The cult horror movie Suspiria (1977), despite overturning 40 years, still maintains its experimental stance with its formal features that are contrary to its period and today. We can compare Suspiria, the first trilogy that Dario Argento tells about witches, to a fairytale nightmare with the use of color, decor and music. Although it is an Italian movie, it has managed to make a sound all over the world.
We compiled for you the production notes of Luca Guadagnino about his original version before the re-cycle, which will be released on November 9, 2015. Let’s also remind you that Jessica Harper, who starred in the 1977 production, starred in the new Suspiria.
Director Dario Argento says that the idea of Suspiria was born from a journey to European cities. Argento, who travels to Lion, Prague, Turin, which he called the capitals of magic, also went to the place where Switzerland, France and Germany, which are called “The Magic Triangle”, meet. The story of Rudolph Steiner, who lives here, is similar to the movie. The school founded by Rudolph Steiner in 1919 has often been accused of Paganism and Satanism.
Jessica Harper
Daria Nicolodi, one of Suspiria’s actors and screenwriters, says that the film is based on a true story that her grandmother lived. Her grandmother, who was enrolled in an academy to improve her piano playing, immediately moves away when she sees black magic taught. With this story that Nicolodi loved as a child, Alice Tales in Wonderland, Blue Beard, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs tales are other sources of inspiration for the scenario.
In addition, as another point of departure, Thomas de Quincey takes his trial book, “Sighs from the Depth” (Suspiria de profundis). In an essay in this book, De Quincey describes the suffering of humanity with the metaphor of the ‘Three Mothers’. It creates a different fiction in Argento based on ‘Three Mains’.”
In the first story of Suspiria, the actors were 8 girls up to 10 years old. When she had problems with the producer, the cast was selected from girls between the ages of 16-20, but the style she should have been with the children was preserved. So the characters behave like children, and the door handles are higher than normal, at the level of the face.
For the character of Suzy Bannion, which she likens to Snow White, Argento chooses Jesica Harper, who has eyes and a childlike face that comes out of the Japanese Manga. He stars Harper, who Brian De Palma discovered in Phantom of the Paradise (1974).
Daria Nicolodi will play the character of Sara, but when she is injured, Stefania Casini takes her place. Nicolodi appears very little in the opening airport scene.
During the shooting, the actors speak in their own language. Some spoke English, some Italian, some German, and then dubbed.
Rice was used in the scene where Harper’s maggot fell from the ceiling.
Argento wanted the music used in the movie to be harsh and the audience to feel the presence of witches at any time. Because he dreamed of creating an atmosphere like hell where music shouts and everything is screaming. In addition to using African Percussions and bouzouki, sound cheats were used outside the orchestra.
It is the only movie Goblin made with Argento, having the opportunity to read the script in advance. They even made music without filming, but when they watched the movie, they changed everything. Argento also asks Goblin to use vocals in music. Claudio Simonetti voiced the most fake words in the theme music.
As in all his films, the narrator is again Argento himself.
It was influenced by German expressionism and psychoanalysis.
Argento is impressed by the vibrant and strong colors of the cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), and wants harsh contrasts in the film. Suspiria is one of the last examples of this technique, while cinema is gradually leaving technicolor.
The Academy’s external shoots take place at The Whale House (Haus zum Walfisch) in Frieburg, Germany. The pool scene is shot in a public women’s pool called Müllersches. The bar where the blind pianist goes is the Hofbräuhaus, one of Munich’s oldest breweries, and the place where he was attacked by his dog is Königsplatz. The scene where Suzy Bannion speaks to the psychiatrist is the front of the BMW Building, one of the most modern buildings of the period.
