Critical Perspectives on Dario Argento

Critical Perspectives on Dario Argento cover

Critical Perspectives on Dario Argento

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Description

The first ever edited collection in the English language, Critical Perspectives on Dario Argento is a comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of all the films of one of the most renowned directors from the world of Euro-Horror.

Written by some of the top scholars working in fields as diverse as philosophy, film and media studies, the chapters of this book engage with Argento via posthumanism, art cinema, gender studies, historical analyses of his context, and aesthetics of blindness. The eighteen essays cover all the films made by Argento, including a section on homages and remakes.

Table of Contents

Introduction
PART I: GIALLO
1. “Eyes (Propped) Wide Open: Predatory Capitalism as Sadistic Gendered Violence in Argento's Opera and Four Flies on Grey Velvet,” Eric Brinkman
2. “Family Psychology, Mental Illness, and Social Stigma in Trauma,” Andrew Burt
3. “Blindness, Aesthetics, and Radical Contingency in Dario Argento's The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971) and Dark Glasses (2022),” L. Andrew Cooper
4. “'Real Dead Bodies': The Death of American Authorship in Dario Argento's Tenebre,” Derek Graf
5. “Violence in the Streets: Italy's anni di piombo through La porta sul buio,” Jorge Traversa and Guillermo Link
6. “Has the Yellow Fever Broken: Dario Argento and the 21st Century Giallo,” Mateja Ðedovic

PART II: PHILOSOPHIES OF HORROR
7. “Dario Argento's Apollonian-Dionysian Dialectic,” Gavin Hurley
8. “The Signification of Murder in Dario Argento's Sleepless (2001),” Sean Woodard
9. “Mother's Mayhem: Abjection and Neurotic Surplus Repression in Dario Argento's La terza madre,” Casey Cockrum and Antonio Sanna
10. “Vulnerabilities of the Super-Natural: Plasticity in Dario Argento's Phenomena,” Sony Jalarajan Raj and Adith K Suresh
11. “Beelzebabes: An Ontological Interrogation of the Nonhuman in Argento's Phenomena,” Molly Follette
12. “The Animal Turn in Phenomena, Il fantasma dell'opera, Dracula 3D, 'Jenifer' and Pelts,'” Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

PART III: ADAPTATIONS, HOMAGES13. “Art Cinema and the Grotesque: Dario Argento's Le cinque giornate,” Clayton Dillard
14. “Trauma, Metadaptation, and Fidelity's Recuperative Claim in Suspiria (1977 and 2018),” Jamie L. McDaniel
15. “Galleria Oscura: Paintings in Dario Argento's Giallo Films,” Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
16. “Virtual/Real Bodies in Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento's Demoni,” Emiliano Aguilar
17. “The Fourth Mother: Postmodernism, Metacinema, and Autobiography in Luigi Cozzi's The Black Cat,” Felipe M. Guerra
18. “Iconic Personality: The Public Image of Dario Argento,” Marco Chiaretti

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 19 Feb 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 368
ISBN 9781666973648
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions 229 x 152 mm
Series Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Directors
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns is Professor in the…

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