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roller-coaster ride packed with fast and furious murders" and that he |
"shouldn't resist what [his] hardcore audience wanted". [6] He added that he |
had also become irritated that in the years since his last giallo so many |
other directors had made films derivative of his own genre-defining works. |
[34] Argento said that Tenebrae was directly influenced by two distressing |
incidents that occurred in 1980. [6] On a break from filmmaking after Suspiria |
' s surprise success, Argento was spending time in Los Angeles, where an |
obsessed fan telephoned him repeatedly, [33] to talk about Suspiria ' s |
influence on him. [21] According to Argento, the calls began pleasantly enough |
but before long became more insistent, eventually menacing. [34] The fan |
claimed that he wanted "to harm Argento in a way that reflected how much the |
director's work had affected him", [33] and that because the director had |
"ruined his life", he in turn wanted to ruin Argento's. [34] Although no |
violence came of the threat, Argento said he found the experience |
understandably terrifying and felt unable to write. [52] At the advice of his |
producers, Argento fled to the coastal city of Santa Monica, where he felt |
safe enough to resume writing. However, after a few weeks, the fan found |
Argento and resumed his calls, issuing more threats. The director decided to |
return to Italy. [34] Argento felt the escalating nature of the fan's threats |
were "symptomatic of that city of broken dreams" with its "celebrity stalkers |
and senseless crime". The second incident occurred during Argento's stay at |
The Beverly Hilton , where a Japanese tourist was shot dead in the hotel |
lobby. Later hearing of a drive-by shooting outside a local cinema, Argento |
reflected on the senselessness of the killings: "To kill for nothing, that is |
the true horror of today ... when that gesture has no meaning whatsoever it's |
completely repugnant, and that's the sort of atmosphere I wanted to put across |
in Tenebrae ." [6] Casting [ edit ] Argento reportedly offered the lead role |
of Peter Neal to Christopher Walken , but eventually, it went to Anthony |
Franciosa . [6] Kim Newman felt that Franciosa's casting was fortunate, as he |
was capable of bringing more to the role than the script asked of him. He also |
believed that if Walken had been cast, it would have been more obvious that he |
was the killer. [46] According to Jones and Daria Nicolodi , the relationship |
between Franciosa and Argento was a fractious one. [6] [53] In addition, |
Nicolodi and Argento were romantically involved at the time, but their |
relationship had suffered over a disputed story credit during the filming of |
Suspiria . Nicolodi therefore only agreed to a brief appearance in Tenebrae . |
[6] By her own account, she originally asked for the small role of Jane |
McKerrow—which ultimately went to Veronica Lario . [53] Nicolodi was, |
according to Alan Jones, cast as the woman on the beach in Neal's flashback. |
[6] Conversely, Thomas Rostock states that Nicolodi was never intended for |
that role, only that of Jane. Transgender actress Eva Robin's was later hired |
to play the woman on the beach. [32] Clockwise, from top left : Daria |
Nicolodi, Anthony Franciosa, John Steiner, John Saxon When the American |
actress who had been hired to play Anne dropped out just before the start of |
principal photography, Argento convinced Nicolodi to take on this larger role. |
[32] Nicolodi found Anne to have a different personality than her own, and |
much preferred the characters she had played for Argento previously, who she |
said had much more personality than Anne. She said the role required little |
energy or imagination, but liked the novelty of playing neither killer nor |
victim. [53] Newman and Alan Jones agreed that Nicolodi had very little |
character to play, as written. Newman added that this lack of character |
stretched to all the Italians in the film, and that only the American |
characters had discernible personalities. [35] Nicolodi later claimed that |
although filming began well enough, Argento became angry when she and |
Franciosa bonded over playwright Tennessee Williams and their experience in |
theatre, leading the director to make sure their shared scenes "were an ordeal |
to endure". [6] The charged atmosphere culminated with Argento reportedly |
telling Franciosa, "leave my woman alone!" [15] Nicolodi said she channelled |
her frustrations with the situation into her character's last scene in the |
film, where Anne stands in the rain and screams repeatedly, continuing over |
the film's end credits. [6] She had been directed to scream only a little, but |
knowing it was the last day of filming and her last scene to complete, |
Nicolodi screamed loudly and for a long time, much to Argento's and the crew's |
surprise. [53] Nicolodi said the scene was her "cathartic release from the |
whole nightmare". [6] Although Tenebrae was an Italian production, most of the |
cast spoke their dialogue in English to increase the film's chances of success |
in the United States. For domestic audiences, the film was dubbed into |
Italian. The English-language dub retained Franciosa's, Saxon's and Steiner's |
natural voices. [54] However, Nicolodi's voice was dubbed by Theresa Russell , |
Giuliano Gemma's was dubbed by David Graham , and most of the female voices |
were dubbed by Adrienne Posta . [35] Michele Soavi – frequent Argento |
collaborator, second assistant director on Tenebrae and later a noted director |
in his own right – acted alongside Robin's in the second flashback scene. [48] |
Another of Argento's collaborators, Fulvio Mingozzi cameoed as a hotel porter. |
[21] In common with several other Argento films, close-ups of the killer's |
gloved hands were Argento's own. [14] In the film's Italian-language dub, |
Argento also provided the opening voice-over, reading aloud descriptions of |
murderous actions from Neal's fictitious novel, Tenebrae . [23] Filming [ edit |
] The first flashback scene was filmed at Capocotta beach, south of Rome. |
Filming began on 3 May 1982 and took ten weeks [6] shot mostly on location in |
Rome. Kim Newman described the Rome of Tenebrae as unlike the one showed on |
television and in films, with none of the usual historical landmarks. Newman |
and Alan Jones agreed that this was a deliberate choice made by Argento, as |
some of his previous films had utilized so much of recognisable Italy. Argento |
himself said he had wanted to show Italy was not just a museum piece; Newman |
said it was Argento's way of saying, "Rome is a vibrant city. It is modern." |
[46] Most of Tenebrae ' s location shooting was carried out in Rome's EUR |
business and residential district. [16] The first flashback scene was filmed |
at the Capocotta beach , south of the city near Ostia . [17] The shoplifting |
scene near the beginning of Tenebrae was filmed on location at department |
store La Rinascente , off Piazza Fiume. [46] Bullmer's death in a public |
square was shot at a shopping precinct called " Le Terrazze " in Rome's Casal |
Palocco residential neighbourhood. [12] The scene in which Neal's landlord's |
daughter is killed was filmed outside the home of an architect – and friend of |
Argento – Sandro Petti, [31] switching to studio shots for her initial |
entrance into the house and back to Petti's house for the confrontation with |
the killer. [55] The scene at the beginning of the film where Neal boards his |
flight to Rome was filmed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New |
York. [56] Giuseppe Bassan – a frequent Argento collaborator – was the film's |
production designer. [15] The surroundings are given a bleached, "merciless" |
Subsets and Splits
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