Suspiria

Suspiria
Original Italian theatrical release poster
Directed by	Dario Argento
Produced by	Claudio Argento Salvatore Argento
Written by	Dario Argento Daria Nicolodi
Based on	Suspiria de Profundis  by Thomas De Quincey
Starring	Jessica Harper Stefania Casini Flavio Bucci Miguel Bosè Alida Valli Joan Bennett
Narrated by	Dario Argento
Music by	Goblin Dario Argento
Cinematography	Luciano Tovoli
Edited by	Franco Fraticelli
Production company	Seda Spettacoli
Release dates	1 February 1977 (1977-02-01) (Italy) 12 August 1977 (1977-08-12) (U.S.)
Running time	98 minutes[1]
Country	Italy
Language	Italian Russian English German Latin
Box office	ITL £1,430,000,000 (Italy) $1,800,000 (U.S./CA)[2]

Suspiria (pronounced [susˈpi.ri.a], Latin for "sighs") is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento, co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi, 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. Later, she would realize that the academy is a front for something far more sinister and supernatural amidst a series of murders. The film also features Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosè, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, and Joan Bennett in her final film role. It is the first Dario Argento's horror film to have THX-certified audio and video.

The score was composed by progressive rock band Goblin and released in 1977. The film is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as "The Three Mothers", followed in 1980 by Inferno and in 2007 by The Mother of Tears. 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 was nominated for two Saturn Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Joan Bennett in 1978 and Best DVD Classic Film Release in 2002. It has since become a cult classic and a remake was planned for 2013, but was subsequently cancelled.

Plot

Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student, arrives from her flight in Munich, Germany on a stormy night to enroll in a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg. After Suzy is unable to gain access into the academy, she decides to spend the night in town. Meanwhile, Pat Hingle, a former student who is expelled from the academy and seen leaving the academy in a somewhat frightened mood by Suzy, finds refuge at a friend's apartment in town. After Pat locks herself inside of the bathroom, a mysterious arm smothers Pat against the glass. Her friend overhears her screaming and tries to scream for help, although nobody replies. Pat is then repeatedly stabbed in the chest and stomach with a large knife and bound with a cord, before she is hung in mid-air after crashing through a large stained-glass ceiling. Her friend is killed directly below by the falling glass and metal.

Upon Suzy's arrival at the academy the next morning, she is introduced to Madame Blanc and Miss Tanner. She is escorted to the ballet students' locker room, where she meets Sarah and Olga, the latter with whom she has arranged to stay with off-campus. The following morning, Blanc offers Suzy a dormitory room, but she declines Blanc's offer. After a strange encounter with the academy's cook, Suzy seemingly struggles before fainting during a lesson. Later that night, Suzy awakens to discover that she has been moved into a dormitory room against her wishes. The doctors then tell Suzy that she is to be "medicated" with a glass of wine daily. Suzy befriends Sarah after the two are roomed together. As Suzy and the rest of the students prepare for dinner, hundreds of maggots fall from the ceiling. The students are told this was due to spoiled food boxed in the attic. The girls are then invited to sleep in the practice hall overnight. During the night, Sarah 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 next morning, Tanner orders the school's blind piano player, Daniel, to leave the academy immediately after his guide dog bites Albert. Later that night, Sarah overhears the teacher's footsteps and begins to count them whilst Suzy becomes irresistibly drowsy and falls asleep. Meanwhile, while Daniel and his guide dog cross a plaza within the city, Daniel senses a strange presence. Suddenly, his seemingly calm dog lunges at Daniel and tears his throat out, killing him. The next day, Suzy recalls the words "iris" and "secret" from Pat's mumbling before leaving the academy. Later that night, Suzy and Sarah go for a swim while Sarah reveals to Suzy that she and Pat were close friends, and recalls that Pat had been "talking strangely for some time". The two girls search for Pat's notes in Sarah's room, but they appear to have been stolen. Suzy suddenly becomes drowsy and falls asleep before Sarah flees to the attic after hearing approaching footsteps. Sarah is chased by an unseen pursuer and, thinking she will be able to escape through a window into another room, falls into a huge pile of razor wire. Becoming entangled, she struggles in anguish until a mysterious black-gloved hand of a dark figure appears and slits her throat.

The following morning, Blanc and Tanner inform Suzy that Sarah has abruptly left the academy. Confused and suspicious, Suzy goes to meet one of Sarah's acquaintances, a psychologist, Frank Mandel, who explains that the academy was founded by Helena Markos, a cruel Greek émigré who was widely believed to be a witch. Dr. Mandel's colleague, Professor Millus, then tells Suzy that a coven can only survive with their queen. Upon Suzy's return to the academy that night, she discovers that all of the students have gone to the theater. She overhears the footsteps Sarah identified before and follows them to Blanc's office. She suddenly recalls Pat's mumbling after discovering irises painted all over the walls of Blanc's office. After entering a hidden passage, she discovers Blanc, Tanner and the staff forming a ritual where they plot Suzy's death. Unseen, Suzy then turns to find Sarah's body nailed to a coffin. Frightened, Suzy then sneaks into another room, where she accidentally awakens a shadowy figure who reveals herself as Helena Markos. Helena then orders Sarah's nearby corpse to rise from the dead to murder Suzy. Suzy then stabs Helena through the throat with one of the room's decorative knives, which appears to kill her (she fades from view screaming) and Sarah's reanimated corpse. Helena's demise causes the building to set alight. As the academy is slowly destroyed with the coven inside, Suzy manages to escape before the entire building catches on fire.

