Rosso - color of death

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Movie
German title Rosso - color of death
Original title Profondo rosso
Country of production Italy
original language English , Italian
Publishing year 1975
length 126 minutes
Age rating FSK unchecked, FSK 18 (cut version)
Rod
Director Dario Argento
script Dario Argento
Bernardino Zapponi
production Salvatore Argento
music Giorgio Gaslini
Goblin
camera Luigi Kuveiller
cut Franco Fraticelli
occupation

Rosso - color of death (original title: Profondo rosso ) is an Italian giallo from 1975 by Dario Argento . It was also listed as Deep Red and is now marketed under the original title in Germany. Starring David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi . The music for the extravagantly staged film was provided by the progressive rock band Goblin . Edited versions range from 85 to 126 minutes. In particular, humorous inserts were cut.

action

A medium named Helga Ulmann (in German, in the English version from Latvia) appears in a fully occupied, red- lined theater at the " Parapsychological Conference". In doing so, she telepathically perceives an evil, murderous presence and becomes hysterical . She says the person has already killed and will do it again. Meanwhile someone stands up a few rows back and leaves the hall.

Marcus, a foreign music teacher, is studying a piece with a jazz group. Then in the evening he meets in an empty piazza with the drunk pianist Carlo, an alcoholic who is literally lying in the gutter. As they talk, they hear a distant scream over the city. Past an evening café (where everyone seems to be holding their breath) he walks the few meters to his apartment, one floor above Helga. From there he watches as Helga calls for help at a window high above him, is pressed against it from the inside and literally hacked out of the window pane by the murderer. He runs into the apartment, dismayed. He missed the killer by a few seconds, saw several paintings with faces in the art collector's apartment and saw the alleged perpetrator leaving the square below.

The police arrive, later the pretty, ambitious journalist Gianna, who was part of the audience at the séance . Marcus believes that he has overlooked a crucial clue in the murdered woman's apartment and gives the inspector to understand. Gianna takes a snapshot of him that will later be featured on the front page. For Marcus, four hours of unproductive formalities follow on the station. Marcus hangs himself on the case out of curiosity.

He goes back to Carlo, still at the fountain in front of the statue and barely accessible. He describes the incidents to Carlo and mentions the picture that seems to have disappeared from the crime scene. At the funeral, he befriends Gianna. In their Fiat Nuova 500 in need of repair , it turns out that both are single. His absent-mindedness and "nervousness" can be attributed to the artist's nature. At the place of the séance he talks to psychology professor Giordani about Helga. Marcus visits Carlo again, but only meets his senile mother Marta, a former film star. Carlo is in his transvestite lover's apartment and, as usual, completely drunk. In a very quiet shopping mall they talk again about his perception on the evening of the murder. Carlo advises his friend to stop investigating.

Through the curtain you can see Marcus composing at the piano at home. Something seems to be sneaking around on the roof. The killer is in his apartment, but he manages to bar the door in front of him and he sees something. When Gianna calls, the killer threatens him through the door and runs away.

Professor Giordani has discovered a contemporary, popular witchcraft book, author Amanda Righetti, from which he connects a legend about a haunted house with the deeds. Marcus takes a photo. Then he calls Gianna in her immensely busy editorial office from a noisy pub, but they hardly understand each other.

The writer Amanda is meanwhile murdered in her house in the country, where she is finally drowned in hot bath water. Dying she tries to write something down on the wall with her finger in the steam. Marcus leaves his fingerprints there and begins to wonder how the murderer can always be one step ahead of him.

Marcus can feel an exotic, imported tree in the photo and sometimes flees from the police. Prof. Giordani can find Amanda's last handwriting in Amanda's bathroom after he again ran hot water into the bathtub. Giordani then becomes the next victim of the murderer at home, with a mechanical doll approaching him first.

Marcus locates the dilapidated villa and gets to know the manager and his daughter. During the day he explores the house on countless wrong tracks and scrapes a frightening childlike wall painting from under fresh plaster. Gianna visits him, together they are at a loss, plan a vacation in Lebanon , Gianna dances out of the apartment, he calls around without result.

In the photo he notices a window in the house that is missing in the present and concludes the existence of a hidden space. In the evening he tries to climb over the facade with the pickaxe, almost breaking his neck, but then wanders down the dark corridors, breaks through a wall, discovers a mummified corpse, and is knocked down from behind at the same moment. Gianna saves him from the villa, which is now ablaze. The evidence has been destroyed; however, just recently the caretaker's daughter painted a similar picture. She saw the motive during detention in the archives of the Leonardo da Vinci School , she says.

Once there, Gianna is stabbed to death while trying to call the police (but survives): "All for a stupid story" . On bookshelves and in the midst of dusty files, he finds the template for the picture that Carlo had painted as a child. Carlo is already lying in wait for him. The police arrive, while on the run Carlo is hit by a garbage truck and dragged to death.

