Dario Argento: between Renaissance and 20th-century art

Any discussion of Dario Argento's filmmaking inevitably begins with Deep Red (1975), undoubtedly his most famous work, which features an exceptional cast led by David Hemmings, the unforgettable Thomas of Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966), and Clara Calamai, a 1940s diva, known for her participation in sword-and-swords and white telephone genre films and as the protagonist of Obsession (Visconti, 1943), one of the masterpieces that marked the birth of Neorealism. The celebrated soundtrack by I Goblin sealed the film's success, and, fifty years after its release, it is considered a cult horror classic. 

There is, however, another approach to Deep Red, a historical-artistic perspective suggested by two key moments in the plot. The first is the sequence where Marcus (Hemmings) and Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) drink and converse in Piazza C.L.N. in Turin (designed by Marcello Piacentini in 1935 and later named after the National Liberation Committee, formed in 1943 to free the country from fascism). This famous scene, which ends with a scream that echoes through the night, marking the inciting incident of the plot, and subsequent toast by an intoxicated Carlo, the victim of a sound mix-up ("I toast to you, defiled virgin"), takes place in front of the “Blue Bar”, a location invented by Dario Argento, and built by the set designer between the columns of Piacentini's portico. The low structure with its large windows is reminiscent of Edward Hopper's famous painting Nighthawks (1942, Chicago, Art Institute), a most apt title for these two who are wandering the city at night when they witness a murder. 

A second key sequence connected to art is when Clara Calamai appears reflected in the glass of a frame for a fraction of a second, which happens twice in the film, each, inevitably, with a different effect (watch). The canvases hanging on the narrow corridor, one of the most famous in the history of Italian horror, are believed to be the work of Enrico Colombotto Rosso, a Turin-based painter influenced greatly by the expressionist Edward Munch who distorted his subjects (especially The Scream, 1893) in an outpouring of the anguish and restlessness of his inner self. In reality, however, the agreement with the artist (who died in 2013) actually fell through, so Dario Argento asked Francesco Bartoli to reproduce his dark paintings of deformed human faces, based on photographs of the originals. 

More than twenty years later, Argento returned to art and its history even more powerfully with The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) which, despite being less impressive as a film, declares the influence of the theme addressed here right from the title.  In this film, policewoman Anna (played by Asia Argento) is affected by the titular psychosomatic malaise, named for the French writer’s personal experience of having experienced overwhelming emotion in front of works of art in 1817 Florence. 

The entire opening sequence could be a lesson in art and cinema history (watch). The protagonist strolls through the city, observing the statues of Dante in Santa Croce (Enrico Pazzi, 1865), Hercules and Cacus by Baccio Bandinelli (1530-34), and Michelangelo's David (1501-04) in Piazza della Signoria. They loom, framed from below, a fitting introduction to a film of this sort, especially when accompanied by Ennio Morricone's striking music. 

Upon entering the Uffizi, her distress grows, highlighted by the reverse shots cutting between her agitated face and her point of view which offers a pan of paintings. A slow sequence reveals details of the Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello (1438), the so-called Birth of Venus (actually Venus landing on the island of Cyprus) and Primavera by Sandro Botticelli (1482-85). Then, on reaching the Terrace of the Geographical Maps (which Ferdinand I created as a loggia for his apartment in the palace), she sees the scream on the face of Medusa, painted by Caravaggio around 1598 on a parade wheel (a ceremonial shield). At that moment, overcome by dizziness, she looks up at the painting by Jacopo Zucchi on the ceiling, Diana among the nymphs (1572), which begins to spin, and, placing a hand on the marble, is faced with Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Fall of Icarus (1558), a coup de grace that causes her to lose consciousness. 

However, while everything else seen so far is really in the Florentine art gallery, Bruegel's Flemish painting is actually in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. The Roan film-maker likely chose it for its dreamlike nature, which, in addition to depicting the famous fall of Daedalus' son into the water, as told by Ovid (Metamorphoses VIII), creates a sense of alienation through the juxtaposition of different perspective planes. 

Who knows if the great horror director was aware of the connection between the painting and a well-known Flemish proverb, which explains the presence of the farmer in the foreground: "No plow stops because a man dies". A saying that reminds us of the smallness of humanity and how nature and daily routine across the world do not stop, even in the face of individual tragedy.