Suspiria
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, who co-wrote the screenplay with Daria Nicolodi, partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis. The film stars Jessica Harper as an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious European dance academy but realizes, after a series of murders, that the academy is a front for a coven of witches. It also features Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, and Joan Bennett, in her final film role.
The film is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as The Three Mothers, which also comprises Inferno and The Mother of Tears. Suspiria has received a positive response from critics for its visual and stylistic flair, use of vibrant colors and its score by Argento and the progressive rock band Goblin.
Suspiria was nominated for two Saturn Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Bennett in 1978, and Best DVD Classic Film Release in 2002. It is recognized as one of the most influential films in the horror genre and has received acclaim from critics in retrospective reviews. It served as the inspiration for a 2018 film of the same title, directed by Luca Guadagnino.
Plot
Suzy Bannion, a young American ballet student, arrives in Freiburg, West Germany, to study at the co-ed Tanz Akademie, a prestigious dance school. She sees another student, Pat Hingle, flee the school in terror. Suzy is refused entry to the school and forced to stay in town overnight. Pat takes refuge at a friend's apartment and tells her that something sinister happened at the school. Pat is ambushed by a shadowy figure who stabs her repeatedly before hanging her with a noose by throwing her through the apartment building's skylight. Pat's friend is also killed after being impaled by a falling shard of glass while trying to alert other tenants to the murder.Suzy returns to the school the next morning, where she meets Miss Tanner, the head instructor, and Madame Blanc, the deputy headmistress. Tanner introduces Suzy to Pavlos, one of the school's servants. She also meets classmates Sara and Olga, her new roommate. Suzy experiences an unsettling encounter with one of the school's matrons and Blanc's nephew, Albert, before passing out during a dance class. When she regains consciousness, Suzy learns that Olga has thrown her out of her apartment, forcing her to live at the school with Sara in the room next door.
One night, maggots fall from the ceilings of the students' rooms due to a shipment of spoiled food in the attic, forcing them to sleep in one of the dance studios. During the night, a woman enters the room but is obscured by a curtain hung around the room's perimeter. Sara, frightened by her hoarse and labored breathing, recognizes her as the school's headmistress, who is supposedly out of town. The next day, the school's blind pianist, Daniel, is abruptly fired by Miss Tanner when his German Shepherd bites Albert. Daniel is stalked by an unseen force while walking through a plaza that night; his dog turns on him and viciously rips out his throat.
Sara tells Suzy that she was the one on the intercom who refused her entry the night Pat was murdered. She reveals that Pat was behaving strangely before her death and promises to show Suzy the notes that she left behind. Sara finds that Pat's notes are missing and is forced to flee when an unseen assailant enters the room. They pursue her through the school before cornering her in the attic. She escapes through a small window but falls into a pit of razor wire, entangling her before her pursuer kills her by slashing her throat.
The next morning, Tanner tells Suzy that Sara has fled the school. Suspicious, Suzy contacts Sara's friend and former psychiatrist, Frank Mandel. He reveals that the school was established in 1895 by Greek émigrée Helena Markos, who was allegedly a witch. Suzy also consults with Professor Milius, a professor of the occult. He reveals that a coven of witches draws its strength and power from its leader, and without a leader, the coven will perish.
Suzy returns to the school to find that everyone has left to attend the Bolshoi Ballet. Recalling a conversation with Sara about footsteps, she follows the sound of them carefully, leading her to Madame Blanc's office. Remembering that Pat uttered the words "secret" and "iris" the night that she was killed, Suzy discovers a hidden door that opens by turning a blue iris on a mural in Blanc's office. Suzy enters the corridor and finds the academy's instructors, led by Madame Blanc, plotting her demise in the form of a human sacrifice. Albert alerts Pavlos to Suzy's presence. Suzy hides in an alcove, where she finds Sara's disfigured corpse.
Pursued by Pavlos, Suzy retreats to Helena Markos's bedroom. Suzy finds Markos sleeping, recognizing her as the headmistress by her labored breathing. She accidentally wakes her by breaking a decorative peacock. Markos renders herself invisible and taunts Suzy before reanimating Sara's mutilated corpse to murder her. When flashes of lightning inadvertently reveal Markos's silhouette, Suzy impales her through the neck with one of the peacock's broken glass quills. Markos's death causes Sara's corpse to vanish.
