During the 1970s and '80s Dario Argento
built an impressive, iconic legacy for himself as the master of
Italian horror. From his pioneering giallo thrillers like Deep Red
to his highly stylized and surreal nightmares like Suspiria,
he forever changed the face of his country's genre cinema. Perhaps
even more importantly, he demonstrated that horror films truly can be
works of art, with his best works (Suspiria in
particular) transcending their genre and becoming modern classics.
This began with his very first film, 1970's The Bird with
the Crystal Plumage: a hybrid of
horror and detective thriller which earned comparisons to Alfred
Hitchcock. Now Arrow Video is honoring The Bird with the
Crystal Plumage with a special
edition box set featuring a spectacular new 4k restoration. Let's
take a look at the film itself, and Arrow's latest treatment of it.
The Film:
The
most immediately striking thing about The Bird with the
Crystal Plumage is how hard it
is to believe that it was a debut film. This is a very confidently
made, very well-crafted movie: gorgeously shot, filled with
wonderfully tense suspense, and boasting a score by the one and only
Ennio Morricone. Never would you guess that it was the work of a
29-year-old first-time director. Argento had written screenplays
before (including having been one of several co-writers behind Once
Upon a Time in the West) and his
father was a film producer, so it makes sense that he would have
already been familiar with the principles of what makes a great film,
but even so, it is remarkable what a strong and confident debut The
Bird with the Crystal Plumage is.
The visual style for which he would soon become famous is already
fully intact here: beautifully eerie use of tracking and crane shots,
excellent 2.35:1 shot compositions which do something interesting
with every inch of the frame, and eye-grabbing use of color and
darkness. He had clearly studied film very closely, and knew exactly
what sort of an aesthetic he wanted to employ.
Then
of course there's the matter of the film's central mystery and use of
tension, which is likewise very polished indeed. While Argento
usually is referred to as a horror director, and rightly so, it is
clear that this film's biggest influences are from the thrillers of
Alfred Hitchcock; a similarity that critics noticed when they began
to refer to him as “the Italian Hitchcock” after the success of
this debut feature. In a way, before he became a full-fledged horror
director in the later 1970s, Argento had a lot in common with early
Brian De Palma: both were young directors who sought to follow in the
footsteps of Hitchcock for a new generation, while both having
uniquely stylized aesthetics of their own. I would argue that Argento
was at least as successful as De Palma in this, with The
Bird with the Crystal Plumage being
every bit as modern-Hitchcockian, and every bit as good, as Dressed
to Kill or Blow-Out.
It is understandable that Bird with the Crystal Plumage is
widely seen as defining the trajectory of the giallo genre throughout
the 1970s, shaping it into something rather like post-Hitchcock
thrillers with a splash (or several) of grand-guignol horror. For
those unfamiliar with the term, “giallo” refers to this very
particular strain of Italian horror/thrillers, generally featuring a
murder-mystery structure, bloody elements of what would eventually
become the slasher film, and very particular visual motifs, like
killers wearing black gloves. The genre existed before Argento, with
films like Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace,
but Argento is widely seen as solidifying the pop-cultural idea of
what “giallo” meant with this film.
The
plot of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage introduces
several themes that would occur repeatedly across Argento's body of
work: the unreliability of perception, and the idea of a character
who is haunted by having witnessed something that they know is
important, but they don't know why. The story follows a
down-on-his-luck young author (Tony Musante) who witnesses an
attempted murder, and becomes obsessed with the idea that the
confused images he saw surely must hold the secret to solving the
case – if only he could pinpoint exactly what it was he really did
see. He becomes obsessed with solving the mystery and trying to make
sense of the events he witnessed, but this obsession puts him
squarely in the path of the serial killer whose work he interrupted
that night. The concept of perception and its flaws is front and
center, as the entire mystery revolves around the author, Sam,
knowing that his memories of the attack are unreliable, and knowing
that he must sort them out if he is to identify the killer. The
straightforward mystery of his investigation is mixed with the
unsettling undertone that his obsession with the case is very
unhealthy, and perhaps more likely to get him killed than to get the
murder solved. This ties in to another sub-theme at work in several
early Argento films: the existential crisis and feelings of
powerlessness and self-doubt felt by not only our main character, but
by plenty of young Italians at the time, and particularly young
Italian men like Argento himself, who didn't feel at home in old
modes of cultural identity (particularly where outdated but still
prevalent norms of masculinity were concerned), and were having
trouble forging a new identity of their own. Sam is going through
what we today would call a quarterlife crisis: his career is
floundering, he is stalled out artistically, and as a result he seems
to have rather lost touch with who he is. Solving the murder becomes
a very unhealthy statement of purpose; a feeling that if he could
crack this code, the other problems he is having trouble solving
would seem less elusive. But trying to solve your quarterlife crisis
by throwing yourself into the path of a serial killer is not exactly
the best way to go about it, and as this willful pursuit of danger
leads to revelations in the mystery, the film kicks into somewhat
more modern stalker film territory.
