Tonight I am seeing Dario Argento in conversation at the BFI, followed by a big-screen outing for one of my favourite films, his horror masterpiece Suspiria. That in mind, I thought the time was right to publish my thoughts on Argento's work, and in particular the misogyny which some have interpreted to figure in that work. Contains spoilers for Suspiria, Deep Red and Tenebrae (Unsane).
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| Literally the scariest picture I could find.(tiffmidnightmadness.blogspot.com) |
Dario Argento began
his career by making giallo1
films, before moving on to
making a certain kind of theatrical, stylised horror with which his
name is now synonymous. His work was critically and
financially successful, and influential- John Carpenter's work on
Halloween is clearly influenced by Argento's giallo films,
and James Wan claims that his film Saw had
Argento's work as its biggest influence2.
Despite its genre and popular success, Argento's work can also be
counted as an example of auteurship, with the consistency of his
films' stylistic choices and repeated collaborations with certain
actors and musicians identifying him as a director with a vision and
expansive body of work. So it seems Argento's work presents a
quandary, walking the line between art-house and grind-house film.
The tension between these two approaches can be seen in how Argento
treats the topic of gender.
On
first inspection, Argento's films seem to follow the normal approach
to women in horror: female characters spend much of their time in
various states of nudity, and are killed in highly ritualised,
painful, baroque ways. But to align Argento with a misogynist view on
this basis seems bizarre. For one, the men in Argento's films also
often suffer horrific deaths; such is the nature of the genre.
Furthermore, Argento himself thinks his films are more than just
'torture-porn', claiming that “without a little depth to these
characters, to the psychology of the characters... it's just a film
about violence and sadism, and there's nothing more to it.”3
Aspects
of Argento's work make it hard to accept that he is simply
misogynist, as many horror films unfortunately appear to be. His
films contain many well-drawn, 'real' female characters, and some
(Suspiria and
Phenomena chief
amongst them) actually have very few male characters at all. This
shows that Argento has some interest in female experience as an
artist. In addition, Argento's women are not always victims- in
Suspiria, Phenomena,
and Deep Red, the
killer is revealed to be a woman. So it seems that in Argento's films
women have agency at least to the extent that they can be killers and
not just victims.
Argento's
position on gender is more complex than it first appears, and
deserves a closer examination. In doing this, I
will offer a Kristevan analysis of several of his works, namely Deep
Red, Suspiria and
Tenebrae.
Firstly, I will discuss the tension between symbolic and semiotic
elements in Argento's films, before moving onto the abject content
inherent in his horror, and finally conclude that Argento's supposed
misogyny comes from an interest in portraying boundaries- between
masculine and feminine, and symbolic and semiotic- as fluid.
Kristeva
proposes that we distinguish between two kinds of experience or
discourse: the semiotic and the symbolic. The semiotic is “suffused
with feeling, and attuned to the physical, to music, and... to the
rhythm of speech and the ambiguities of poetry.”4
For Kristeva, this sort of experience is associated with the
feminine, because of the links between the semiotic and the semiotic
chora, that state which children exist in before they can distinguish
between their body and that of their mother. In Argento's work, what
we can term semiotic content refers to prominent themes of madness
and magic.
In
Suspiria, the
semiotic is expressed as chaos, opposed to rationality. This
manifests as magic of a physical sort, controlled by witches. The
witches act against any threat with immediate, unfathomable, chaotic
manifestations: an attack from an upstairs window by a pair of hairy,
emaciated arms, another attack from an otherwise friendly dog, and
maggots falling from the ceiling. The physicality and
incomprehensibility of these attacks link them to the semiotic, as
well as their opposition to rationality, which is more typically
identified with the symbolic.
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| (deeperintomovies.net) |
Even the presentation of the attacks on
screen is chaotic: the transition to the space in which Pat is
attacked in the opening murder is “extremely disorientating, as
Argento refuses to clarify the relationship between inside and
outside. It seems we may be looking at a rooftop enclosure, bordered
by metal gridding... Whatever the spatial arrangements, we are given
little time to ponder.”5
Throughout the film, Argento is careful to associate this chaos with
femininity and childhood, two important signs of the semiotic.
