Suspiria (pronounced [sus'pi.ri.a], lit. Latin: "sighs") is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento, co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi, partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis (Sighs from the Depths) and co-produced by Claudio and Salvatore Argento. The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany but later realizes, amidst a series of murders, that the academy is a front for something far more sinister and supernatural. The film also features Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, and, in her final film role, Joan Bennett.
The film is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as "The Three Mothers", which also comprises Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007). Suspiria has become one of Argento's most successful feature films, receiving critical acclaim for its visual and stylistic flair, use of vibrant colors and its soundtrack. It is the first Argento horror film to have THX-certified audio and video. The score was composed by the prog-rock band Goblin.
Suspiria was nominated for two Saturn Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Bennett in 1978, and Best DVD Classic Film Release in 2002. It is part of the giallo subgenre, has become a cult classic, and is recognised as an influential film in the horror genre. A remake by director Luca Guadagnino is set to be released in 2018. It will star Dakota Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mia Goth and Tilda Swinton, with Harper returning in a secondary role.
Video Suspiria
Plot
Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student from New York City, arrives late on a stormy night at the prestigious Tanz Dance Academy in Freiburg, Germany. While trying (unsuccessfully) to get someone to answer the door to the academy, she witnesses a young student, Pat Hingle, flee from the school. Suzy makes her way to a hotel, while Pat finds refuge at a friend's apartment in town. Pat tells her friend that she has uncovered something terrible inside the Academy, then locks herself in the bathroom. A shadowy figure appears outside the bathroom window - an arm smashes through the window and grabs Pat. Hearing Pat's screams, her friend runs for help but nobody answers. The attacker stabs Pat repeatedly - even once in her heart - and then slips a noose around her neck. The figure throws Pat through a window that leads into the apartment lobby below and the rope snaps, killing her, just as the falling glass kills her fleeing friend below.
Suzy returns to the academy in the morning and is introduced to Madame Blanc, the vice-directress, and Miss Tanner, one of the instructors. She is then introduced to students Sara and Olga, the latter with whom she has previously arranged to share an off-campus apartment. After a strange encounter with the academy's custodian, Suzy faints during a lesson. She awakens that night to discover that she has been moved into an on-campus dormitory, despite her reluctance. The doctors tell her that she is to be "medicated" with a glass of wine daily, and will have to live on campus for her continued care. Suzy rooms with Sara, and the two become friends.
As the students prepare for dinner, maggots rain down from the ceiling. The students are told this was due to spoiled food being stored in the attic and are invited to sleep in the practice hall overnight while the spoiled food and maggots are disposed of. During the night, Sara identifies a distinctive whistling snore as that of the school's director, who is not due to return to the academy for several weeks.
The following day, Tanner orders the school's blind piano player, Daniel, to leave the academy after his guide dog supposedly bites the custodian's son (who is also Madame Blanc's nephew). That night, Sara hears a teacher's footsteps and counts them whilst Suzy becomes drowsy and falls asleep. Elsewhere, while crossing a plaza, Daniel's dog and Daniel himself sense a strange presence before the canine - without warning - lunges at him and tears his throat out, killing him.
Suzy recalls that Pat had mumbled "iris" and "secret" when they briefly crossed paths. Suzy and Sara go for an evening swim at the school's indoor swimming pool and Sara reveals that Pat had been saying strange things for some time. The two girls search for Pat's personal notes, but they are missing. Suzy suddenly becomes drowsy again and falls asleep before Sara flees after hearing footsteps. Sara is chased by an unseen pursuer and, thinking she will be able to escape on a window ledge, falls into a pile of razor wire. She struggles until a dark figure slits her throat.
In the morning, Blanc and Tanner inform Suzy that Sara has abruptly left the academy. Confused and suspicious, Suzy goes to meet one of Sara's acquaintances in town, the psychologist Frank Mandel. Mandel explains that the academy was founded by Helena Markos, a cruel Greek émigré who was widely believed to be a witch, while Mandel's colleague, Professor Milius, tells Suzy that a coven can not survive without their queen.
