Terror in the opera

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Terror in the opera
Original title Opera
Country of production United States
original language Italian
Publishing year 1987
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Dario Argento
script Franco Ferrini
Dario Argento (Story / Screenplay)
production Dario Argento
music Claudio Simonetti
camera Ronnie Taylor
cut Franco Fraticelli
occupation

Terror in the Opera ( Opera , alternatively: In the Sign of the Raven , not to be confused with Argento's The Phantom of the Opera , 1998) is a slasher / Giallo film by Dario Argento from 1988.

In addition to electronic music and a lot of metal , Maria Callas can be heard among others . 2017 revival title: Opera.

action

The film begins on the reflective black pupil of a raven to an operatic aria . The diva, however, feels irritated by the inharmonious croaking of the props , rushes out of the La Scala shouting onto the street and is involved in a traffic accident (or breaks down and triggers one), and is canceled for the time being for the production.

Marco, the young, charismatic director who comes from the horror film , has to look around for a new star for Verdi's Macbeth . The beautiful Betty, about his age, takes over the soprano of the opera, which is said to have a curse on her. In doing so, she draws the diva-like bickering of her predecessor (who can never really be seen) in the gothic scenery . Betty, the daughter of a singer, receives anonymous threatening phone calls. Something seems to be sneaking around in the ventilation shafts of her dark apartment. The evening of the premiere is a complete success until a spotlight crashes down. In a box , a worker is brutally murdered by a black-gloved man. In this context, a personable, somehow clumsy policeman Santini appears backstage as an autograph hunter during the production - and investigates.

After a few tracking shots through the apartment from the killer’s point of view, Betty meets him for the first time. He glued the gagged woman's eyelids with razor-sharp needle tape (similar to Uhrwerk Orange , D: Stanley Kubrick, GB 1971) so that she had to watch his actions , and he stabbed her shy friend Stefano in a terrible way. An animal abuser haunts the ravens in their man-high cage. In between, images of a pulsing brain can be seen again and again. The events traumatized Betty only temporarily and she recovered after a few hours. Your seamstress falls victim to her own scissors. After another attack, in which Betty's agent Mira is shot through the peephole, a strange relationship develops with the threat situation or the masked stranger. In addition, the childhood memories of the passive woman mix with the present.

Marco and Betty completely forgot the " eyewitness " . At the performance in front of a fully occupied house, the cage with the ravens surprisingly falls through a pane of glass, is set down on the stage by the crane and the animals are released into the hall. The 60 ravens swarm over the panicked audience , identify the perpetrator, pick on him and steal an eye. Inspector Santini is the killer. Santini kidnaps Betty seriously injured, ties her up again, blindfolds her and spills gasoline. In fact, he used to be a devoted servant to her mother, so the sadomasochistic component becomes clear. He asks her to shoot him because she has not inherited her mother's affection. She obeys this and the rooms go up in flames.

In the epilogue in the manner of an absurd non sequitur in idyllic Switzerland , Betty and Marco, who has become their lover, relax. Betty goes for a walk while Marco stays with the binoculars and continues to study the picturesque mountain range. Santini is still alive after his false exit , now one-eyed. The dying scene was only threaded, the alleged corpse a doll. In a meadow he stabs Marco in a hurry and in broad daylight. Bent over the corpse, Betty forgives Santini, confesses her love to him, and runs away with him. When they police dogs through the trees of the pine forest Browse sees then beats him down but with a stone. A large contingent of police including helicopters storms the scene and takes him into custody. Laughing, Betty finds a lizard caught in the tall grass - and dismisses the beautiful animal with the words "You are free".

backgrounds

The film was filmed in Switzerland, among other places, in Lugano , and in Parma and Rome in Italy. The opera was "played" by the Teatro Regio di Parma .

The later director Michele Soavi headed the second unit of the film.

Orion , the American distributor, requested that the ending be removed. Argento refused.

The IMDb estimates the budget to about 8 million US dollars .

The video was shown for the first time in the Federal Republic of Germany on December 5, 1989, and on October 3, 1992, the film was shown on ARD .

This is the last work of actor Ian Charleson , who died on January 6, 1990.

The version of 107 minutes was indicated in Germany until January 2015 . The shortened German video version was also affected by this indexing, although almost all of the murder scenes were cut out.

reception

  • " Sadistic , but typically magnificent [...] a return to form with flying colors" (The Amazing World of Cult Movies)
  • “With the great sound design, the simply fantastic camera work and the hair-raising, successful effects, Argento takes the viewer on a journey to an opera house in which horror and beauty are closely united. [...] Argento probably improvised a lot on the set, gave his actors hardly any instructions [...] and even the seasoned actor Ian Charleson said during the shooting that the script was completely nonsense . "
  • “ In Opera the camera becomes the actual subject of the film, but a subject of its own kind: it changes its position in space in a playful as well as threatening way, is protean to the point of disorientation of the viewer within the cinematic reference systems . […] The highlight of the film is the scene in the apartment, which has become a labyrinth due to the large focal lengths . [...] The film draws tension from the very opposite of suspense : the viewer never knows what will happen - or better: he knows that the worst will happen, but not because he is better informed than the heroes. "( Ekkehard Knörer : Jump Cut )
  • “I find the term 'Italian De Palma ' more apt than 'Italian Hitchcock ' (apart from the fact that […] Argento and De Palma still can't stand each other) […] Betty's situation is an involuntary transformation of the viewer's voyeurism : one literal manifestation of our perverse inability to look away [...] The lousy acting represents something like a corollary to the, shall we say, forced artificiality, intended to break through the fourth wall "( Walter Chaw : Film Freak Central)
  • " It's all very confusing and, as usual, there's no way you can logically work out the identity of the assassin, so you can sit back and enjoy the ride." You simply have to sit back and enjoy the ride. ) - “Acting is rarely Argento's first concern, and the fact that the films are usually […] dubbed is also not beneficial […] instead it creates a rather wooden, out-of-body atmosphere. […] Also represents a step away from the stylized fantasy look […] more towards a grim, realistic look […] Both men and women are slaughtered […] If so, then a feminist rather than a chauvinist […] die all the usual accusations are fully effective here, but as always you can forgive him because of the sheer virtuosity of the staging and the cinematic violence [...] the plot is full of holes, strange behavior, quirky and probably pointless n characters [...] he is more interested in subtext , appearance and tension than in realism ”(DVD Times)
  • "Opera the clearest act of kidding the audience so far, a topic that it had previously only incompletely covered" (Not Coming to a Theater Near You)

