Nightmares In Yellow - Giallo Cinema

This was originally presented as a talk with images and clips at the 'Stranger With My Face' Horror Film festival in Hobart (Feb 17-19, 2012), organised by Briony Kidd. Obviously with copyright to consider, clips are not included in this version, but more often than not you would be able to find at least some of this material online. Where possible I have put appropriate stills, but of course moving pictures are what we are talking about...please consider tracking down these films.

Nightmares In Yellow

Introduction
My name is Matt Warren, I'm an artist, musician and curator, based here in Hobart. I grew up watching horror films, being scared to death by Halloween and Halloween II, the latter I watched at a neighbourhood friends house one evening at age 13, then having to walk, or rather run all the way home through the dark gloomy suburban streets, always looking behind me in the hope I wouldn't spot Michael Myers stepping out of the shadows.
Horror cinema has an incredible power to disturb, frighten and fill the viewer with both terror and exuberance. Horror cinema has a dark energy.

As a practicing artist, usually working in time-based media, there is no doubt that cinema and specifcally the screen language, lighting and composition of horror cinema has influenced my work. The world of Horror cinema has a long and interesting history and within the genre itself it has many and varied sub genres. 'Giallo' is one such genre

Once moving through some of the more well known directors from North America I discovered the work of one of their biggest influences, one Dario Argento from Italy. Whilst not the originator of 'Giallo', he was perhaps the most commercially successful horror filmmaker from Italy and therefore introduced this genre to the mainstream.

So what is Giallo? “Giallo” is full of lurid violent imagery, disorienting camerawork, obtuse dialogue, groovy soundtracks and a dream/nightmare-logic. These films are psychedelic murder-mysteries and trippy 'whodunnits'. I will discuss the origin of these films, give some key examples, the various traits inherent with them and the influence they have had on wider horror cinema. I'll also discuss examples of typical and atypical female roles seen in these films with special focus on Dario Argento's Deep Red/Profondo Rosso, a key-work of the genre. I'll show some of my favourite short sequences from some of the key Giallo films and they will hopefully illustrate to you the techniques and styles used in Giallo. I should also point out that many of these films are beautifully shot and unfortunately the quality of the clips in this presentation do not do them justice, but hopefully they look okay. There is still a lack of good quality DVDs of many of these films available in Australia, but a lot are available overseas. And apart from Deep Red I'll try not to present any spoilers when giving a context for the clips.


The word 'Giallo' is literally 'yellow' in Italian. The way it became associated with this kind of cinema is quite simply the paper back crime, murder mystery novels that were key plot inspirations were often published in Italy with yellow jackets. The majority of these novels were Italian translations of American and British writers such as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Ed McBain, Rex Stout and Raymond Chandler.

Names of Key directors to look out for

Mario Bava Dario Argento Lucio Fulci Sergio Martino Pupi Avati Aldo Lado

Cinematic influences.

German Expressionist film – works such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari,
Faust and Nosferatu inspired Dario Argento and Mario Bava in particular. Be it the use of light and shadow, the composition and framing or the intense facial expressions of the films protagonists, the mood and sometimes hysterical atmosphere was transferred to much of the work put out by Giallo filmmakers.

This kind of cinema went onto inspire another German form known as 'Krimi', crime stories often based on the written work of Edgar Wallace and prior to and in tandem with that 'Film Noir' – shadowy, detective and gangster dramas with some of the best works coming out of America.

The films of Alfred Hitchcock – were also influential. Films like The Man Who Knew Too Much - with a character perhaps overhearing, or seeing details that embroil them in a mystery. An obvious reference can be found in the title of what is considered to be the first Giallo film – Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much (aka The Evil Eye in some countries) from 1962, though Bava refined the style with this next film Blood and Black Lace. I have not been able to track down Bava's film, but, do have a short clip here and it does display it's debt to both Hitchcock and German Expressionist film.

Vertigo's use of a convoluted plotline involving mistaken and obscure identities that extends the mystery and also the protagonists with some physical or psychology ailment that encumbers his or her's ability to solve the mystery are also recurring themes in Giallo stories.

