Dario Argento's work on DVD: 'The things that scare us never change.'
A five-film collection from the Italian gore-master will be released Tuesday and includes tributes to Poe and Hitchcock.
Dario Argento has quite the body count. The 67-year-old Italian auteur has been making hypnotic, blood-drenched films since the early 1970s and his operatic tales of gore have been hailed by horror fans as their genre's closest equivalent to the canon of Ingmar Bergman.
Argento, reached by phone in Rome, took a few minutes to talk about the five films collected in "The Dario Argento Box Set" (Anchor Bay, $50), which arrives in stores Tuesday. He said that he never worries that modern audiences and their love of special effects will make his older works feel dated. "The things that scare us never change. It's in your heart, not in your eyes. The special effects can help, but the things that touch us in the heart are what really frightens us."
"Tenebre" (1982)
"When I was young, the writing of [Edgar Allan] Poe opened my eyes to a different world, to the things that are not there every day that can reach down into us, the things we fear. In this movie, it's a writer of horror novels who finds his horrors are coming off the pages, yes? How frightened are we of our own imaginations?"
"Phenomena" (1985)
"Jennifer Connelly was a young actress in that film, quite young, but absolutely wonderful, very lovely and very talented. It was clear she would be an actress of great success. This movie, like many of my movies, was cut up when it first came to the United States. That's very sad, of course, for me, and it has happened to me many, many times. So I'm happy to have people see the film as it was supposed to be."
"Trauma" (1993)
"It was very special for me to work through the years with my daughter. 'Trauma' was the first film of mine that she starred in. Not many directors get to do that, to work with their daughter as the star. Maybe a director works with his daughter once or twice -- John Huston with his daughter, Angelica Huston, or Francis Ford Coppola, who worked with his daughter on his third 'Godfather' film. Making 'Trauma' will always be special to me."
"The Card Player" (2004)
"There was a doorman where I live and I would see him, always with his head down working on a laptop computer. I would say, 'Oh how hard he works.' Then I found out that he is playing poker on the Internet! Constantly playing poker! So I used that in this film."
"Do You Like Hitchcock?" (2005)
"For people who love film, it is a way to understand life, a way to understand ourselves. That is why I made a film that is about film. It's a way to speak to that part of us. My father was a director and film was a way to explain the world. Not just with words but with image and the feeling. That's why I made this movie. And of course, I love Alfred Hitchcock."
geoff.boucher@latimes.com