The
heightened, stylised performances of the teachers and witches who run
the school constantly draw attention to their femininity: they wear
heavy make-up, and talk in an unnatural way as if they are
performing. Here, calling attention to the constructed nature of the
witches' gender draws a link between their uncanny femininity and
their magic. The arguing between the students, and the larger than
usual sets which dwarf the characters, also bring connotations of
childhood. Using these devices, Argento draws a link between what we
would term the semiotic content inherent in his depiction of magic
and chaos, and femininity and childhood.
In
Tenebrae, the
semiotic content manifests as madness. Neal and Berti both suffer
from a sort of psychosis focussed on women and sexuality, which
manifest in violent, penetrative ways; in this sense, they attempt to
regain masculine dominance over femininity. But their project is
doomed because, in their rejection of the symbolic order (via
recourse to insanity), they also reject masculinity; hence, they
cannot satisfy their need for 'vengeance' on the women they perceive
to have wronged them.
Madness
also permeates the structure of Tenebrae; chance, instead of
logical progression, dominates as a motivating force behind the plot.
A girl discovers the killer's lair, not because she is looking for
it, but because she is chased by a rabid dog; the animal, physical
nature of this threat also links it back to the semiotic. Likewise,
the first attack we witness in the film is unrelated to the murderers
the plot focuses on: a homeless man attacks a shoplifting woman.
Although this is related to the dominant themes of the film- namely,
the intersection between sexuality, gender and violence- as the man
is apparently motivated by the attractiveness of the woman, it is not
directly related to either of the main murderers and so is tangential
to the central events of the plot. In both these instances, chance
overrides fate or reason as a plot motivator.
From
these examples, it's clear that Argento's films contain much of what
we could term semiotic content, and that they portray this by
constantly drawing links between gender, and physicality and
violence, through portraying magic and madness. This extends past
specific instances and into the very fabric of the films; Suspiria
is chaotic and dominated by the feminine, while Tenebrae's
plot is convoluted and driven by chance.
Argento's
work also contains some symbolic content. For Kristeva, the symbolic
is that part of language which carries meaning- it is the 'meaning'
of a word, what it denotes, as opposed to its tone or delivery. She
also believes that there must be at least some symbolic content, as
well as some semiotic content, present in an experience or work for
it to be understood. So obviously Argento's films feature some
symbolic content; without this, they would be incomprehensible. In
Argento's work, the symbolic weight is almost always carried by a
'detective' character who imposes reason on the violence surrounding
them by investigating the murders that take place.
However,
these characters are almost always ineffectual or incompetent. In
Deep Red,
the detectives who are investigating the murders which drive the plot
are unable to concentrate on anything but food and coffee; in
Tenebrae,
the 'detective' character, Peter Neal, is compromised when it is
revealed that he has been carrying out some of the murders he's
supposedly investigating. The most successful of Argento's
'detectives' is Suzy in Suspiria.
She
appeals to some psychologists to try and get a proper explanation for
the events at her school, but they fail to convince her; they focus
exclusively on attempting to find some rational, materialist
explanation for her experiences. They discuss witchcraft as a
historical phenomenon, as something which can be symbolically
conceptualised; their explanations pale in comparison to the
unbridled power of the semiotic Suzy experiences.
Significantly,
in most of these examples, male characters are the ones carrying most
of the symbolic weight of the narrative. In other words, the
symbolic is identified as a masculine mode of discourse. The symbolic
is also portrayed as ineffective, at least in dealing with the
semiotic; it seems Argento doesn't care about showing rationality or
deduction as viable methods for dealing with madness or magic. This
extends into interactions between the films and their audience; for
instance, Argento himself often records voice-overs to offer either
introductions or resolutions to the plot of his films. Despite
appearing on the surface to help the audience follow the plot of the
films, in reality these voice-overs do very little to actually help
the viewer piece together what has happened, offering either vague
generalities or information already present in the main body of the
film. In this sense, while on the surface they appear to be an
attempt by the director to make clear the plot of the film, in
reality they are another device which destabilises the symbolic
content of the narrative.
