Fear - The Autobiography by Dario Argento

Silver Tongued Devil

Fear - The Autobiography
(Limited Collectors Edition 0184/1000)
by Dario Argento
FAB Press
ISBN: 9781913051051

There are, of course, a number of books on Dario Argento that have tried... and sometimes succeeded... in doing justice to a director who, for me, is one of the most interesting Italian directors around (more so than, say, the wonderful Fellini, the impressive Antonioni or the sublime Bava). A couple of my favourites would be Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by Maitland McDonagh (I have the old edition with the ‘Opera’ cover) and any one of numerous ‘just that little bit better than the previous one’ editions of Dario Argento - The Man, The Myth & The Magic (as it’s currently subtitled) by the great Alan Jones. This look at him, however, is a little different to previous books exploring this iconic, cinematic figure.

This time it’s the turn of Argento himself to tell his own story and I snapped up a copy of the first edition English translation of this tome put out by FAB Press last year... which is a beautiful, limited edition hardback with silver edged pages (Argento translates as Silver in English), its own cloth strip bookmark and a nice, silver embossed image of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage on the cover, beneath a dust flap depicting the writer/director himself. This edition also has, I’m pleased to say, the great man’s signature on a book plate inside... this is the second time I think I’ve got a book with his signature in it... the other was one of the Alan Jones' editions, which Jones also signed for me.

Now, if you’ve been reading my more ‘bookish’ reviews on here for a while, you’ll know I find autobiographies a bit of a hit and miss affair. The worst ones leave you with none of the questions about the work of the author explored at all whereas, the best ones will be so well written and breezy that they will just leave you wanting more. Which is, of course, somewhat of the same thing... but I’ll take the speedy, witty read any day and, thankfully, that’s just what we get with Mr. Argento’s biography.

One of the things I noticed right away is that, while it covers all the usual things about growing up and the major relationships of the central figure... it never stays anywhere for very long and, although it certainly isn’t jumping around like some of these kinds of books (far from it), it certainly goes through things at a fair pace. Starting with Argento’s childhood and telling of how he used to hob nob with the film stars as a young ‘un in his parent’s photographic studios... it runs right through to where he is now in life (or where he was a few years ago at any rate, when the Italian edition was first published).

One of the things which surprised me is that he does so in quite a candid fashion. For instance, after a lovely forward by Alan Jones, the book starts off with a written snapshot from 1977 with Argento in his hotel room, waiting to see how the new film he is working on, Suspiria, is going to turn out. He is not shy in admitting his suicidal tendencies and, as he goes to throw himself from the hotel window, he can’t get past the dresser which he’s had placed in front of said windows to stop exactly this thing from happening. After this teaser, he then starts from the beginning of his life and goes through until, roughly two thirds of the way through the book, he catches up to this point and passes it.

He’s also not shy in mentioning various things about his love life with a variety of women over the years. Some of them are left unnamed (including his latest lover) and some of the more high profile ones, like Daria Nicolodi, who starred in many of his movies and gave birth to his second daughter, Asia Argento, are also included in his quite honest assessment of the state of things. Saying that, it seems to me that he’s never disrespectful of them and he certainly gives Daria full credit for helping him write and research Suspiria. He also, finally, tells of the misunderstanding around the central casting of the lead actress in that film, which pushed them apart for some time.

I found out, or perhaps was reminded, that while a voracious reader as a child his real first loves were the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and these certainly infused his imagination in his later career, I suspect. I also discovered that we have the same favourite episode of The Twilight Zone in common, so that’s nice (Time Enough At Last).

One of the problems with autobiographies of famous people, at least as I’ve found, is the tendency to shy away from talking about their work. Thankfully, Argento doesn’t do that and, although I was very much wanting more from his priceless anecdotes, he does manage to touch upon one or two little gems from most of the films and TV series in which he’s had a hand. So you’ll hear in his own words how he and Bernardo Bertollucci (both yet to start their real careers) worked with another of my favourite Italian directors, Sergio Leone, to write Once Upon A Time In The West. You’ll learn stuff like how the aquarium of the producer of The Five Man Army (which Argento wrote) inspired one of the ideas that manifested in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, how much he and Tony Musante didn’t ‘get on’ working on that movie... as well as how much he did ‘get on’ with Michael Brandon on Four Flies On Grey Velvet and with David Hemmings on Deep Red (Profondo Rosso).

You’ll learn just how he got those intense colours on the actors faces in Suspiria, by shining light through velvet and just what things happened to him in real life to birth his ideas on movies like Tenebrae and Phenomena. I was spellbound as I read how he’d used lots of life size mannequins manipulated by neighbouring extras in the audience in Opera to keep the cost down, a story which reminded me of similar movie magic trickery used in both the chariot race in Ben Hur and the pod race in Star Wars - The Phantom Menace (cotton reels, if I remember the model I saw exhibited years ago correctly).

Above all, the book feels like it’s fresh and relatively unfiltered. He is, perhaps, a little less critical of his least successful films than I had suspected, given the candor which he shows in all the other aspects of his life but it doesn’t really harm the book at all. You just get a sense that it’s not that important to him... or, at least, to his public facing image. Ultimately, its a fun read, informative in the way he releases little nuggets of information about his work and also, I found out that he actually spent a day or two locked up in a jail cell (for something he didn’t do, I hasten to add). He even gives a little hope that there may be material enough left for a second book at some point (which would be nice). So, yeah, if you’re a fan of the work of Dario Argento and want to know a little more about the man behind the magic, a man who hugely popularised the Italian giallo movie in the wake of Mario Bava, then his autobiography, Fear, is something you should read as there are lots of little details about his life and work which you won’t easily find anywhere else. Definitely get this one onto your book shelves if you are of a mind to.