Tagline: “A stunning portrait in psycho terror!”
UK Running Time: 96 minutes
Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 2/5
Entertainment Value: 4/5
Originality: 4.5/5
Introduction
Frustrated at the way other directors had treated some of his work, Italian screenwriter Dario Argento took a stab at adapting his own screenplay. The rest is history as one of Italy and the horror genre’s most enigmatic, flamboyant and talented director’s career went interstellar. As debut’s go it was impressive and earned comparisons with the great Alfred Hitchcock, becoming an international hit and reigniting the Giallo sub-genre that Argento would pretty much make his own for the next 20 years.
In a nutshell
A writer witnesses an attempted murder but can’t shake the feeling that he has either missed or forgotten a vital visual detail that is preventing him from identifying the killer. Caught in a game of cat and mouse with a serial killer who begins to target his girlfriend and himself, he must find that elusive detail before he becomes the next victim.
So what’s good about it?
Throughout Argento’s career he’s faced the criticism of style over substance and that he can’t work with actors or dialogue so it probably makes sense that he was destined to find greater success behind the camera rather than in front of the typewriter. However, his debut feature is remarkably coherent, follows logical threads with realistic dialogue and believable motivation. Faced with the trauma of witnessing an attempted murder, who wouldn’t be so overwhelmed that they’d convince themselves they’ve missed a vital part of the puzzle. Also, knowing that the killer is aware that you saw the whole thing, the fear of becoming the next victim would fuel your obsession to track down the killer.
Borrowing stylish and visual motifs from other directors, most notably Mario Bava, Argento creates a new type of Giallo. In a sense this film bridges the gap between the older, Italian thrillers and the slasher films that evolved through the 70s and 80s. There is a sense of terrorisation, mainly of two female characters, with bladed instruments that became a staple of the slasher, although claims of misogyny are a little wide of the mark in that Sam is equally terrorised. We’re also treated to some killer point of view shots that predate any slasher film. If ‘Black Christmas’ is a predecessor of ‘Halloween’ then ‘Bird’ must surely be an influence on Bob Clark’s classic…it even features a killer that terrorises our main character on the phone, remind you of anything?
Touching on those attacks with a knife and razor, the tension Argento builds is almost unbearable, particularly in the stalking of Sam’s girlfriend in her own home when she is trapped inside as the killer tries to force entry. We know she’s alone, we know that if the killer gets in that Giulia is dead but the scene is played out painfully slowly, torturing us as well as Giulia as her death seems almost inevitable. It reminds me of the scene in ‘Suspiria’ when the killer toys with the latch, playfully sliding the razor through the crack in the door and slowly tapping away at the latch. Argento constructs out a similar scene in ‘Deep Red’ where the killer attempts to gain entry to Marc Daly’s home…it’s an incredibly primal fear, turning a place of safety into a cage from which there is no escape other than the hope that someone will come along and save you.
Credit to Ennio Morricone for coming up with a beautiful score to go with the wonderful direction. To be able to call upon such a great composer for your debut feature is a testament to the high regard Argento must have encouraged. He’d already worked on the screenplay for Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ and Morricone would go on to compose two more scores for his other two ‘Animal Trilogy’ movies, namely ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’ and ‘Cat O’ Nine Tails’.
But for me the best thing about this, retrospectively, is the formation of the themes and motifs that were being developed and would become central to his later masterpieces. We’d seen the black gloved, fedora wearing killer before but never in quite such psychosexual, fetishistic context that ushered in the new dawn of giallo as horror. There’s the baroque style of film-making, the building of tension through camera trickery and angled shots, tantalising glimpses of the black gloved killer, new ways of going over what had become tired ground combining styles for a fresh approach that seemed new and exciting. These motifs were to be honed and perfected the other two ‘Animal Trilogy’ films before it all came together for the simply outstanding ‘Profondo Rosso’ or ‘Deep Red’.
And what about the bad?
It’s no secret that Argento and lead actor Tony Musante (right) didn’t get along. As a scriptwriter Argento viewed actors as little more than mouthpieces for his dialogue and wasn’t prepared for a renowned method actor asking what his motivation was. It simply didn’t interest Argento who, as a visionary director, preferred his actors to just say the lines, seeing them as just another prop to fuel the visual narrative and keep the story moving. It was the camera, the lighting, the way a scene plays out that interested him and what he viewed as slightly diva behaviour perhaps tarnished his view of actors forever. It’s a shame because Musante is perfectly fine in the film but it was clear that Argento had no real flair in directing actors and that his talents lay in constructing a scene and shooting a set piece.