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| Marcus realises where he first saw the murderer. (bloodymurder.wordpress.com) |
Argento
also subverts the genre expectations of the viewer, defying the usual
conventions of a detective story (which, ostensibly, any giallo
should be). In Deep Red,
the killer appears in the background of the first murder sequence;
theoretically, this means it is possible for a keen viewer to
decipher the mystery central to the plot of their own accord. But in
reality, the killer only appears for a few frames, so it would have
been impossible for audiences at the time of the film's release to
actually see
the character. So Deep Red
is “a murder mystery in which the revelation of who committed the
murder is of no importance”6;
in other words, Argento is not particularly interested in creating a
straightforward, 'logical' detective narrative. A common critical
reaction to Argento's films is that they are poorly plotted but well
stylised; this is in line with my interpretation that his films have
little symbolic content but are loaded with rich semiotic content.
From
my argument so far, it might seem that I'm proposing that Argento's
work concerns rigid conflicts between the masculine and feminine, or
the symbolic and semiotic. But in fact, a constant shifting of
femininity and masculinity characterizes Argento's films. Because of
these shifting boundaries, there is much abject imagery in Argento's
work. We can describe the abject as “what disturbs boundaries,
identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions,
rules”;7
It is whatever is “neither inside nor outside, neither subject nor
object, troubling identity and order with the instability of
boundaries, borders, and limits”8.
Our first experience of the abject is when we transfer out of the
semiotic chora and into the symbolic realm; it is the experience of
shifting boundaries that bring about abjection. Abject entities
instil horror in us due to their blurring of the boundaries between
subject and object; the most disturbing horror stories focus on
abject material because our reaction to it is so profoundly negative.
Furthermore, “the degree to which a sense of horror is aroused by
an image or text stems in part from the presence, absence, or
deliberate degrading of protective ritual formulas”,9
so those works which toy with our expectations of the handling of
abject material are more disturbing that those which deal with it
safely. This is why horrors which end unresolved- with a killer still
on the loose, or a curse still at work- are more disturbing than
those which have a clear resolution.
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| Neal's emasculation (dvdactive.com) |
A
clear example of abject content in Argento's work can be found in
Tenebrae. The second murderer
of this story, Peter Neal, is implied to be motivated by an incident
in his youth where he is emasculated by a woman: after slapping her,
she gets some other boys to hold him down, and she pushes her heel
into his mouth. The shifting boundaries between masculinity and
femininity in this scene create a sense of the abject: as the scene
ends with the woman's heel in Peter's mouth, “it
may be assumed that Peter Neal is haunted, like many other men, by
the consequences of his inability to conceive of power as a
pan-gender phenomenon”10.
Boundaries
between male and female are blurred as the unnamed
woman takes power, her symbolic phallus, the heel, driven into
Peter’s mouth as an act of rape; this blurring is further enhanced
by the fact that the actress playing the woman is transgender.
Peter's
murders can be seen as attempts to regain masculinity and
power from this woman- first by murdering her, then others.
The
ending of Tenebrae
also constitutes a direct refusal to deal with the abject content of
the film. In the last minutes of the film, no less than four
characters die, including Peter- the main character and secondary
murderer of the story. He dies by accident, impaled on a sculpture,
in the same room as his victims. Faced with a room of dead bodies and
blood, Anne (Peter's secretary) stands in the doorway to the room and
screams. Her screams continue as the film fades to black and play
over the credits. This ending is notable in that it does not resolve
any of the main detective plot, nor comfort the viewer by showing any
proper disposal of the bodies or the killer coming to justice.
Berti's motives are only guessed at, and Peter's never become clear
beyond vague hypotheses about jealousy by the detectives, or the
viewer's insight into his memories about the girl on the beach. The
bodies (and a severed limb) are left, strewn all over the apartment.