Suzy returns to the academy to find that all the other students have been sent out for the evening to see a performance by the Bolshoi. After disposing of her food and wine (which may have been drugged, thus explaining Suzy becoming drowsy), she then hears the same footsteps that Sara heard, Suzy follows the sound to Blanc's office, entering to find the walls painted with the irises Pat had mumbled about. She finds a hidden passage and enters, quietly observing Blanc, Tanner and the staff performing a ritual and plotting Suzy's death. Suzy turns to find Sara's body nailed to a coffin. She sneaks into another room, where she accidentally awakens a shadowy figure who reveals herself as Helena Markos. Helena orders Sara's corpse to rise from the dead to murder Suzy, but Suzy stabs Helena through the throat with a knife she finds, killing Helena and causing Sara's corpse to collapse. The rest of the coven start asphyxiating without their queen, and Suzy escapes just as the academy collapses in flames.
Maps Suspiria
Cast
Vocal dubbing only
Production
Development
Argento based Suspiria in-part on Thomas De Quincey's essay Suspiria de Profundis. Critic Maitland McDonagh notes: "In Argento's reading [of the material], the three mothers generate/inhabit a cinematic world informed by Jungian archetypal imagery, each holding sway over a particular city." Argento said the idea for the film came to him after a trip through several European cities, including Lyon, Prague, and Turin. He became fascinated by the "Magic Triangle," a point where the countries of France, Germany, and Switzerland meet; this is where Rudolf Steiner, a controversial social reformer and occultist, founded an anthroposophic community. Commenting on witchcraft and the occult, Argento stated: "There's very little to joke about. It's something that exists."
Daria Nicolodi helped Argento write the screenplay for the film, which combined the occult themes that interested Argento with fairytales that were inspiring to Nicolodi, such as Bluebeard, Pinocchio, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Nicolodi also partially based her contributions to the screenplay on a personal story her grandmother had told her, in which her grandmother had gone to take a piano lesson at an unnamed academy where she believed she encountered black magic. The encounter terrified her grandmother, prompting her to flee. This story, however, was later said by Argento to have been fabricated. Using Nicolodi's core ideas, Argento helped co-write the screenplay, which he chose to set at a dance academy set in Freiburg, Germany. The lead character of Suzy Bannion was based on that of Snow White. Initially, the characters in the film were very young girls--around eight to ten years old--but this was altered when the film's producers were hesitant to make a film with all young actors. Additionally, the final sequence of the film was based on a dream Nicolodi had while she was staying in Los Angeles, California.
The title and general concept of "The Three Mothers" (a concept Argento would expand upon in the subsequent films Inferno and Mother of Tears) came from Suspiria de Profundis, an uncredited inspiration for the film. There is a section in the book entitled "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow". The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears", "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs" and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness".
Casting
American actress Jessica Harper was cast in the lead role of American ballet dancer Suzy Bannion, after attending an audition via the William Morris Agency. Argento chose Harper based on her performance in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (1974). Upon being cast in the film, Harper recalled watching Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet to better understand the director's style. Harper turned down a role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) in order to appear in the film.
Argento requested Italian actress Stefania Casini for the supporting role of Sara, a request which she obliged, having been an admirer of his films. Daria Nicolodi had originally planned on playing the role of Sara, but was unable to due to illness, and Casini was brought in at the last minute. German actor Udo Kier was cast in the minor supporting role of Frank Mandel.
Filming
The majority of Suspiria was shot at De Paoli studios in Rome, where key exterior sets (including the façade of the academy) were constructed. Actress Harper described the film shoot as "very, very focused," as Argento "knew exactly what he was looking for." The façade of the academy was replicated on a soundstage from the real-life The Whale House in Freiburg. Additional photography took place in Munich, including Daniel's death scene in the city square, as well as the opening scene of the film, which was shot on location at the Munich Airport. The scene in which Suzy meets with Dr. Mandel was filmed outside the BMW Headquarters building in Munich.
