Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 19, 2005, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (pictured above) and Trauma have more in common than just being Dario Argento psychochillers newly released on DVD (by Blue Underground and Anchor Bay, respectively). Both were milestones in the director’s career—Bird was his directorial debut and initial exercise in the giallo genre, Trauma his first (and only) solo excursion into American features—and the revelations of the films’ killers contain significant similarities. In addition, though both discs are touted as presenting the films uncut and uncensored for the first time, neither contains particularly sizable helpings of extra gore. Bird’s most vicious murder gains its queasy power from its sexual overtones, not the amount of blood spilled, while the extra footage in Trauma involves not Tom Savini’s makeup FX (Argento intentionally kept the grue restrained here) but nearly 20 minutes’ worth of scenes excised from the previous domestic video version.
The key difference between the two is that while Bird is widely hailed by Argento’s followers as one of his classics, Trauma is equally widely derided as his “sell-out” movie. While it’s true that the director explicitly intended the latter as his entrée into the lucrative U.S. market, this writer has always found it somewhat underrated. Not a perfect film, it nonetheless retains enough of Argento’s signature quirks to be of interest—and as overwrought as their performances are, it’s more fun seeing the likes of Brad Dourif and Piper Laurie in supporting roles than the usual anonymous (and post-synched) Italian bit players.
For its part, Bird has, through no fault of its own, lost some of its freshness due to the endless string of gialli that followed in its wake—including Deep Red, where Argento truly achieved a cinematic madness to match the dementia of his villain. Bird’s key setpieces still impress, though, particularly the opening, in which hero Tony Musante witnesses a savage attack while trapped between glass walls that prevent him from either aiding the victim or running for help. It’s also the better-looking of the two discs, though that’s a result of the respective visual approaches rather than any problems with the mastering. Bird’s 2.35:1 transfer is Crystal clear, and the vivid colors will pop your eyes from the moment a red-clad woman walks on screen. Trauma, we learn on the audio commentary, was given an intentionally drab look in its interiors, and even the outdoor scenes seem muted, but the image (also 2.35:1, though the case erroneously says it’s 1.85:1) is generally clean and sharp.
Blue Underground has loaded up the Bird disc with every conceivable audio option: DTS-ES 6.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX, Dolby Surround 2.0 and original mono tracks in English, and 5.1 Surround EX, Dolby Surround 2.0 and original mono in Italian. The more advanced tracks are good and sharp, albeit limited by the fact that (as is, once again, discussed on the commentary) the sound, including dialogue, was all recorded after the fact. Trauma offers Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 audio, the former nicely detailed if not overly spectacular.
Argento expert Alan Jones contributes the commentaries on both, joined on Bird by fellow British genre expert Kim Newman. The latter claims he’ll just “provide footnotes…you’re much stronger on this stuff than I am” at the beginning of Bird’s commentary, but he contributes just as much to the discussion as Jones does, if not more. He also provides the single best anecdote, relating a time when he, like Musante’s character, was called on to listen to an audio recording to help solve a crime. The duo provide a thorough history of Bird—on which Argento, originally just the writer, was promoted to director late in the game—and cover his many influences, ranging from Screaming Mimi and German krimi to previous Italian directors like Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda. Interesting historical details, like a feud between Argento and Lucio Fulci, come up as well. Along the way, they opine more than once that Bird is more a mystery than a horror film, and that Argento only fully entered the latter genre with Suspiria; the former statement is hard to dispute, though this reviewer would submit that Deep Red belongs just as squarely in the fright genre.
On his own for the Trauma talk, Jones does just fine, in no small part because he was on set for a good deal of its filming, and is thus able to share a number of first-hand memories (like Tom Savini trying out the “noose-o-matic” weapon on him). He offers a wealth of information on the film’s development, which saw it go from what Argento intended to be his goriest film ever to a product specifically toned down for the American producer, and notes a few of the scenes that got lost in the U.S. cut. He also reveals the more personal sides of the movie and its production, relating how the anorexia of heroine Aura (Asia Argento) was inspired by the director’s niece suffering that condition, as well as recollections of Asia and her father’s working relationship.
Both discs also contain interview featurettes, with Bird boasting four, spotlighting Argento, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, composer Ennio Morricone and actress Eva Renzi. The director’s chat covers some material also addressed in the commentary, but also a few unique subjects; most notably, he explains just how a falling camera shot (which Jones and Newman confess they couldn’t figure out) was done. Morricone reveals how he made the Bird score extra-edgy by “directing” his performers during the recording session, and amusingly says he applied that approach to “only” 18 or 19 other movies. (Acknowledging his 400 or so total credits, he humbly announces, “Compared to Bach, I haven’t done anything!”)
Storaro explores his use of close-ups to convey character psychology and the cinematographer’s part in the overall filmmaking process—but, despite the featurette’s title (Painting With Darkness), he doesn’t go into Bird’s evocative use of light or lack thereof. The most attention-getting of the quartet, however, is Renzi (the only one of the four who speaks in English), as she forthrightly discusses the bad choices (turning down a Michael Caine movie and a James Bond film) that “killed my career.” While she claims to have no bad memories of Argento, she doesn’t think much of her Bird role or Musante (according to the other supplements, Argento wasn’t a big fan of the actor either); the whole thing is given an especially melancholy conclusion when it is revealed that Renzi died earlier this year.
An Argento interview on the Trauma DVD also adds interesting footnotes to its commentary, as the director recalls following and observing a real anorexic (“I like to watch people,” he confesses. “In fact, sometimes they see me looking at them and insult me!”) and praises U.S. crews as being more enthusiastic than those in Italy. On-set video provided by Savini offers fun peeks at how rolling- and severed-head FX were accomplished, along with a car-crash stunt. There are also deleted scenes (in subtitled Italian, and nothing special) and a good collection of stills and poster/promo art. Each disc also includes trailers: Italian and international versions (pretty much identical, aside from an Alfred Hitchcock quote added to the latter) for Bird and just one for Trauma. This one makes the movie seem far more like a banal American thriller than Argento could ever have intended—and for that extra touch of cluelessness, the narrator pronounces Asia Argento’s first name like the continent.