Peter doesn't face justice in any way; even his death is accidental
and not brought about as vengeance. We aren't even offered the
thoughts of Anne on the subject, or a resolution of her character
arc; instead, we have a lasting image of animal pain, a primal
scream. By refusing to offer any resolution here, Argento exploits
our discomfort with abject content, and leaves the viewer disturbed.
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| (brattleblog.brattlefilm.org) |
The
style of Argento's films contributes to the abjection inherent in
much of his work. In
rejecting realism, Argento removes the comfort that a
traditional narrative can offer; in one reviewer's words, “Argento
disengages from the easy virtues of sequential storytelling”.11
Dream sequences or unannounced flashbacks are common; the sequence
where Peter has the heel in his mouth is one of many “ambiguous
passages that may be dreams, recollections or fevered fantasies
[which] are interpolated seemingly at random and without contextual
elaborations”12.
Disorienting edits, loud music, and extensive
dubbing reduce the sense of realism further; this is most apparent in
Suspiria and Deep
Red, where harsh, brightly
coloured lighting, loud progressive rock, and cuts between long
camera moves and static, tight close-ups contribute heavily to the
atmosphere. Argento's use of set-pieces also add to the effect
by disrupting the narrative; Tenebrae in
particular has an extended crane shot sequence, and Suspiria
opens with an infamously
choreographed death sequence. These sequences draw attention
to the created nature of the films; “there's
something alien and unerotic- and important- about the degree of
theatricality”13,
and this unsettles the viewer.
Finally,
self-reflexivity is also used in Argento's work to destabilize
boundaries, in this case between reality and fiction. For example,
Argento also often plays the murderer himself,14
toying with the audience's expectations of a horror director as some
sort of pervert. Self-reflexivity of this sort permeates Tenebrae:
one character tells another that “Tenebrae is sexist”. The
character who says this refers to the book within
the film, but drawing attention to it so brazenly briefly pulls the
viewer out of the fiction, tricking them for a moment into thinking
that the characters are aware of their own fictionality. This line
also references debates about Argento's supposed misogyny, adding
another layer of commentary to the scene. In this way,
self-reflexivity attacks the boundary perhaps most significant to
fiction, that between it and reality. In doing this, the film itself
becomes a site of abjection.
From
my discussion of gender, the symbolic and semiotic, and abjection in
Argento's work, it should be clear that Argento dramatises conflicts
between shifting boundaries, particularly those of gender- in
Kristevan terms, the conflict between symbolic and semiotic
discourse. Much of what appears distasteful in Argento's work,
particularly with regard to gender, such as the theatrical and
ritualistic deaths of multiple women, is a product of the abject
material inherent in discussions of gender boundaries. Furthermore,
by prioritising discussion of semiotic content and linking it with
femininity, while destabilising the symbolic content of his work,
Argento actually explores feminine experience in a way much horror
cinema does not. By emphasising abject material in his films and by
defying usual cleansing rituals regarding that content, or insisting
upon change in them, Argento signals a new identity or new order.15
On this analysis, Argento is no misogynist, but rather an artist
deeply concerned with portraying and questioning the content of
feminine experience.
1A
genre of Italian detective film.
2Wan,
James. Interview by Maitland McDonagh.
AMCTV Blog, 26th
May 2010. Accessed
12th
April 2013.
3Argento,
Dario. Interview. Den of Geek, 15th
April 2008. Accessed 12 April 2013.
4Goodnow
(2009). p30.
5Thrower,
in Gallant (2001). p136.
6Grainger,
in Gallant (2001). p123.
7Kristeva
(1982), p4.
8Zakin,
Emily. “Psychoanalytic Feminism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N Zalta (ed.).
9Goodnow
(2009), p52.
10Barber
and Thrower, in Gallant (2001). p179.
11Thrower,
in Gallant (2001). p137.
12Barber
and Thrower, in Gallant (2001). p179.
13Thrower,
in Gallant (2001). p137.
14Argento
portrays the hands of a murderer in Tenebrae and
Suspiria.
15Goodnow
(2009), p48-49.