Suspiria is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks, particularly the use of ""set piece" structures" that allow the camera to linger on pronounced visual elements. Cinematography Luciano Tovoli was hired by Argento to shoot the film based on color film tests he completed which Argento felt matched his vision. The film was shot using anamorphic lenses. The production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting, emphasized by the use of imbibition Technicolor prints. Commenting on the film's lush colors, Argento said: "We were trying to reproduce the colour of Walt Disney's Snow White; it has been said from the beginning that Technicolor lacked subdued shades, [and] was without nuances--like cut-out cartoons."
The imbibition process, used for The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, is much more vivid in its color rendition than emulsion-based release prints, therefore enhancing the nightmarish qualities of the film Argento intended to evoke. It was one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor, having been shot on one of the last remaining Technicolor 3-strip cameras in Europe at the time; the rest had been returned to California.
Post-production
Dubbing
In the Suspiria: 25th Anniversary documentary, Harper commented on the fact that the actors' dialogue was not properly recorded, but was dubbed through additional dialogue recording--common practice in Italian filmmaking at the time. Part of the reason was, she said, that each actor spoke their native language (for instance, Harper, Valli, and Bennett spoke English; Casini, Valli, and Bucci spoke Italian; and several others spoke German), and as each actor generally knew what the other was saying anyway, they each responded with their lines as if they had understood the other. Argento also expressed disappointment over the fact that Harper's voice, which he liked, was not heard in the Italian market because she was dubbed in Italian by another actress. The dubbing was overseen by Ted Rusoff, a prolific voiceover artist based in Rome who supervised English-language dubbing for numerous European genre films including Argento's follow-up to Suspiria, Inferno.
Musical score
Italian prog-rock band Goblin composed most of the film's score in collaboration with Argento himself. Goblin had previously scored Argento's earlier film Deep Red as well as several subsequent films following Suspiria. In the film's opening credits, they are referred to as "The Goblins".
Like Ennio Morricone's compositions for Sergio Leone, Goblin's score for Suspiria was created before the film was shot. It has been reused in multiple Hong Kong films, including Yuen Woo-ping's martial arts film Dance of the Drunk Mantis (1979) and Tsui Hark's horror-comedy We're Going to Eat You (1980).
Goblin frontman Claudio Simonetti later formed the heavy metal band Daemonia. The 2001 Anchor Bay DVD release contains a video of the band playing a reworking of the Suspiria theme song. The DVD edition also contains the entire original soundtrack as a bonus CD, which is currently out of print in North America.
The main title theme was named as one of the best songs released between 1977-79 in the book The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present, compiled by influential music website Pitchfork. It has been sampled on the Raekwon and Ghostface Killah song "Legal Coke", from the R. A. G. U. mix tape, by RJD2 for the song "Weather People" by Cage and by Army of the Pharaohs in their song "Swords Drawn".
Release
Suspiria was released in Italy on 1 February 1977. In May 1977, it was announced in Variety that 20th Century Fox had acquired Suspiria for U.S. release. The film received theatrical distribution in the United States by Twentieth Century Fox and International Classics, premiering in July 1977. The theatrical release in the United States was truncated by a total of eight minutes in order for the film to pass with an R-rating. Of all of Argento's films, Suspiria was his highest-earning film in the United States.
Critical reception
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 93% "Certified Fresh" score based on 42 later reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's consensus states: "The blood pours freely in Argento's classic Suspiria, a giallo horror as grandiose and glossy as it is gory". Rotten Tomatoes also ranked it number 41 on their 2010 list of the greatest horror films.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote a mixed review, saying the film had "slender charms, though they will most assuredly be lost on viewers who are squeamish." Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader gave a positive review, claiming that "Argento works so hard for his effects--throwing around shock cuts, colored lights and peculiar camera angles--that it would be impolite not to be a little frightened". Although J. Hoberman of The Village Voice gave a positive review as well, he calls it "a movie that makes sense only to the eye".
