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actively ignored". [19] According to James Gracey, author of a book about |
Argento's work, with Tenebrae Argento "explores some of his most reoccurring |
themes and preoccupations, such as Freudian psychology , sexual deviancy , |
repressed trauma, voyeurism , audience spectatorship, and the fetishisation of |
violence and death." [20] Water is often associated visually with Neal. In |
almost all his scenes his appearance is followed or accompanied by a shot of |
water. [21] Later, this device is used repeatedly as a clue to the ultimate |
killer's identity – Neal himself. [22] Dark doubles [ edit ] The reveal of |
Peter Neal standing behind Detective Giermani emphasizes Argento's theme of |
"dark doubles", with the film constantly doubling or mirroring objects, |
locations, events and characters. [23] This scene is one of many that sets up |
a character with his or her doppelgänger, on both a visual and narrative |
level. [17] The moment is also one of Tenebrae ' s most stylistically |
influential; the reveal of a killer – previously silhouetted by another – has |
been copied and referenced in many subsequent thrillers, [24] including Brian |
De Palma 's Raising Cain (1992). [25] According to Argento expert Thomas |
Rostock, Tenebrae is filled with rhyming imagery that relates to the film's |
exploration of "the dual nature of [the] two active murderers" using doubles, |
inversions, reflections and "re-reflections". Every major character has at |
least one double, and the theme extends to objects, locations, actions, and |
events – major and minor. [23] The doubling or mirroring of incidents and |
objects includes telephone booths, aircraft, homeless men, otherwise- |
meaningless public brawls in the background, car accidents, typewriters |
(literally side-by-side), keys, handkerchief, hands caught in doors and the |
characters themselves. [26] Rostock cites several scenes where characters are |
set up in the frame with their doppelgängers – one such is the first meeting |
of Peter Neal and Anne with Detectives Giermani and Altieri. [17] McDonagh |
notes that Argento emphasizes the doubling between Neal and Giermani: |
"Giermani ... is made to reflect Neal even as Neal appropriates his role as |
investigator ... the detective/writer and the writer/detective each belittles |
his other half, as though by being demeaned this inverted reflection could be |
made to go away." McDonagh also observes that, in what is arguably the film's |
most potent shock, Neal at one point really does make Giermani "go away", |
virtually replacing him on screen "in a shot that is as schematically logical |
as it is logically outrageous." [27] Earlier, Neal killed a woman who – to his |
and the audience's surprise – was not Anne, but Altieri. [23] Tenebrae itself |
is split almost exactly into two parts. The first half belongs to the murders |
of Berti; the second to those of Neal. The two are set up as mirrors of one |
another. Berti's killings with a razor are clinical, with "lingering |
sexualized aggressiveness", whereas Neal's (with an axe) are crimes of passion |
committed for personal reasons or out of necessity; they are swift and to the |
point. [16] Kevin Lyons observes, "The plot revolves around the audacious and |
quite unexpected transference of guilt from the maniacal killer (about whom we |
learn very little, itself unusual for Argento) to the eminently likeable hero, |
surely the film's boldest stroke." [28] While noting that the device is |
"striking", McDonagh comments that this transmission of guilt occurs between |
two dark doubles who are severely "warped" individuals. She suggests that |
"Neal and Berti ... act as mirrors to one another, each twisting the |
reflection into a warped parody of the other." [29] Berti's obsession with |
Neal's fiction compels him to commit murder in homage to the writer, while |
Neal seems to think that his own violent acts are simply part of some kind of |
"elaborate fiction". When the bloody Neal is confronted by Giermani |
immediately after having killed numerous people, Neal screams at him, "It was |
like a book ... a book!" [30] Metafiction [ edit ] The moment in which the |
first half of the movie transitions into the second is punctuated by the |
rising score and camera pan to an ostensibly meaningless point of reflected |
light on an ornament. According to Rostock, the meaning behind this movement |
is clear: it marks the spot when Berti's spree ends and Neal's rampage begins. |
[31] Argento uses the shift in focus to comment on the shaping of the film |
itself, until that moment a typical, "clichéd and remote" giallo . Neal, |
previously passive, begins to control what happens in his own story, which is |
more personal with "weight and meaning". According to Rostock, this structure |
allows Argento equal scope to play with the narrative while commenting upon |
it, all without having to deviate from the advancement of the plot. [32] |
According to Kim Newman, the use of a sculpture as a weapon makes literal one |
of the themes of the film: "art that kills people". [5] Rostock concurs, |
saying that as the film is a commentary on art, the only weapon that can end |
the narrative is art itself. [22] According to Gracey, many have compared |
Argento with the character of Peter Neal, speculating that he serves as an |
alter-ego for the director. [33] Gracey refers to Tenebrae as a "reflexive |
commentary on [the director's] earlier work." [30] The director himself saw |
the film in the same light, claiming it was a reaction to accusations that |
"[he] was a misogynist ... a criminal ... a murderer." Argento resolved to |
include all these aspects of his previous films into Tenebrae . [34] A scene |
in which a woman criticizes the lead character's books as "sexist", featuring |
"women as victims, cipers, male heroes [and] macho bullshit" echoes criticisms |
of Argento's own work. [6] Kim Newman calls the confrontation scene |
"essentially autobiographical", [35] and refuting these accusations Argento |
said that his films were instead an attempt to tackle his dark side, to "let |
it speak". With Tenebrae in particular, he felt he was making a joke or |
playing a game with his critics, creating a front or mystique about himself. |
[34] Rostock also believes Argento is having fun and sending up this |
perception. [36] Newman agrees that Argento used Tenebrae to address his own |
public image, the notion that someone who creates art as "sick and twisted" as |
his, must himself be sick and twisted. With Tenebrae ' s reveal that the |
author is the killer, Newman argues that Argento is saying, "What if I were?" |
[5] "Aberrant" sexuality [ edit ] As in many of Argento's films, which |
apparently tend to eroticize the murder of beautiful women, [37] gender, |
sexuality, and power are major issues foregrounded by the film. [38] The |
fictional novel within the film is described as being "about human perversion |
and its effects on society". [39] Male and female sexual deviancy is a central |
theme, with the victims being sexually liberated women who the first killer – |
conservative TV presenter Cristiano Berti – refers to as "filthy, slimy |
perverts". [20] The first victim is a sexually promiscuous shoplifter, and his |
next two are the lesbian reporter and her bisexual lover. Berti murders the |
comparatively normal Maria only because she inadvertently discovers his |
twisted compulsion. [40] His "moral crusade" is inspired by – and in his mind |
given credibility by – Neal's novel. Neal's own motivations for becoming a |
killer are revealed in "Freudian flashbacks". As summarized by McDonagh, these |
flashbacks "expose how the misogyny evident in his books actually stems from |
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