real rain wouldn't "read" on film.

--John Saxon has complete amnesia regarding the shooting of Tenebrae.

--Dardano Sacchetti did an uncredited rewrite of Inferno.

--Phenomena's Jennifer Corvino was originally named Martha Corvino, but Jennifer Connelly didn't like the name and replaced it with her own.

--Luigi Cozzi was the very first journalist to interview Argento as a director in 1970 for the Italian magazine 'Horror" (the article misspelled the director's name as Mario Argento).

--The Profondo Rosso horror store in Rome was originally meant to be a designer clothing emporium for Argento's girlfriend Antonella Vitale, but she left him for a wealthy businessman.

--The woman who played Elena Markos, "Mater Suspiriorum", was a 90-year-old ex-prostitute.

--The zombie nurse in Dawn of the Dead was played by Sharon Ceccatti--who went on to become David Copperfield's personal assistant.

--The movie theatre in Demons was originally going to be the Piccadilly porno theatre seen in John Landis' An American Werewolf in London.

--To con the hounding public media, Argento told Variety that Opera was going to be an homage to Martin Scorsese's After Hours.

--Michele Soavi was originally going to be Argento's second-unit director on The Black Cat episode of Two Evil Eyes, but the air-conditioning in Soavi's hotel room gave him an asthma attack, so he had to be replaced by Luigi Cozzi.

--The swinging pendulum blade seen in the opening of The Black Cat was really very sharp.

--Argento has almost no sense of smell or taste due to a childhood bout with anorexia.

--A movie poster in the Demons movie theatre reads: Four Flies OF Grey Velvet.

--The dubbing actors responsible for the English voices we hear in so many Italian export films include Nick Alexander, Sylvia Faver, Caroline Da Fonseca, Pat Starke, Sonia De Dominicis, Susan Spafford, Frank von Kuegelen, and Teresa Pascarelli.

--The graffiti room set for The Stendhal Syndrome took five graffiti artists two days to complete; the fumes were so strong that two of the artists passed out and had to be hospitalized.

--Not only did Argento deliver a speech at Lucio Fulci's funeral, he also paid for it.

 

    So much of Profondo Argento is so great that I was somewhat disappointed at how it ends--the final passages (an article on the DVD release of Argento's old Door into Darkness TV series, a profile of Argento's assistant Carla Alonzo, an article on Argento's new TV series Do You LIke Hitchcock?, and a wrap-up describing Argento's plans to complete the Three Mothers trilogy) feel rather short and choppy.  Is it intentional, to ignite the reader's passion for future Argento products?  No matter--so much of the rest of the book is so detailed and informative (the articles on Opera and Two Evil Eyes especially so) that the ending can be forgiven.

    My only real quibble with this book is that not all of Profondo Argento is completely new material.  Rather than produce an entirely new body of work, Jones has taken old and new articles and interviews and edited them together--removing certain passages from one and inserting them into another--expanding and updating old material.  Jones resorts to reprinting old Cinefantastique and Starburst reviews of most of Argento's films. The chapter on Asia Argento suffers particularly--many passages are copied almost verbatim from Jones' article on her in Allan Bryce's Fantasy Females book.  Jones just added some new paragraphs to the existing article, removed some other ones and updated the material. (Part of the Fantasy Females article included statements on The Stendhal Syndrome that Jones inserted into his critique of that film in Profondo Argento.) The Fantasy Females article on Asia Argento ended with her discussing Scarlet Diva; the Profondo Argento article on her continues on, discussing Red Siren, XXX, and The Keeper before ending with a detailed analysis of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, which Jones saw at the Cannes Film Festival in May, 2004.

    As rich and rewarding a reading experience as Profondo Argento is, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that Jones did not take his boundless enthusiasm for Argento's cinema and create something completely new, like what Stephen Thrower did in Beyond Terror.  Perhaps it's just difficult to write about the same movie twice with such passion and fervour.

    Nevertheless, Profondo Argento remains quintessential reading.  It's as much of a burst of energy as Argento's best films.  Do yourself a favour--stop reading this and go out and buy a copy.  Haven't you done so already?  It's the Argento study to end all Argento studies.  End of story.  End of review.

 

5 BITCH SLAPS

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