Contemporary assessment
In the years since its release, Suspiria has been cited by critics as a cult film. In the book European Nightmares: Horror Cinema in Europe Since the 1945 (2012), the film is noted for being an "exemplar of Eurohorror...it is excessive but here the excess seems to entail a more forceful retardation of a narrative drive, to the extent that the narrative periodically ceases to exist." Suspiria has been praised by film historians and critics for its emphasized employment of color and elaborate set-pieces; film scholar John Kenneth Muir notes that "each and every frame of Suspiria is composed with an artistic, remarkable attention to color."
The Village Voice ranked Suspiria #100 on their list of the 100 greatest films made in the 20th century. Adam Smith of Empire magazine awarded the film a perfect score of five out of five. Empire magazine also ranked Suspiria #312 on their list of the 500 greatest films ever as well as number 45 on their list 'The 100 Best Films of World Cinema'. AllMovie called it "one of the most striking assaults on the senses ever to be committed to celluloid [...] this unrelenting tale of the supernatural was--and likely still is--the closest a filmmaker has come to capturing a nightmare on film." Entertainment Weekly ranked Suspiria #18 on their list of the 25 scariest films ever. A poll of critics of Total Film ranked it #3 on their list of the 50 greatest horror films ever. One of the film's sequences was ranked at #24 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments program. IGN ranked it #20 on their list of the 25 best horror films.
Home media
Suspiria was released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment in a three-disc set on September 11, 2001. This release, which was a limited edition run restricted to 60,000 units, features a THX-certified video master of the film, with a second disc consisting of a 52-minute documentary and other bonus material; the third disc is a CD consisting of the original film score. This release also includes a 28-page booklet and ten lobby card and poster reproductions. A standard single-disc edition was released by Anchor Bay the following month.
On 19 December 2017, the independent home media distributor Synapse Films released the film for the first time on Blu-ray in the United States in a limited steelbook package. This release also consists of three discs which include a 4K restoration of the feature film, bonus materials, and the original score on a compact disc. In Italy, the film received a 4K-remastered Blu-ray release via the Italian distributor Videa in February 2017.
Legacy
In popular culture
Three bands, Norwegian thrash metal band Susperia, a pioneering mid-1990s UK gothic rock band, and the witch house project Mater Suspiria Vision, have named themselves after the film. Several albums have also used the title, including an album by gothic metal band Darkwell, an album by Darkwave band Miranda Sex Garden and Suspiria de Profundis by Die Form, which can also be regarded as inspired by Thomas De Quincey's work of the same title.
In the 2007 film Juno, Suspiria is considered by the title character to be the goriest film ever made, until she is shown The Wizard of Gore and changes her mind, saying it is actually gorier than Suspiria.
The film's music has been imitated and sampled by various artists, including Ministry in the track "Psalm 69" from their album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, Cage Kennylz on "Weather People" and Atmosphere on "Bird Sings Why the Caged I Know".
The Houston, Texas-based Two Star Symphony Orchestra included a track titled "Goblin Attack" on their 2004 CD Danse Macabre: Constant Companion that features a strings rendition of the Suspiria theme; the track's title also appears to be a reference to the band Goblin. The 69 Eyes have a song called "Suspiria Snow White" on their album Back in Blood.
In books by Simon R. Green, mentions are often made of a "Black Forest Dance Academy" in Germany, a place where witches and Satanists gather, a possible reference to Suspiria.
The American death metal band Infester included a sample from the film in their song, "Chamber of Reunion", from their 1994 album, To The Depths, In Degradation.
A section of the soundtrack cue "Markos" was incorporated into the noted Australian radiophonic work What's Rangoon to You is Grafton to Me, conceived and written by radio presenter and author Russell Guy, co-narrated by Guy and former ABC TV newsreader James Dibble, and co-produced by Guy and Graham Wyatt. It was originally broadcast in 1978 on the ABC's "youth" radio station 2JJ aka Double Jay (the Sydney-based AM-band precursor to the current Triple J network).
The film is also mentioned in Season 7, Episode 14 of "The Office" when Gabe intends to watch it with Erin, much to her dismay.
It is mentioned, and featured in Kirby Reed's horror film collection in the 2011 horror film Scream 4.
