CANNES – At the Festival for the presentation of the restored version of Love Circle (Metti, una sera a cena) (1969) in the Cannes Classics section, Dario Argento announced his new film starring Isabelle Huppert, inspired by surrealism and a 1940s Mexican film. "I'm so happy to work with the great French actress Isabelle Huppert, she makes me truly proud to work in cinema. She's wonderful and, I think, will help me do a good job," said Argento. "The film is inspired by a Mexican film from the 1940s, a period when Mexican cinema was heavily influenced by surrealism. It's no coincidence that Luis Buñuel worked in Mexico, so this film is also heavily inspired by surrealism."
Love Circle, directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (the version restored by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia will soon be released theatrically in France) is a work that marked a turning point in Dario Argento's life: the last screenplay he wrote before turning to directing. The film also introduced him to Tony Musante (co-starring here with Florinda Bolkan) who would star in his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970).
This film arrived in his career after he had written the story for Once Upon a Time in the West: "Sergio Leone was a friend of Patroni Griffi, he mentioned that he was about to make his directorial debut with a very important film and wanted the perspective of a young screenwriter, someone who could give the film a more contemporary feel." Recalling that experience, he notes: “I happily accepted, albeit with a slightly strange feeling, because the film was all about love, from beginning to end, and I wasn't used to making films about love, I'd never made them, nor did I ever again after that one.” Argento also recalled having quite different opinions to Patroni Griffi, which led to a number of discussions at the time: “for example, I absolutely couldn’t see the character of the young blond man (Lino Capolicchio) being how he was portrayed in the film. Young people aren't like that, I told him, those are old people. But he imagined them that way. Despite our disagreements, in the end there was a great reconciliation and everything ended well, the film was also a huge success.”
“I also remember Patroni Griffi having a large terrace full of rare plants,” he adds. “He would take me out there every now and then and explain the history of plants, which are like human beings—they're alive. He would explain this plant and that one to me; it was beautiful. It's one of my fondest memories of our collaboration.”