Suzy flees as the school academy starts to explode. Tanner, Pavlos, and the rest of the coven perish without the power of Markos to sustain them. Suzy escapes into the rainy night as the school is consumed by fire.
Cast
Director Dario Argento provides the narration in the original Italian version. In the English version, the narration is provided by William Kiehl.Production
Development
Argento based Suspiria in part on Thomas De Quincey's essay Suspiria de Profundis. Critic Maitland McDonagh notes: "In Argento's reading , the three mothers generate/inhabit a cinematic world informed by Jungian archetypal imagery, each holding sway over a particular city." Argento said the idea for the film came to him after a trip through several European cities, including Lyon, Prague, and Turin. He became fascinated by the "Magic Triangle", a point where the countries of France, Germany, and Switzerland meet; this is where Rudolf Steiner, a controversial social reformer and occultist, founded an anthroposophic community. Commenting on witchcraft and the occult, Argento stated: "There's very little to joke about. It's something that exists." The title and general concept of "The Three Mothers"—a concept Argento would expand upon in Inferno and Mother of Tears—came from De Quincey's essay, which was an uncredited inspiration for the film. There is a section in the work entitled "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow". The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears", "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs", and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness".Daria Nicolodi helped Argento write the screenplay for the film, which combined the occult themes that interested Argento with fairytales that were inspiring to Nicolodi, such as Bluebeard, Pinocchio, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Nicolodi also partially based her contributions to the screenplay on a personal story her grandmother had told her, in which her grandmother had gone to take a piano lesson at an unnamed academy where she believed she encountered black magic. The encounter terrified her grandmother, prompting her to flee. This story, however, was later said by Argento to have been fabricated. Using Nicolodi's core ideas, Argento helped co-write the screenplay, which he chose to set at a dance academy in Freiburg im Breisgau, near the German borders with Switzerland and France. The lead character of Suzy Bannion was based on Snow White. Initially, the characters in the film were very young girls—around eight to ten years old—but this was altered when the film's producers were hesitant to make a film with all young actors. Additionally, the final sequence of the film was based on a dream Nicolodi had while she was staying in Los Angeles.
Casting
American actress Jessica Harper was cast in the lead role of American ballet dancer Suzy Bannion, after attending an audition via the William Morris Agency. Argento chose Harper based on her performance in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise. Upon being cast in the film, Harper watched Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet to better understand the director's style. Harper turned down a role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall in order to appear in the film.Argento requested Italian actress Stefania Casini for the supporting role of Sara, a request which she obliged, having been an admirer of his films. Daria Nicolodi had originally planned on playing the role of Sara, but was unable to due to an injury, and Casini was brought in at the last minute. German actor Udo Kier was cast in the minor supporting role of Frank Mandel.
Filming
The majority of Suspiria was shot at De Paoli studios in Rome, where key exterior sets were constructed. Actress Harper described the film shoot as "very, very focused", as Argento "knew exactly what he was looking for". The façade of the academy was replicated on a soundstage from the real-life Whale House in Freiburg. Additional photography took place in Munich, including Daniel's death scene in the Königsplatz square, as well as the opening scene of the film, which was shot on location at the Munich-Riem Airport. The scene in which Suzy meets with Dr. Mandel was filmed outside the BMW Headquarters building in Munich.Suspiria is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks, particularly the use of set-piece structures that allow the camera to linger on pronounced visual elements. Cinematographer Luciano Tovoli was hired by Argento to shoot the film, based on color film tests he had completed, which Argento felt matched his vision, in part inspired by Snow White. The film was shot using anamorphic lenses. The production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting, emphasized by the use of imbibition Technicolor prints. Commenting on the film's lush colors, Argento said:
We were trying to reproduce the colour of Walt Disney's Snow White; it has been said from the beginning that Technicolor lacked subdued shades, was without nuances—like cut-out cartoons.
The imbibition process, used for The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, is much more vivid in its color rendition than emulsion-based release prints, therefore enhancing the nightmarish qualities of the film Argento intended to evoke. It was one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor, using the last remaining machine in Rome.