Hitchcock's Psycho is also a key influential work. A recurring theme in gialli is often the obscure psychology of the murderers motives and the dark undercurrent inherent in both Robert Bloch's orignal story and Hitchcock's film informed Giallo as well as many other films inside and outside of horror. So too the scene of murder in Psycho is a key moment for Giallo filmmakers. There is the interesting swapping of POVs between murderer and victim during the shower scene and this in itself is rare in Hitchcock films in that it is quite implicit and and not as detached and objective as much of his work.

Argento has been called by film critics – the "Italian Hitchcock" or the "Garlic–Flavoured Hitchcock" and to be compared to such a master, Argento feels complimented. However he would point out that one of the main differences between him and Hitchcock is that Hitchcock's approach was a somewhat aloof, detached reserve, especially when it comes to presenting scenes of violence. Whereas Argento's approach contains a more frenzied, hystertical subjective point of view...he has said “I am Latin – hot blooded and passionate”. And the shower scene in Psycho notwithstanding, this is generally true when comparing their works.

Blow Up by Michaelangelo Antonioni 1966 – was a murder mystery set in Swinging 60s London starring David Hemmings as a hip photographer who inadvertedly witnesses a murder, but doesn't realise it until much later when blowing up one of his photographs taken in a park.

This film was a world wide cult hit and gave Italian cinema some notoriety. Dario Argento at the time was a film critic and this film later on inspired Deep Red.

These all collided and were filtered through an Italian operatic sensibility, Opera being the so called Italian National Art, to create Giallo.

Characteristics and techniques

One thing people may notice first of all is the somewhat over the top, titles of these films. This is not across the board of course, but very often excessive poeticism comes forth when the director names their film. Of course to a degree these are down to the Italian to English translation, but they do remain pretty literal.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage,
Short Night of Glass Dolls,
The House of Laughing Windows,
Too Late Claire too late,
Hatchet for a Honeymoon,
Four Flies On Grey Velvet,
Twitch of the Death Nerve
and one of my favourites -
Forbidden Photos of A Respectable Woman.
In fact there is a very simple website that one can go to and get your own fictional giallo film title, fictional director and brief synopsis. http://www.braineater.com/misc/giallo.html

Lurid violent imagery.
As mentioned earlier one of the characteristics is the somewhat lurid and explicit nature of the violence in the films. The violence is usually not left up to the imagination, is intense and in your face. Even if it does not always put you, the audience in the murderers POV, it brings you close to the action. It should be stated too, that a potentially distrurbing technique employed by Dario Argento is his use of himself as the gloved hands in murder scene closeups. He has stated that he “feels comfortable in this role and knows how to play it very well”.

Psychological states on display.
One of my personal favourite elements common in Giallo is the use of delirious and restless camera techniques, unusual editing and hallucinatory, psychedelic content illustrating a sense of psychological turmoil. This could traced back to certain elements of German Expressionist cinema and where the 'stimmung' or mood is created with the composition of objects and people within the frame and the use of light and shadow. A psychological state is achieved with some or all of the these things.

An example being the opening scene from Lucio Fulci's Lizard In A Womans Skin from 1969. Where the jump cut editing, the claustrophobic composition and the harsh lighting contribute to an increasing sense or panic.

In this pre-murder scene from Dario Argento's 1982 Giallo named Tenebre, we have an example of what could be called impossible voyuerism. An extended crane, tracking shot combined with pulsing electronic music both hinting at the murders desire to see and invade all and also the underlying paranoia of the people inside the building. It is almost like we are seeing the POV of a dark spirit or the staring personification of the scene's mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eDtzdKktTw
When viewing this seen you will notice that what initially appeared to be an objective use of music, becomes subjective by the end of the sequence, the character's hear and respond to the music, not just us the audience. This is a technique that Argento had played with a little earlier in his 'witches in a dance academy' fairy tale Suspiria where the music almost becomes a character, even whispering clues to the audience and the protagonists.

And speaking of music and just because it's one of my favourite scenes for it's utter strangeness, I'd like to show another scene from Argento's Deep Red of which I'll talk more of later. This scene again portrays a sense of paranoia, with dolly shots that hint at the character, a person too close to the mystery, is being watched. It would traditionally be scored with quiet, menacing music when instead it's filled with the groovy progressive funk of the band Goblin. What preempts the attack is nothing short of chilling and nightmarish. Also without wanting to give a 'spoiler', those who are squeamish in regards to the mouth, approach with caution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haoefVqBv0Y

Unusual situations, witnesses and mysteries

As stated earlier, when talking about Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, the protagonists in Giallo films can often find themselves embrolied in murder mysteries under very strange circumstances and scenarios. Here in Dario Argento's first film The Bird With The Crystal Plumage from 1969 the witness to an apparent attack becomes helplessly involved and unable to assist when he becomes caught between two glass doors. He is silent and trapped and unable to help.