Cast

Production

Suspiria is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks. The film was made with 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. 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 quality of the film. It was one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor.^[3]

The title and general concept of "The Three Mothers" 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".

Scriptwriter Daria Nicolodi stated that Suspiria's inspiration came from a tale her grandmother told her as a young child about a real life experience she had in an acting academy where she discovered "the teachers were teaching arts, but also black magic."^[4] This story was later confirmed by Argento to have been made up.^[5]

In the Suspiria: 25th Anniversary documentary, Harper commented on the fact that while making Suspiria, as was common practice in Italian filmmaking at the time, the actors' dialogue was not properly recorded, but was later dubbed through ADR, or additional dialogue recording. She also recalled that part of the reason for this was because 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 as she was dubbed in Italian by another actress.

Soundtrack

Italian prog rock band Goblin composed most of the film's musical 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.^[6] 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 Are 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. It was also sampled by RJD2 for the song "Weather People Off Cage's Album Weather Proof" and by Army of the Pharaohs in their song "Swords Drawn". The soundtrack from the film has also been sampled in the cult television series Invader Zim.

Goblin has played the soundtrack live in four locations to standing ovations - as a World Premiere at the Nov 2012 Melbourne Music Week at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, in July 2013 at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival, on 19 July 2013 at Civic Theatre Auckland New Zealand in the Live Cinema Section of New Zealand Film Festival and on 18 October 2014 at a live screening of the film at Vooruit in Gent, Belgium in the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent.

A remake of the Suspiria soundtrack was released on House of Usher Records^[7] under exclusive license with Bixio Music Group, Ltd. on October 1, 2014 and features remixes by Waning Moon.^[8]

Critical reception

The film has received critical acclaim from contemporary critics. According to film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 95% "fresh" rating based on thirty-one reviews with the consensus, "The blood pours freely in Argento's classic Suspiria, a giallo horror as grandiose and glossy as it is gory".^[9] Rotten Tomatoes also ranked it number 41 on their 2010 list of the greatest horror films.^[10] Whilst some critics praise the film's visual performance, use of color and soundtrack, others have criticized it for its lack of sense and puzzling storyline.

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."^[11] 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".^[12] 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".^[13]

The Village Voice ranked Suspiria #100 on their list of the 100 greatest films made in the 20th century.^[14] Adam Smith of Empire magazine awarded the film a perfect score of five out of five.^[15] Empire magazine also ranked Suspiria #312 on their list of the 500 greatest films ever^[16] as well as number 45 on their list 'The 100 Best Films of World Cinema'.^[17] 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."^[18] Entertainment Weekly ranked Suspiria #18 on their list of the 25 scariest films ever.^[19] A poll of critics of Total Film ranked it #3 on their list of the 50 greatest horror films ever.^[20] One of the film's sequences was ranked at #24 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments program.^[21] IGN ranked it #20 on their list of the 25 best horror films.^[22]

In popular culture

Two bands, Norwegian thrash metal band Susperia, as well as a pioneering mid-1990s UK gothic rock band, 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 movie 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).

Remakes cancelled

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,^[23] including Argento himself.^[24] The film was to be produced by Italian production company First Sun.^[25] 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.^[26] The First Sun project was also announced to be produced by Marco Morabito and Luca Guadagnino.^[27]

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.^[23] It was announced on 15 May 2012 that actress Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan, The Hunger Games) would play the lead role.^[28]

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 Suspiria remake was too expensive to make during the "found footage boom". It is very likely that it will not be made. ^[29]

Awards

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA

• 1978 Nominated Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress – Joan Bennett
• 2002 Nominated Saturn Award for Best DVD Classic Film Release

References

External links

• Suspiria at the Internet Movie Database
• Suspiria at Rotten Tomatoes

The Three Mothers trilogy by Dario Argento Films Suspiria Inferno The Mother of Tears Soundtracks Suspiria Inferno

Dario Argento Films directed The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) The Five Days (1973) Deep Red (1975) Suspiria (1977) Inferno (1980) Tenebrae (1982) Phenomena (1985) Opera (1987) Two Evil Eyes (1990) Trauma (1993) The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) The Phantom of the Opera (1998) Sleepless (2001) The Card Player (2004) The Mother of Tears (2007) Giallo (2009) Dracula 3D (2012) Television directed Door into Darkness Do You Like Hitchcock? Masters of Horror "Jenifer" "Pelts" Related topics The Three Mothers