Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad

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Contributions by Donald L. Anderson, Brian Brems, Eric Brinkman, Matthew Edwards, Brenda S. Gardenour Walter, Andrew Grossman, Lisa Haegele, Gavin F. Hurley, Mikel J. Koven, Sharon Jane Mee, Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, Émilie von Garan, Connor John Warden, and Sean Woodard The giallo (yellow) film cycle, characterized by its bloody murders and blending of high art and cinematic sleaze, rose to prominence in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. Beginning with Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), giallo films influenced the American slasher films of the 1980s and attracted an increasingly large fandom. In Bloodstained Narratives: The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad, contributors explore understudied aspects of gialli. The chapters introduce readers to a wide range of films, including masterpieces from Argento and overlooked gems, all of them examined in close detail. Rather than understanding giallo as focalized exclusively in Italy in the 1970s, this collection explores the extension of gialli narratives abroad through different geographies and times. This book examines Italian gialli of the 1970s as well as American neo-gialli, French productions, Canadian horror films of the 1980s, and Asian rewritings of this “yellow” cycle of crime/horror films. Bloodstained Narratives also features interviews with two giallo film directors, including cult favorite Antonio Bido. Rather than fading from the cinematic stage, gialli serves as a precursor and steady accomplice to horror-thriller films through the twenty-first century. Cover Bloodstained Narratives Title Copyright CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction: Argentina, the Onetti Brothers, and the Resurgence of Giallo Part I: New Readings on Classic Gialli Chapter 1: The Killer’s Eye: Giallo and the Zoom Lens Chapter 2: Argento’s Evil Eye: Movements, Containments, and the Giallo’s Possessive Gaze Chapter 3: Death Laid an Egg: A Giallo Out of Far-Left Field Chapter 4: The Transnational Giallo: Jess Franco’s Paroxismus and the Postmodern Crisis of Temporality Chapter 5: The Analog of Self-Authenticity within The Forbidden Photos of a Lady above Suspicion Chapter 6: Beyond Interesting: The Affective Complexity of Barbara Bouchet in Don’t Torture a Duckling Chapter 7: A White Dress for Marialé: An Interview with Director Romano Scavolini Chapter 8: Watch Me When I Kill and The Bloodstained Shadow: An Interview with Director Antonio Bido Part II: The Giallo Abroad. A Transnational Phenomenon Chapter 9: A Kinder Capitalism: Elements of the Giallo in Hong Kong New Wave Cinema Chapter 10: “But Illusions Don’t Kill”: An Examination of Giallo Tropes and Gender in Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue Chapter 11: “This Is No Longer a Metaphor But a Demonstration”: The Red of Blood in The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears Chapter 12: Almodóvar Meets Gay Porn Meets Giallo: Rewriting Argento’s L’uccello dale piume di cristallo in Un couteau dans le Coeur Chapter 13: Warped Nests: Domestic Architecture, Transgressive Female Bodies, and the Dissolution of the Patriarchal Domain in 1970s American Gialli Chapter 14: “Beauty Is the Only Thing”: Sex and Fantasy in American Giallo Cinema Chapter 15: The Canadian Giallo, or How the Italian Thriller Influenced the Canadian Slasher Film About the Contributors Index