Argento's
grasp of suspense in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
is outstanding: even in his debut film, the tension is first-rate,
and a few of the stalker set-pieces are truly nail-biting. The
cinematography mentioned earlier adds to this wonderfully, as the
gliding camera prowls like the killer himself, with palpable menace.
While the killings in the film absolutely fall in the ballpark of
slasher-esque horror, most of the set-pieces are firmly in the
post-Hitchcock suspense/thriller camp. This may lead to some fans of
his later, more purely horror work to find this film not extreme
enough for their liking, but I actually prefer it: the focus on the
build-up of tension rather than shocks and gore makes it a more
effective film, and elevates it far above the level of
borderline-exploitation which something like Tenebrae
dips into too often for my liking. While they were very different
filmmakers, Argento often gets named in the same breath as Lucio
Fulci, as they were arguably the two most prominent Italian horror
directors of their day; this film, on the other hand, is far more
conducive to the De Palma comparison made earlier.
Unfortunately,
Argento also shares a couple other common traits with De Palma: being
somewhat style-over-substance, and struggling to deliver a climax
that is as strong as everything that came before. While The
Bird with the Crystal Plumage
works very effectively as a thriller, much of that is due to the
expert handing of suspense and the outstanding sense of style. The
logic of the plot may not be as strong, and the character development
doesn't go much beyond what is required to make Sam's journey work
pretty well. I'm also not sure that the end works as well as the
build-up that lead to it, thanks to a couple abrupt moments and leaps
of logic. But as with classic De Palma, the thrills are so good and
the style so strong that you honestly don't notice while you are
watching; you get swept along and are way too busy being thrilled and
scared to notice the narrative flaws.
Still,
these flaws merely mean that The Bird with the Crystal
Plumage is a very, very good
thriller with a couple issues, rather than a truly great one. It
remains expertly made and consistently suspenseful and creepy, and is
easily worth a strong recommendation. For a first feature, this is
very good – it
certainly is not every directorial debut that shows such a confident
artistic vision and already-developed sense of style. This film is
very deserving of a lavish special edition like this one, not only
for its place in the Dario Argento filmography and the giallo genre
in general, but for the merits of its own quality.
Score:
The
Video:
Arrow
Video produced a brand-new 4k remaster for this blu-ray release, and
it is a truly stunning transfer. The image is crystal-clear and
absolutely gorgeous, with strong colors, deep black levels that
nonetheless do not hide the details of the image, and a healthy
presence of film grain. In this restoration, it is shocking to think
that this film was shot all the way back in 1969: the quality of the
image makes it look significantly newer than that (if I did not know
when the film was from, I would have guessed later-70s), with the
only major tell not being any wear to the image, but the fashions
worn on-screen. This transfer is a major step up from all previous
releases, including both the Blue Underground blu-ray and the older
Arrow edition from 2011. If you're a fan of the film, I would
certainly say it is worth a double-dip, especially considering how
visually strong the film is.
Score:
The
Audio:
The
audio on the disc sounds very good, and is a very clear remaster, but
is not tremendously impressive. The film was originally mixed and
released only in mono, and that is what we get here: the original
mono English and mono Italian. They cleaned up the audio impressively
well, and the track sounds very strong. The dialogue is clear, and
the Ennio Morricone score sounds great. I think it is fair to say
that this is the best the film has ever sounded, in terms of the
thoroughness of the remaster. However, the Blue Underground disc did
have 7.1 and 5.1 surround – albeit fake surround mixed up from the
same original mono – so some will surely be disappointed that that
is not an option here. As such, the audio options on the disc are not
going to blow anyone away, but they are a solid treatment of the
original material.
