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Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom
I think that, in terms of his overall career, he's made a few decent films followed by a whole bunch of godawful super-size turkeys. I didn't like "Opera" at all, and the whole point of "The Stendhal Syndrome" seemed, well, pointless. As for his "classic period", I personally do like a lot of this, but will admit that a lot of that comes from Argento's sense of art direction, which although not original (taking a lot of his cues from Mario Bava), still is striking and very "painterly", in a way. I have to admit that directing actors is not one of Argento's stronger points - look at Michael Brandon's rather wooden performance in "Four Flies On Grey Velvet", for example. Still, when all is said and done, I still rate Argento overall for his early work.
On a footnote, I only wish that Michaele Soavi hadn't had to retire to look after his son, and been given full creative control (i.e. No D Argento mentoring/interfering!) on at least one film. Now that would have been quite something, I reckon.
Re Leone - the "Dollars" film have been over-lionised a bit, but me still like 'em. Mind you, their visual look inspired Fields Of The Nephilim. Argh!!!
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Good point about Soavi. Dellamorte Dellamore is a great film. Stagefright was a bit meh, but even there you could see he had something.
I dunno. I like Argento but I increasingly find watching even his 'classic' stuff a bit tiresome. Suspiria is amazing for the first and last half an hour but it just sleepwalks through the middle section. I actually think the idea behind the Stendhal Syndrome was a really good one, but it was so badly executed as to be almost unwatchable. Even so, i do have a weird soft spot for it. For me, Deep Red is probably the most all around successfull film he's made but even that declines into almost total incoherency during the middle.
Haha re the Nephilim influence. Absolutely!