It’s no secret that humans are fascinated by the sordid and the ghastly. Go into any hospital and you’ll find a sweet old thing mowing through a thriller novel with a seamy blurb. Perhaps it’ll be one authored by Edgar Wallace or Agatha Christie; the kind that were peddled as cheap yellow-covered paperbacks (giallo) in post-war Italy, the likes of which inspired a generation of filmmakers to basically invent their own namesake cinematic subgenre: giallo, which literally translates as ‘yellow’.
Brash and shamelessly theatrical, giallo films are a seductive reappropriation of Anglo-American pulp tropes and traditions, much like spaghetti westerns. With coyness cast aside, blood is redder; the music swaggers and charges; violence is treated like dance, and sex is treated like sex. Equal parts attractive and offensive, giallo is one of cinema’s most potent confections.
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Films Featured (in order of appearance):
Berberian Sound Studio (dir. Peter Strickland, 2012)
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (dir. Dario Argento, 1970)
Suspiria (dir. Dario Argento, 1977)
A Bay of Blood (aka Twitch of the Death Nerve) (dir. Mario Bava, 1971)
Deep Red (dir. Dario Argento, 1975)
Hatchet for the Honeymoon (dir. Mario Bava, 1970)
The Girl Who Knew Too Much (aka The Evil Eye) (dir. Mario Bava, 1963)
Opera (dir. Dario Argento, 1987)
A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (dir. Lucio Fulci, 1971)
The House with Laughing Windows (dir. Pupi Avati, 1976)
Blood and Black Lace (dir. Mario Bava, 1965)
The Case of the Bloody Iris (dir. Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972)
What Have You Done to Solange? (dir. Massimo Dallamano, 1972)
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (dir. Sergio Martino, 1971)
Tenebre (dir. Dario Argento, 1982)
The New York Ripper (dir. Lucio Fulci, 1982)
Cruising (dir. William Friedkin, 1980)
Inglourious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
Frenzy (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1972)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (dir. Wes Craven, 1984)
White of the Eye (dir. Donald Cammell, 1987)
Alice, Sweet Alice (dir. Alfred Sole, 1976)
Sisters (dir. Brian de Palma, 1973)
Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronosfsky, 2010)
Dressed to Kill (dir. Brian de Palma, 1980)
Music – “Profondo Rosso (album version)” by Golbin, from the Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) soundtrack.
Soundbites (in order of appearence):
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Deep Red
Frenzy
The Eyes of Laura Mars