Any themes?
Other than what we’ve already touched on, building on the already existing tropes of the Giallo and making them his own, there is an early fascination for being trapped within a transparent barrier. Windows and mirrors became common themes within his work and we first see it when Sam witnesses the attempted murder whilst trapped between the two giant windows that make up the art gallery’s frontage (below). It’s classic Argento, trapped but in full view of what’s happening, completely helpless from intervening or from running away, forced to watch yet not able to participate. This is a trick he repeats in many of his features, culminating in ‘Opera’ where our heroine is forced to watch the brutal murders in a much less passive way, the only barrier being needles taped to her eyelids.
The feeling of being trapped is amplified in several other scenes. Giulia is trapped in her own home whilst the killer makes a bid for another murder. A second female victim is trapped during a similar scene, Sam has his passport confiscated so is stuck in Italy, he becomes pinned under a modern art sculpture as the killer is finally revealed and the titular bird, which turns out to be a major clue in the discovery of the killer’s identity, is caged in the zoo, its distinctive warble ‘captured’ on tape.
Release history
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| Cut and retitled for the US market |
The BBFC really took exception to Argento during his early years! Ironically the early releases of this film were censored as a result of MPAA intervention as they removed around 9 seconds for the US cinema version, the same cut that Vampix released on VHS in 1983. Subsequent releases lost a total of around 40 seconds which included the trims to the elevator and bedroom attacks along with more substantial cuts of knickers being forcibly removed from a female victim with a knife. This fell under the compulsory ‘sexualised violence’ category of the BBFC’s guidelines.
This censored release continued in the UK, even intruding on the 2005 Platinum DVD release, although this was largely down to an error in their submission of a cut v
ersion. It was finally released uncut in the UK in 2011 by Arrow with a ‘15’ certificate and has been shown on the UK Horror channel in a widescreen Italian language print that was also uncut.
Cultural Impact
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| The painting that triggers the trauma |
Massive in that it introduced the world to a talent that would flourish right up to the late 80s/early 90s giving us some of the most memorable films and scenes that the genre has to offer. It both reinvigorated and killed the giallo at the same time, bringing interest and excitement to the genre but no other Italian director seemed capable of pulling it off in the same way Argento did. Consequently, for every new Argento entry there would be ten sub-par entries that just couldn’t compete. That’s not to say that there were no good ones, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, Sergio Martino and Francesco Barilli in particular created some excellent gialli but they weren’t the international sensations that Argento’s proved to be.
The Gialli of the 60s and 70s were the precursors of the traditional slasher film and you can see how the Italian films set up the stalk and slash concept. ‘Bird’ came four years before Bob Clark’s ‘Black Christmas and eight years before ‘Halloween’ yet elements are there in both films, simplified and stripped down to the set piece drawn out across the film with the crime and sleuthing elements superfluous.
Hitchcock was a clear influence on Argento but this film, and others like it, in turn influenced Hitchcock and his contemporaries. ‘Frenzy’ takes elements of the giallo and, Brian De Palma in particular is heavily influenced by the work of Argento, particularly ‘Raising Cain and ‘Dressed to Kill’. Despite perhaps not sitting too comfortably within the horror genre as such, it is a landmark film due to its influence on the Italian giallo, its morphing into the slasher film and Argento’s increasing desire to explore the supernatural elements of the sub-genre.
Final Thoughts…
An outrageously assured debut, it is rightly regarded as a classic despite not quite hitting the heights of his 70s and 80s films. It created the blueprint that would lead to these classic films including the black gloved killer, distrust of police, outlandish characters, a protagonist working within the creative arts and the wonderfully constructed set piece. It sounds too obvious to say that it’s a good starting point for anyone new to Argento but in this case it’s completely true. Watching this after films like ‘Suspiria’, ‘Opera’ or ‘Phenomena’ may leave you a little cold but instead see it for what it is which is a beautifully shot, superbly plotted, clever little film from a director who would go a long, long way.
You’ll like this if you enjoyed…
‘Klute’, ‘Deep Red’, ‘Dressed to Kill’, ‘Amer’, ‘Hatchet for the Honeymoon’
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