It is also worth noting that, as with many Italian films of this era, this was shot with some of the actors speaking English (like lead actor Musante) and some speaking Italian, with each of those sets of actors being dubbed over for the other language's release. This means that neither the English nor Italian track is the one “true” track, as someone is going to be dubbed no matter how you watch it. Personally, I watched it in English, if only because that is the language that the star of the film is speaking, both in the story and in terms of Musante's performance (Sam is an American staying in Italy). It all comes down to personal preference though.
It is also worth noting that, as with many Italian films of this era, this was shot with some of the actors speaking English (like lead actor Musante) and some speaking Italian, with each of those sets of actors being dubbed over for the other language's release. This means that neither the English nor Italian track is the one “true” track, as someone is going to be dubbed no matter how you watch it. Personally, I watched it in English, if only because that is the language that the star of the film is speaking, both in the story and in terms of Musante's performance (Sam is an American staying in Italy). It all comes down to personal preference though.
Score:
The
Extras:
As
always, Arrow put together an impressive array of extras for this
release. They continue to live up to their reputation for being cult
cinema's answer to The Criterion Collection. Interestingly, most of
the original extras are dedicated to exploring the film's place in
cinema history, putting it in cultural context in terms of giallo
cinema, Argento's filmography, Italian film history, and the
recurring themes that seem to interest the director most. The new
extras exploring this include a commentary and two almost-half-hour
featurettes by three different film scholars, all offering analysis
and background on Argento's movie. From its pivotal place in the
evolution of the giallo to the themes of perception and memory to the
ways in which the gender politics of Argento's films are more
complicated than they initially appear, these are some fascinating,
rigorous extras which add up to something of a film-theory class on
his work. All three are highly recommended to any fans with even a
casual academic interest in film, and will surely increase one's
appreciation for the movie. The disc also features a new interview
with one of the film's co-stars, as well as an archival interview
with the actress who plays the victim in the attack Sam witnesses.
But
the new extra that will be of the most interest to most fans is an
in-depth, half-hour-long 2017 interview with Argento himself about
the making of the film. He has an excellent memory, and conveys some
fascinating stories about how the film came to be, and the trials and
tribulations he faced along the way. Perhaps most surprising to me
was that Argento made the whole film under constant threat of being
fired, as his (at the time) highly unusual and revolutionary vision
for the film was totally lost on its producers. Argento also gives
some fascinating insights into how Ennio Morricone's improv-heavy
score was recorded, with Morricone himself playing improvisational
trumpet parts throughout. That's just a small sample of the
information in store in this interview, which fans will find
invaluable.
It
must be said that the one disappointment is that almost none of the
extras from the previous Blue Underground blu-ray are ported over.
This is such a strong package that it stands very well on its own,
but it isn't a truly definitive edition with those extras missing.
Completists will want to keep both, although this release is easily
worth a double-dip for those who have the Blue Underground.
Score:
The
Packaging:
This
limited edition comes in a truly spectacular package, every bit up to
the standards for which Arrow has become known. The blu-ray case
comes in a heavy outer box, boasting gorgeous new artwork by Candice
Tripp, who previously painted the cover to Arrow's stellar Donnie
Darko limited edition. With a
beautifully eerie style that is completely unique among poster art
today, Tripp has become by far my favorite artist at work not just
for Arrow, but all the similar cinephile blu-ray labels. Inside the
heavy outer box is a reversible poster, featuring Tripp's artwork on
one side and the original 1970 one-sheet on the other, a collection
of replica 1970 lobby cards for the film, as well as a 60-page book.
The book contains an assortment of new and re-published writings
about the film, which further add to the special features' scholarly
exploration. I can't think of any way in which Arrow's special
edition package could possibly be cooler. As per usual, I'm sure
they'll eventually release a basic non-limited version consisting of
just the blu-ray in the regular plastic case, but snagging the
limited edition while you still can is obviously the way to go.
Score:
If
you're a fan of Dario Argento or The Bird with the Crystal
Plumage in particular,
absolutely buy this release immediately if you haven't. While the
extras aren't quite definitive, since they couldn't port over all of
the ones from the Blue Underground release, it is an excellent
package otherwise. The original extras all great, and quite
substantial, and the 4k remaster is spectacular; the film is never
going to look any better than this. On top of all that the limited
edition package that Arrow has assembled is gorgeous, and will surely
make this a sought-after collectible in the years to come. This is
absolutely the release that this film deserves – Arrow knocks it
out of the park again.
Overall
score for the Arrow limited edition:
-
Christopher S. Jordan
Sam
may not have remembered something important, but he definitely
wouldn't forget to share this review. Neither should you.