However, Marcus had overlooked two things: Carlo was with him at the time of the first murder, and the missing image was actually a mirror in which he saw the real culprit, standing flat against the wall. He is attacked from behind in Helga's apartment. The attacker is Carlos mother, with flashy make-up and in a leather coat. Finally, Carlos's childhood memory becomes clear to Carlos, how his mother stabbed his father to death at Christmas to the song, probably the previously found corpse in the building in question. He wanted to protect her. After a scuffle in the stairwell, she gets caught in the elevator with her necklace and is beheaded when Marcus starts the elevator.

reception

“Mythical thriller , which is of interest to fans of the [sic!] Genre due to its sometimes strange color dramaturgy ; However, this formal aspect cannot mask the film's substantial lack of content. "

- Lexicon of international film

"That doesn't really make sense"

- Jay Seaver : eFilmCritic.com

“The violence in 'Deep Red' reaches a degree of severity that was not known in this form from the previous films. [...] an artistically high-quality Giallo, which does not exactly ooze with liveliness, but draws its strength from this stylized nature. "

- Mannbeisstfilm.de, 2007

“Usually considered by hardcore argentophiles [sic] as his masterpiece [...] a film of transition in his work. Reflects the earlier Gialli [...] and at the same time opens a door to the topics that he will explore more extensively later [...] Deep Red marks the birth of Argento as a visual stylist. "

- Mike Bracken : CultureCartel.com, 2002

"Argento often cuts in meaningless images [...] but I would like to add that he owes everything to his lesser-known predecessor Mario Bava ."

- Jeffrey M. Anderson : Combustible Celluloid, 2008

“This is often a mess , not just in terms of the bloodbath. [...] to the limits of the parody [...] It becomes hard to laugh when you've just seen a head smashed against a table top [...] Argento doesn't have to create the comical effects - he's funny enough when he ' serious 'says […] at the parapsychologists' fair, the professor says: Telepathy is common among the 'butterflies, termites and zebras…' Zebras ?! […] With Argento, however, I tend to 'In case of doubt for the accused', and he already knows very well what he is doing "

- Neil Young's Film Lounge, 2001

"With enough oddity to keep the audience unbalanced without completely pushing them out of the realm of reality [...] Although the supernatural never actually occurs [...] the characters are not in the viewer's recognizable world, but in a world that is dictated by the creative arts . "

- Shane M. Dallmann : Images, 2000

"The products of a fanatical cinephile, so committal and solipsistic filmmaker who has settled into his obsessions. [...] Argento's films seemed to come from nowhere. […] However, there are actually no monsters at the center of his cinema. […] A counter- enlightenment philosopher of cinematic vision […] drawn into the criminal tableau with a kind of pornographic method, the viewer delights in incidents that no diegetic figure could see. [...] the soundtrack is never just background music, but embodies the gruesome presentations vividly "

- Giorgio Bertellini : The Cinema of Italy, pp. 213 ff., 2004

“'We' are the camera : we are set in the film. [...] Argento's camera implements an extremely flexible set of rules as far as subjectivity is concerned [...] Sometimes it withholds information from us, sometimes 'it reveals something to us that the characters cannot know' [...] the camera itself is an independent entity in the Film on the way [...] The Whodunit [...] is not one that we could fairly solve [...] the audience is held 'at arm's length' by the characters "

- Michael Mackenzie : Points of View: The camera and subjectivity in Profondo Rosso
  • In 2001 Ed Gonzalez spoke of a self-referential film that regularly "waves" to the viewer , "The killer always seems to be everywhere" , and: "Argento always suspects everyone" . He also interprets the work as a feature of the gender struggle ( sexual politics ). Keith Hennessey Brown added, "Sometimes Argento just doesn't inform us" and speaks of a cinema of "formal excess" . (2004) Howarth (2008) states that he wasn't badly played either.

backgrounds

The recordings took place in Rome and Turin .

Internationally, Profondo rosso first launched on March 7, 1975 in Italy. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the film had its premiere on April 24, 1991 on video .

As he stated in an interview on the Anchor Bay DVD, Argento and his screenwriter were specifically looking for pain experiences that are familiar from 'normal' life. How it feels to be shot can be understood intellectually, but very few know it from personal experience.

In the original theatrical version, Hemming's image was still moving in the reflection on the pool of blood in the credits. With the (otherwise successful) Anchor Bay R1 DVD, his image was frozen.

Leading actress Daria Nicolodi became director Argento's partner after this film. In the same year their daughter Asia Argento was born.

