Nov 24th The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
This is part of my “Watching every Dario Argento movie, ever” category. Here I go through all the movies written and directed by Dario Argento, and provide you with the pleasure of reading my views on them!
After co-writing the highly successful Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, original title: C’era una volta il West), Argento moved on to direct (and write) his first feature, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970, original title: L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo). No matter what you think about Argento, you have to give the man this: He jumped into giallo film making both feet first. I mean really: The man has had the reputation of misogyny (however unfair as that might be) ever since Plumage, which should be a good indication of how violent this movie is.
And make no bones about it, this is as violent as a giallo comes. For those not familiar with the term giallo, it simply is a sub genre of whodunit crime movies, often with a lot of blood set to a pumping soundtrack. The word is Italian for “yellow,” which references the color of the covers of the print paperbacks that were the basis for the genre.
As a directional debut, the movie is surprisingly tight. Flawed, but tight. Plot wise and look wise, there are things here that will stay with pretty much any Argento movie up until today: The protagonist sees something, in this case a murder, but he can’t quite remember exactly what he saw. The filming of the killer’s black-gloved hands — belonging to Argento during the murder scenes — with a knife. Crazy beautiful colors and set designs. A booming soundtrack, this time courtesy of the legendary Ennio Morricone. And so on and so forth.
The movie progresses with the hapless witness tracking down a killer who also is tracking him down, through a slew of dead bodies.
It’s a simple story, but then again, I’m a simple man. What is not so simple is the filming. While not as breathtaking as some of his future work, Plumage offers some styles of shots that have been a staple in horror movies ever since. Watch this film and then jump over to Carpenter’s Halloween and you will see what I’m talking about. (Carpenter has cited Argento as an influence multiple times.)
Plumage isn’t Argento’s best work — it’s obvious who the killer is from the get-go — and in some ways it feels like this is the first stab (get it?!) at making what would turn out to be his 1975-classic, Deep Red, which is very similar, yet a lot better.
That’s not to say this isn’t a fun movie, though. If you can cope with watching a lot of cornsyrup, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a highly entertaining thriller.
For more, check out IMDb.
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The Cat o’ Nine Tails »
[...] The Cat o’ Nine Tails is a bit different. Here you have cool cars in cool chase scenes (some of which are fantastically shot), with cool men delivering cool lines to cool women. Yet, for being an Argento movie and a giallo, there is little blood or gore, and quite a bit of plot. In fact, the whole story is quite excellent, with more tensity than The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. [...]
[...] On the surface, this is a pretty standard mystery, following Marcus Daly (nicely portrayed by David Hemmings, best known from Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film, Blow Up) searching for the killer of a famous psychic, a murder he himself witnessed. In other words, not a million miles from The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. [...]