Here is a scene from Pupi Avati's very strange and atmospheric House With the Laughing Windows from 1976. A restorer of church frescos begins to unravel a small village's murder mystery through his restoration job.






Strange Noises

An element of that adds to the strange atmosphere and dream-like logic of the giallo films is the sound component. Dialogue has a slightly disorienting feel in a number of these films. This is due to a couple of factors. For starters, often the English dialogue we hear is a translation of the original Italian and perhaps some liberties have been taken in regards to logic. It should also be said that many of these films contain international casts. It would be not uncommon for English, Italian, French and Spanish speaking actors to be in the same film. Sometimes dialogue is spoken between two or more actors in their own tongue. As is the case with perhaps 95% of Italian cinema of the time, dialogue was post production dubbed in a sound studio. This was both to counteract the multi-language issue, so often not by the original actors and to also have clean clear dialogue as original shoots were much more concerned with visuals. The sonic qualities of the the post production audio leaves a sense of slight disorientation as it does not always match up with what's on the screen.

So too a contributing factor is the scoring of these films. There are a number of composers used, but two of the soundtrack composers are Ennio Morricone and the band Goblin headed by keyboardist Claudio Simonetti .

Morricone is probably best known for his soundtrack to Sergio Leone's The Good The Bad and the Ugly but he also worked on a number of notable Giallo films including Argento's first 3 films. They are often a strange mix of free jazz and avant garde orchestral music and odd vocalisations. Here is a reminder of Morricone's superb soundtrack to Argento's Bird With the Crystal Plumage.

Starting with Deep Red, Argento began using Italian prog rock group Goblin on his soundtracks adding another texture of strangeness to the mix. He followed Deep Red with Suspiria which is possibly Goblin's finest hour and also encouraged George A Romero to allow them to score his zombie materpiece Dawn Of The Dead. In fact Argento co produced this film and had final cut for the European markets, which had a different edit and more Goblin soundtrack material. Other filmmakers began using them to soundtrack their horror and gangster films during the 70s and Argento himself continued to use Goblin or members thereof on and off during the 80s and 90s.






There are a number of these soundtracks available nowadays and worth tracking down, particularly the Morricone Giallo tracks and a good sampler is the one I showed earlier.

There were also a series of compilations released in the mid to late 90s called Easy Tempo that compiled many of the more obscure Italian composers of giallo and other exploitation film soundtracks from the late 60s and 70s.








Female Archetypes
With limited time versus a wealth of potential films to discuss, these example just touch on the world of Giallo films. But in line with the subject of this festival, I like to talk a little bit now about female roles in Giallo.

I do not know of any female film directors of the Giallo films created in the peak time of say 1972 to 1978, unfortunately. Perhaps they exist, but I'm not aware of them. It could be explained I suppose by it simply being a sign of the times. Horror cinema in general in the early 1970s seemed to have a lack of female directors behind the scenes. Giallo was no exception. It is perhaps a cliché that Giallo cinema was concerned primarliy with the murder of female victims. And it's a valid perception, but it's not definitive. In horror cinema, the female victims and the reasons they are victimised has been written and spoken about a lot. Sex equals death, the virgin stays alive etc etc.

So instead I'd like to look at a seemingly atypical female role in Giallo films and perhaps early 1970s horror in general, that of Gianna the journalist in Deep Red.

Mark, an English pianist and composer is in Rome composing, conducting and performing. He is friends with Carlo, a drunken piano player who works in a bar, the bourgeois artist and the gigging muso. Between sets, they discuss their respective roles in the music world, Carlo staggers off for his next set after they both hear a distant scream. Alone, Mark see's a woman silently scream against an upstairs window which breaks. He rushes up to investigate the situation. It turns out the victim is a psychic, in town giving a presentation and writing an article about her ablities. She has gotten too close psychologically to some dark secrets. Mark believes he sees something in the woman's apartment that is a clue to the identity of the murderer, but can't pin point what it is. During the ensuing police investigation in the apartment, Gianna, an investigative journalist enters. Mark and Gianna become involved in a DIY investigation together. Along the way, people assisting the pair in the investigation become victims of the same murderer.