Related works
Subsequent films
Suspiria is the first of a trilogy of films by Argento, referred to as The Three Mothers. The trilogy centers around three witches, or "Mothers of Sorrow" who unleash evil from three locations in the world. In Suspiria, Helena Marcos is Mater Suspiriorum (lit. Latin: "Mother of Sighs") in Freiburg. Argento's 1980 film Inferno focuses on Mater Tenebrarum (lit. Latin: "Mother of Darkness"), in New York City. The final installment in the trilogy, The Mother of Tears (2007), focuses on Mater Lachrymarum (lit. Latin: "Mother of Tears") in Rome.
Film scholar L. Andrew Cooper notes: "Aesthetic experience is arguably the ultimate source of "meaning" in all of Argento's films, but Suspiria and the other films of the Three Mothers trilogy...take their emphasis on aesthetics further by self-consciously connecting their irrational worlds to nineteenth-century romanticism and the aestheticism that grew out of it."
Remake
Unfilmed remake
It was announced through MTV in 2008 that a remake of Suspiria was in production, to be directed by David Gordon Green, who directed films such as Undertow and Pineapple Express. As with many remakes of cult films, the announcement was met with hostility by some, including Argento himself. The film was to be produced by Italian production company First Sun. In August 2008, the Bloody Disgusting website reported that Natalie Portman and Annette Savitch's Handsome Charlie Films were set to produce the remake and that Portman would play the lead role. The First Sun project was also announced to be produced by Marco Morabito and Luca Guadagnino. After a period of no news in which it was thought that the remake attempt had failed, Green stated in August 2011 that he was again trying to remake the film. It was announced on 15 May 2012 that actress Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan, The Hunger Games) would play the lead role. In late 2012, the planned remake was put on hold. In January 2013, Gordon Green revealed that it may never happen due to legal issues. In April 2014, Green admitted the remake was too expensive to make during the "found footage boom" and this version was ultimately not made.
Filmed remake
In September 2015, Luca Guadagnino announced at the 72nd Venice Film Festival that he would direct the Suspiria remake, with the intention of using the cast of his film A Bigger Splash (Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson). Guadagnino set his version in Berlin circa 1977, running in accordance with the release year of Argento's film and making a slight location shift, and in this iteration focus on "the concept of motherhood and about the uncompromising force of motherhood." Dakota Johnson mentioned in the Autumm/Winter 2015 issue of AnOther Magazine, that she was undertaking ballet training to prepare for the film. On 23 November 2015, Luca Guadagnino revealed during an interview to Italian website Daruma View that Tilda Swinton will star in the film, and that shooting will begin August 2016 in time for a 2017 theatrical release. Prior to the announcement, in April 2015, an English-language television series based on the film, along with a series based on Sergio Corbucci's Django, was being developed by Atlantique Productions and Cattleya. Both series were slated to consist of 12 fifty-minute long episodes, with the possibility of multiple seasons.
In October 2016, it was announced that Chloe Grace Moretz would co-star in the remake, alongside Dakota Johnson, and Tilda Swinton. Since the fall of 2016, both Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton are frequently reported by local news in Varese. The film finished shooting on 10 March 2017 in Berlin.
Awards
- 1978 Nominated Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress - Joan Bennett
- 2002 Nominated Saturn Award for Best DVD Classic Film Release
See also
- Gothic film § Notable films
- Giallo
References
Works cited
- Allmer, Patricia; Huxley, David; Brick, Emily (2012). European Nightmares: Horror Cinema in Europe Since the 1945. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-85008-7.
- Bondanella, Peter (2009). A History of Italian Cinema. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-441-16069-0.
- Cooper, L. Andrew (2012). Dario Argento. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-09438-5.
- Curti, Roberto (2017). "1977: Suspiria". Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1970-1979. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-476-66469-9.
- McDonagh, Maitland (2010). Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-1-452-91537-1.
- Muir, John Kenneth (2007). Horror Films of the 1970s. II. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-43104-5.
External links
- Suspiria on IMDb
- Suspiria at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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