Awards

Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival 1976
  • Medalla Sitges en Oro de Ley in the Best Director category for Dario Argento

literature

  • Giorgio Bertellini: The Cinema of Italy . Wallflower Press, 2004, ISBN 1-903364-98-1 , pp. 213 ff . (English, online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bertellini, s. Literature.
  2. ↑ "inventive" . Death wears black leather. In: Cinema . Hubert Burda Media, accessed April 9, 2009 .
  3. ^ A b Neil Young: Deep Red. In: Neil Young's Film Lounge. July 24, 2001, accessed on April 9, 2009 : “While the results are often messy not just in terms of onscreen bloodshed […] to the edge of parody […] It's hard to laugh when we've just watched a man's head bashed in on the corners of a desk […] Argento doesn't need to strain for comic effects - he's amusing enough when he's being ostensibly 'serious.' […] At the paranormal display, a professor notes telepathy is common among “butterflies, termites, zebras…” Zebras ?! [...] It's always best to give Argento the benefit of the doubt, however, and he does know exactly what he's doing "
  4. ↑ "cruelly mutilated" , Bracken.
  5. ^ A b “Not only does most of the film take place at night and the streets are barely populated. Even the few people that walk through the streets of Argento's ghost world come to resemble mannequins trapped in time. ” , Gonzalez (see web links).
  6. ↑ a b cf. Brown.
  7. ^ Edward Hopper : " Nighthawks ", oil on canvas, 1942. Cf. also Gottfried Helnwein : "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", 1984 (Gonzalez, see web links).
  8. ↑ Piazza CLN in Turin , see picture .
  9. ↑ a b Gonzalez (see web links).
  10. ↑ a b Rosso - Color of Death in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  11. ↑ Jay Seaver: Deep Red. In: eFilmCritic.com. Retrieved April 9, 2009 : "I don't quite think it makes sense"
  12. ↑ Mike Bracken: Deep Red aka Profundo Rosso. (No longer available online.) In: CultureCartel.com. January 21, 2002, archived from the original on March 1, 2012 ; accessed on April 10, 2009 : “a film widely regarded by hardcore Argentophiles as his masterpiece […] a transitional film in Argento's body of work. It mirrors the earlier gialli he had made […] while at the same time opening the door on the themes he would explore more deeply in subsequent films […] Deep Red marks the birth of Argento, the visual stylist “ Info: Der Archivlink became inserted automatically and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.culturecartel.com
  13. ↑ Jeffrey M. Anderson: Deep Red (1975) - 'Red' Poets Society. In: Combustible Celluloid. June 25, 2008, accessed on April 9, 2009 : "Argento tosses in several meaningless shots […] although I want to add that he owes everything to his lesser-known predecessor, Mario Bava"
  14. ↑ Shane M. Dallmann: Deep Red. In: Images # 9. 2000, accessed on April 9, 2009 (English): “just enough outlandishness to keep viewers off balance without throwing them completely out of the realm of reality. [...] Though the supernatural is never directly invoked [...], the characters live not in the recognizable world of the viewer, but in a world that seems to exist only by dictates of the creative arts. "
  15. ↑ cf. Brown: "sui generis" .
  16. ↑ cf. Mackenzie (see web links).
  17. ↑ s. Literature: “the products of a fanatically cinéphilic and thus disengaged and solipsistic filmmaker lost in his own obsessions. [...] Argento's films gave the impression of having somehow sprang from nowhere. [...] At the center of most of his cinema, in fact, there are no monsters. […] An anti-Enlightment philosopher of cinematic vision […] Dragged into the criminal tableau with some kind of pornographic strategy, the spectator further experiences obscene longings of the gaze no diegetic figure could share […] the soundtrack is never pure accompaniment, but a plastic embodiment of terrifying scenes " .
  18. ^ Michael Mackenzie: Points of View: The camera and subjectivity in Profondo Rosso. In: whiggles.landofwhimsy.com. Retrieved on April 10, 2009 (English): “We are the camera: we are placed inside the film. Argento's camera has adopted an extremely loose set of rules with regard to subjectivity. [...] What is remarkable, though, is the sense that the camera itself is playing tricks on us. On certain occasions, it deliberately withholds information […] At other times, meanwhile, we are "fed information that the characters within the film are not […]" the camera itself is active as something of an independent entity […] Indeed, the central mystery […] is not one that the audience can actually solve, given the distinct lack of logical clues […] the viewer is, at the same time, kept ´at arm's length´ "
  19. ↑ cf. Smuts (see web links).
  20. ↑ Howarth, see FN 35.
  21. ↑ also Bracken.
  22. ^ IMDb , “Filming locations for Profondo rosso”.
  23. ↑ compare the Italian-language Wikipedia for the locations .
  24. ↑ IMDb , “Release dates for Profondo rosso”.
  25. ↑ Smuts, p. Web links.
  26. ↑ dvdreview.com ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dvdreview.com
  27. ^ IMDb , "Alternate versions for Profondo rosso". On the reconstruction was William Lustig involved, see. Troy Howarth: Profondo Rosso (aka, Deep Red) (Two-Disc SE). In: AV Maniacs. December 6, 2008, accessed April 9, 2009 .
  28. ^ Nathaniel Thompson: The Films of Dario Argento. In: Mondo Digital. Retrieved April 9, 2009 .
  29. ↑ cf. Dallmann.