Dario Argento Week: Opera

Greetings to Day 4 of Dario Argento Week and I must be honest in saying my sleep cycle has been interrupted by more than a few nightmares.  No joke, it has been a few times of drenched in cold sweat and terrors involving me walking around my apartment.  The sacrifice I make for you people!!!   All joking aside some of these flicks have been a bit eye-opening.   Today's film is no exception as we burrow into the life of a young opparata who has deemed the performance of Verdi's Macbeth is cursed.  Another giallo film involving a mad stalker and yes that is a bit of a theme for our esteemed director.  This is Opera.

Give me sight beyond sight!

Betty: I am nothing like my spoiler!  Nothing like her!









The movie opens with these extreme close-ups of a raven's eye and a slight pan back to a wide opera theater house as practice to Macbeth as this innocuous raven caws about as the duet sings the piece and Betty (Cristina Marsillach of Estoy en crisis, La gabbia, Every Time We Say Goodbye, Days of Inspector Ambrosio and The Sea and the Weather) is anxious and paranoid about the composition as the lead  is ran down by a car and Betty is thrust into the lead role working with Marco (Ian Charleson of A Private Matter, Jubilee, Chariots of Fire, Antony & Cleopatra, Gandhi, Ascendancy and The Sun Also Rises)  a talented, charismatic director that tries to bring her to ease in her new role.  The show must go on!   During her opening performance, a murder occurs in one of the opera boxes giving the cast a sense of forebode.    Marco does his level best to bring the cast to a calm that would rival a Hindu calf.

A sharp tale to be told!

More murders keep happening during the productions and the only loosely thing these murders have in common is Betty.  On her way out of the theater she is abducted by her stalker, bound by rope, tape over her mouth and a series of needles on tapes are placed just under her top eye lids forcing Betty to watch whatever her stalker/serial killer wants her to watch.  Will she get away from her horrendous captor?  Will there be anything left of the cast to perform the show?  Will this effect her acting career?

Just a few interesting trivia notes from the film at this time.

The ending of the movie was inspired by Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon being such a visual disturbing series of images, Argento felt obligated to bring the same to his audience.  The character Marco, horror director turned opera director was based on the maestro Argento himself.  No ego there, folks.  According to Urbano Barberini (Inspector Alan Santini of Opera) the film had over 140 crows that took hours for the crew to re-capture as they were released in the opera house for filming.  only a rough tally of 60 of them were ever reclaimed.  The others must have escaped from the opera house during filming.

An alternative ending gave Betty Stockholm syndrome as she began to see her captor in a different light and she fell in love with this killer that proved himself time and time again that there were no boundaries he would not cross to please her.   Similar to Thomas Harris' novel Hannibal.  Great and warped minds think alike I suppose.

Optometry of the 1980's.