Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento

Opera and Two Evil Eyes

OPERA and TWO EVIL EYES "I think it's unwise to use movies as a guide for reality. Don't you, Inspector?" - Marco (Opera) "Perversity is one ofthe prime impulses ofthe heart. Whohasn't done something wrongjust because it was forbidden?" - Roderick Usher (Two Evil Eyes) Opera -also called Terror at the Opera -is morethanthe subject of Argento's tenth film: it's also the key to its stylistic conceits. Beginning with Deep Red, Argento's films followed a clear arc of ever-increasing visual extravagance and stylization. Even Creepers, whose icy mise-en-scene lacked the lushness of the films leading up to it, represented a logical step: it's visually cold, but it's extreme in every respect: extremely violent, extremely dumb, extremely weird. But Opera... well, Opera is operatic; in Argento's hyperbolic words, an "aria of violence beyond imagination." It's not so much that the violence is so extreme - it's excessive in the way of all Argento films, but dozens of lesser filmmakers have devised more horrible acts. What distinguishes Argento's nasty imagination is his relentless emphasis on lookinglong and hard. Opera revolves around an image that says it all: a woman with her eyes open wide because there's a rowofstraight pins taped under her eyelids. Argento has complained that he's annoyed when people shut their eyes at the gory parts of his films, and Opera is his taunting response to the squeamish. Opera is the most lavish (and expensive, with a budget of$8 million) production Argento has ever undertaken, exceeding even the glorious excesses ofSuspiria and Inferno (though not quite so aggressively stylized, particularly in terms ofcolour). And it's a spectacle in the purest sense: whatever the other thematic resonances ofeyes - seen repeatedly in ghastly close197 Broken Mirrors / Broken Minds up - they suggest first and foremost that Opera is designed to knock your eyes out; metaphorically speaking, of course. The film's first, surprisingly witty image is ofa bird's eye that fills the screen, a theatre reflected in an anamorphic curve on its convex surface. Nevermind reflections in a goldeneye -Argento's reflections in a raven's eye are seductive enough. No horror film called Opera can escape the suggestion that it's somehowinspired bythe classicPhantom of the Opera, and there is some connection here. In addition to recalling the film (the 1943 Claude Rains version) from his childhood,Argento has said that there were only two classic horror films he was ever really interested in remaking, and Phantom of the Opera is one ofthem (the other, Frankenstein, got to the script stage during the '70s1 ). But Opera seems to have been more directly inspired by Argento's abortive attempt to direct a version of GiuseppeVerdi'sRigoletto forthe Sferisterio Theatre inMacerata . EventhoughFranco Zeffirelli andKenRussell have staged operas with somesuccess,theidea ofArgentotacklingRigoletto sounds out ofleft field. On the other hand, the story (adapted from Victor Hugo's 1932 play Le roi s'amuse and considered quite scandalous in its day) is pretty horrific. The debauched Duke of Mantua corrupts an innocent girl whose father then hires a professionalkiller to exact vengeance;the girl learns of the plan and kills herself to save her seducer. Argento's notion was to take the character ofthe Duke, whotaints and defiles everything he touches, one step further and make him into a literal vampire. Argento's Rigoletto never made it past the concept stage (the Italians take their opera seriously; a more 1 Luigi Cozzi, who co-wrotethe screenplay with Argento, says: "He wanted to take a very classical approach, but to set the story in preNazi Germany, during the Weimar Republic. The Frankenstein monster would have been a kind ofsymbol ofthe birth ofNazism. We had trouble with the Americans there [specifically Universal Pictures ] - they said Frankenstein was dead, and anyway, no-onewho wanted to see a horror movie cared about politics." Packaged with Timothy Dalton (now James Bond) in the lead, the project was also offered to Hammer with no luck. 198 Captive audience: young diva Betty (Cristina Marsillach) on the other side of the footlights in Opera. Broken Mirrors I Broken Minds conventional version was produced), but his glimpse of the hothouse world ofthe opera proved inspiring. Opera's plot is equal parts 42nd Street, The Fan and Phantom of the Opera, which is to say Argento added a dash ofeach to a plot of his own feverish...