For the purpose of further confusion, the syntax of “ shot-counter-shot and close-up is being overridden” , Sevastakis stated in 2002, as was the establishing shot . Sometimes, for aesthetic reasons , Argento would downright “stop the narration” .

A fansite speaks of one of the director's “greatest hits” .

Indexing and re-checking

The uncut version of the film was put on the index in 1990. There is a shortened German version with an FSK approval from 18 years of age. After being deleted from the list in January and re-examined in June 2015, the film is now unabridged for people aged 16 and over. In 2017, the original film with subtitles was released as a 4K digital scan uncut (1:47 h) as "Opera" in the German-language theatrical distribution

Soundtrack

Awards and nominations

Fantastic postage 1990

  • Nomination for the International Fantasy Film Award in the Best Film category for Dario Argento

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This article refers to the 107-minute version, unless otherwise stated.
  2. ↑ Craig Hatch: Opera. In: Bloody Disgusting Horror. Retrieved March 20, 2009 .
  3. ^ Ed Gonzalez: Opera. In: Slant. December 4, 2001, accessed March 20, 2009 .
  4. ^ A b c Gary Johnson: Opera. In: Images # 10. Retrieved March 20, 2009 .
  5. ↑ a b Walter Chaw: Opera (1987). In: Film Freak Central. October 31, 2001, archived from the original on March 7, 2012 ; Retrieved on March 20, 2009 (English): “Often called 'The Italian Hitchcock,' I find the term 'The Italian De Palma' to be closer to the mark […] (Despite […] Argento and De Palma to this day hate each other with a white-hot passion.) […] Betty's situation is the involuntary transference of the audience's own voyeurism: a literal manifestation of our perverse inability to look away […] The awfulness of the acting within can be seen as a corollary to a kind of forced artificiality intended to transcend the fourth wall "
  6. ↑ a b IMDb , "Trivia", s. Web links.
  7. ^ " Crow-cam " (Dario Argento). Gingold, s. Web links.
  8. ↑ IMDb , "Filming locations", s. Web links.
  9. ↑ IMDb , "Box office / business", s. Web links.
  10. ↑ a b Terror in the Opera. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 19, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  11. ↑ schnittberichte.com, accessed on January 30, 2015
  12. ^ Robert Firsching: Opera. (No longer available online.) In: The Amazing World of Cult Movies. Archived from the original on September 29, 2009 ; accessed on March 20, 2009 (English): "sadistic but typically gorgeous […] a bravura return to form" Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.awcm.us
  13. ^ Ekkehard Knörer : Dario Argento: Opera. In: Jump Cut . Retrieved March 20, 2009 .
  14. ↑ see alienation effect .
  15. ^ Michael Mackenzie: Opera: Limited Edition. In: DVD Times. October 31, 2003, accessed on March 20, 2009 (English): “It's all very confusing and, as usual, there's no way you can logically work out the identity of the assassin, so you simply have to sit back and enjoy the ride . […] Acting is rarely Argento's primary focus, and this is not helped by the fact that almost all of his films are […] post-dubbed […] creating a rather wooden, 'out of body' feel. [...] Opera represented the beginnings of a move away from the stylized fantasy looks [...] and a gradual adoption of a grittier, realistic look and feel. […] Both women and men are brutally murdered in his films […] If anything, Argento's work seems more feminist than misogynistic […] all the usual criticisms that you can level against Argento's films are on full display here, but as usual they can be forgiven simply because of the sheer mastery of cinematography and cinematic violence […] the plot is full of inconsistencies and odd behavior, and it is full of quirks and seemingly pointless characters. [...] he is far more interested in subtext, look and tension than realism "
  16. ^ Rumsey Taylor: Opera. In: Not Coming to a Theater Near You. October 28, 2004, accessed on March 20, 2009 (English): "Opera possesses his most succinct maltreatment of his audience, which is a theme explored comparatively insufficiently in every one of his films"
  17. ↑ Michael Sevastakis: A dangerous mind. In: Kinoeye Vol 2 Issue June 12 , 2002, accessed on March 21, 2009 (English, ISSN  1475-2441 ): “shot-counter-shot and the close-up-are here rendered impotent [...] the director is content to stop the narration just long enough so that the viewer can enjoy the aesthetics "
  18. ↑ Alan Jones, "Obsession, Murder, Madness". (No longer available online.) In: http://www.darkdreams.org/ . Archived from the original on December 23, 2008 ; accessed on March 21, 2009 . 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.darkdreams.org