{"id":2288,"date":"2018-10-31T15:23:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T15:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=2288"},"modified":"2019-06-13T13:50:32","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T13:50:32","slug":"art-of-darkness-argento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/art-of-darkness-argento\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Shelf: &#8216;Art of Darkness&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Art of Darkness: The Cinema of Dario Argento<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em><em>Chris Gallant (ed.), Art of Darkness: The Cinema of Dario Argento (Guildford: FAB Press, 2001), 318pp. Hbk.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On the occasion of Luca Guadagnino&#8217;s remake of Italian director Dario Argento&#8217;s 1977 genre-defining Giallo\u00a0<em>Suspiria<\/em>, there&#8217;s been a lot of discussion of not only that film but all of Argento&#8217;s works. Considered by many to be the first, last, and only tome on the matter is Chris Gallant&#8217;s collection aptly titled <em>Art of Darkness: The Cinema of Dario Argento<\/em> from FAB Press in 2001.<\/p>\n<p>Clocking in at over 300 pages and covering not only Argento&#8217;s film and TV work but also his many producing and writing credits, the book is split into three main segments: the first, \u2018primo tempo\u2019, is a series of five essays by the book\u2019s editor, Chris Gallant. In \u2018secondo tempo\u2019 are individual reviews penned by the likes of Kim Newman, Gary Needham, Stephen Thrower, and Mike Lebbing. Wrapping everything up in \u2018il piu\u2019 is Julian Granger&#8217;s filmography section with a deep dive into almost everything Argento laid his hands on.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HBEYrQWi4PE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s worth mentioning that this book is not for the casual film fan. These essays and reviews go deep on themes \u2014 references to the art world, masculinity, paranoia \u2014 relating to not only Argento\u2019s work but Italian genre film and its history. Gallant\u2019s essays exemplify this. In his excellent 5th entry titled \u2018Quoting The Raven: Philosophies of composition and the female corpse as objet d\u2019art: the influence of Edgar Allen Poe\u2019, Argento is quoted as saying, \u201cWhen I began to make films, I recognized that my themes had some affinity with the events told by Poe in his stories; his hallucinatory worlds, his bloody visions. I asked myself: Have I opened my Pandora\u2019s Box? Would I be consumed by my mad and perverse characters? Can a mind exist in peace that takes its inspiration from Hell?\u201d In <em>Tenebre<\/em> (1982) \u2014 one of Argento\u2019s most self-reflexive works \u2014 the killer compares his murders to \u201cwriting a book\u201d, predating Wes Craven\u2019s <em>Scream<\/em> by almost 25 years.<\/p>\n<p>The book was released in 2001 and, since Argento is still making films, it\u2019s due for an update. Many of the director\u2019s 21st century output is worth discussing, like 2007\u2019s <em>Mother of Tears<\/em> (the final entry in the loose \u201cThree Mothers\u201d trilogy also containing <em>Suspiria<\/em> and 1980\u2019s <em>Inferno<\/em>) as well as\u00a0<em>Jenifer<\/em>, his episode for 2005&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Masters of Horror<\/em>\u00a0TV series.<\/p>\n<p>Curiously absent is any analysis or criticism from women. For so many essays and reviews focused on the idea of masculinity and violence against women, there are zero takes from those who are so often the focus of Argento\u2019s work. <em>Art of Darkness<\/em> is long out of print and the hardcover goes for upwards of $250 online (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abebooks.com\/servlet\/SearchResults?isbn=9780952926092\">the paperback edition starts at generally more affordable prices<\/a>), but it\u2019s worth tracking down for anyone interested in writing about or studying the huge scope of Argento\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Books about the art and craft of cinema that you should be reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,19],"tags":[34,40,39,35,41,36,37,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2288"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2953,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288\/revisions\/2953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}