A little background on Deep Red. It was Argento's fifth film and his fourth Giallo. Just prior to this he made his little seen historical comedy/drama The Five Days Of Milan. His return to giallo brought with it a new safisticated approach. Prior to being a filmmaker Argento was a movie critic and began working on films as a writer on spagetti westerns including co-writing with Bertolucci on Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America.














During his critic days Argento had seen and I believe favourably reviewed the Michaelangelo Antonioni classic Blow Up as mentioned earlier. Though when it came time to make Deep Red Argento considered his film as both a homage, but also a critical, almost post-modern response to Blow Up...the obscure clue remained or course, that being the main character witnessing something, not really sure what he had seen...
a blurred image of a gun in a photograph in Blow Up, the murderers reflection in a mirror, mistaken for a painting in Deep Red. There is of course the main investigative role reprised by the same actor David Hemmings. But seemingly a critical and critised factor in Blow Up is the rather insipid and weak willed female charaters, treated badly as playthings by the arrogant photographer played by Hemmings. In Deep Red, although a key amatuer investigator, Hemmings character Mark is a buffoon, is rather insipid and often calls upon Gianna played by Daria Nicolodi to help him out when in trouble. As much as he doesn't want to admit it, he needs her. She is the stronger willed of the two.

A little background on the actor Daria Nicolodi.
Her first film with Argento was Deep Red where she had a significant role, the character of a strong willed but carefree journalist. Her and Argento went on to become partners. She also went on to co-write and conceive of his supernatural “Three Mothers” trilogy – Suspiria, Inferno and The Mother Of Tears. Interestingly it's been said that the state of their relationship can be traced through Nicolodi's roles in Argentos' films. From her playful carefree nature in Deep Red up to her final role in an Argento film Opera in 1988, where she is spectacularly shot through the eye whilst looking through a peep hole in a door, the downward trajectory of their relationship seemed to be charted thus. Soon after Daria and Dario split and she discontinued appearing in his films, their daughter Asia, took over many of the female leads in his latter and in my opinion, less successful films.


Deep Red was one of the few horror films of the time that overtly addresses gender inequality.

It more often than not presents Gianna and Mark as equals in the couple, both vulnerable, goofy, but both can be be strong and driven by a desire to find out some kind of truth. Albeit for different reasons.

Interestingly when this film was shortened for time to make it more commercially viable, a number of these scenes of characterisation and interaction between Mark and Gianna were excised. Did this portray a general attitude of the time? Not only a preference for a simpler more exploitative horror film but also a lack of interest in gender politics.

Argento has often been accused of misogynistic attitudes in his films and it's not unreasonable to think this looking at some of his later and lesser works. However he has stated that the female characters in his films are more curious, stronger willed, more investigative and ready to get into dangerous situations out of a sense of adventure. Is he making excuses for splattering pretty girls with blood or is this a genuine philosophical approach to his film-making?

Certainly I would argue that these characteristics are very present in the character of Gianna.

The misogynistic elements of a number of what I would consider lesser - Giallo films seemed to carry over when influencing American slasher films particularly Friday the 13^th and it's clones like The Burning, The Prowler aka Rosemary's Killer. Although lumped in with these, Halloween from 1978 was one of the earliest so-called slasher films and incorporated a little more flair and mood that came from Giallo and Argento in particular. There is the use of the killer's POV, the use of electronic music and the obscure psychological back story.

So too it could be said that the character of Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis, a forthright, strong but vulnerable female character is seemingly atypical in 1970s American horror film. Writer/director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill have both noted their love for the work of Argento and perhaps the atypical female roles, in Deep Red, both a strong-willed investigative character as opposed to simply being a victim had inspired a change of attitude.

What many of the lesser giallo films lack is character development, particularly the female roles. As Deep Red was the first giallo film I saw, I noticed the lack of characterisation in some of the other giallo films when I came to view them later on. That is not too say these films are without merit, they are indeed stylish and atmospheric. But there can be a lack of empathy with main characters. Deep Red is quite rightly considered a benchmark of giallo, as it contains not only what makes the form so great, the strangeness, the atmosphere, the beautiful shots, but also interesting well rounded male and female characters.

Text: © Matt Warren 2012