THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE
Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Dario Argento
Starring Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall
Released in 1970
Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Dario Argento
Starring Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall
Released in 1970
Dario Argento first drew cinematic attention to himself as one of the writers on Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in the West. Today's movie, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, should not be judged by the standard of that ultimate spaghetti western. On the contrary, what is fair is to judge it in relation to both its influences and its influence, and even more importantly, to judge it as to whether or not it's a good film on its own merits.
The last question comes first: Yes. It stood up then and it continues to do so. In fact, it does more than stand. It runs. Tony Musante demonstrates some genuine talent, if not a typical lack of warmth, in his performance as Sam Dalmas, an American writer temporarily living in Rome with his girlfriend, the beautiful Julia, played with considerable melodrama by Suzy Kendall, a woman I at first mistook for Susan George. Julia's purpose in this film is to stand in a for the concept of the doe-eyed potential victim, a not unheard of role in 1970s suspense-horror dramas. She does as much with that part as that part allow, as, to be fair, does Musante with his portrayal of a man who witnesses a crime while standing between two sets of glass doors. He can see in at the crime being committed, yet he can neither escape nor assist. He is trapped and is even seen being trapped, just as the film projectionist in the movie theaters watched the audiences trapped in their seats while viewing this movie. The difference? The movie-goer doesn't want to leave.
Argento builds the suspense layer by layer. Sam knows that what he has seen--the stabbing of a woman in an art gallery by a man who escapes detection--is real, and yet he cannot quite parse out the significance of the action in a way that will be helpful to the police. He faces pressure to solve the crime from not only law enforcement but from the killer as well, the identity of whom we are given multiple clues, most of them false in the way of Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaking of whom, Argento occasionally is called the Italian Hitchcock because of certain alleged similarities in the use of misdirection and knee-level camera angles, as well as his tendency to allow the plot to establish the characters rather revealing those details through contrived conventions. But if it's possible that two different people could independently develop the radio and two other people could independently develop the telephone, then it seems possible that Argento and Hitchcock may have inspired one another far less than is commonly argued.
What also seems possible is that director Brian DePalma, who is often accused of going beyond homage and into the realm of thievery when it comes to his relationship with Hitchcock, actually owes a bit more to Dario Argento in general and this film in particular.
Trapped, mesmerized voyeurism, murder by shining blade in confined quarters, a sense of dispassion regarding the victims, a man being helpless in defense of a female victim, constant misdirection as to guilt, psychologically-based motives, the use of the camera backing up as actors charge a staircase, the presence of a manipulative police force: these are elements of Dressed to Kill,Body Double, and Blow Out, just for starters. It may be granted that DePalma does more with these elements than Argento, but that argument doesn't really hold water. Neither director works particularly hard at providing the viewer with something that will carry on after the experience itself. That's okay. We've come to expect the under-expected. DePalma adds more intrigue through his use of sexual inducement, although cinematic mores have as much to do with that as artistic license. The real force of either director's work is largely to engage the viewer without doing much more than taunting him for the duration of the film, whereas someone like Hitchcock--say Hitchcock himself, for instance, and in the only instance--endeavored in several films to leave the viewer feeling things after he or she left the movie. Notorious is probably the best example of this, another being Rope, and another being Rear Window.
All in all, The Bird is a fascinating show of multiple levels of psychological perversion worth experiencing as much for the onscreen value as for its modest historical stature.
The last question comes first: Yes. It stood up then and it continues to do so. In fact, it does more than stand. It runs. Tony Musante demonstrates some genuine talent, if not a typical lack of warmth, in his performance as Sam Dalmas, an American writer temporarily living in Rome with his girlfriend, the beautiful Julia, played with considerable melodrama by Suzy Kendall, a woman I at first mistook for Susan George. Julia's purpose in this film is to stand in a for the concept of the doe-eyed potential victim, a not unheard of role in 1970s suspense-horror dramas. She does as much with that part as that part allow, as, to be fair, does Musante with his portrayal of a man who witnesses a crime while standing between two sets of glass doors. He can see in at the crime being committed, yet he can neither escape nor assist. He is trapped and is even seen being trapped, just as the film projectionist in the movie theaters watched the audiences trapped in their seats while viewing this movie. The difference? The movie-goer doesn't want to leave.
Argento builds the suspense layer by layer. Sam knows that what he has seen--the stabbing of a woman in an art gallery by a man who escapes detection--is real, and yet he cannot quite parse out the significance of the action in a way that will be helpful to the police. He faces pressure to solve the crime from not only law enforcement but from the killer as well, the identity of whom we are given multiple clues, most of them false in the way of Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaking of whom, Argento occasionally is called the Italian Hitchcock because of certain alleged similarities in the use of misdirection and knee-level camera angles, as well as his tendency to allow the plot to establish the characters rather revealing those details through contrived conventions. But if it's possible that two different people could independently develop the radio and two other people could independently develop the telephone, then it seems possible that Argento and Hitchcock may have inspired one another far less than is commonly argued.
What also seems possible is that director Brian DePalma, who is often accused of going beyond homage and into the realm of thievery when it comes to his relationship with Hitchcock, actually owes a bit more to Dario Argento in general and this film in particular.
Trapped, mesmerized voyeurism, murder by shining blade in confined quarters, a sense of dispassion regarding the victims, a man being helpless in defense of a female victim, constant misdirection as to guilt, psychologically-based motives, the use of the camera backing up as actors charge a staircase, the presence of a manipulative police force: these are elements of Dressed to Kill,Body Double, and Blow Out, just for starters. It may be granted that DePalma does more with these elements than Argento, but that argument doesn't really hold water. Neither director works particularly hard at providing the viewer with something that will carry on after the experience itself. That's okay. We've come to expect the under-expected. DePalma adds more intrigue through his use of sexual inducement, although cinematic mores have as much to do with that as artistic license. The real force of either director's work is largely to engage the viewer without doing much more than taunting him for the duration of the film, whereas someone like Hitchcock--say Hitchcock himself, for instance, and in the only instance--endeavored in several films to leave the viewer feeling things after he or she left the movie. Notorious is probably the best example of this, another being Rope, and another being Rear Window.
All in all, The Bird is a fascinating show of multiple levels of psychological perversion worth experiencing as much for the onscreen value as for its modest historical stature.
