BBCC: Let’s go back to the beginning with your debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The film famously played for several years straight in Milan. Why do you think it was so popular?
DA: I think it was because it was the first time psychology and psychoanalysis was put into a Giallo movie, and that went beyond the normal Giallo movies at the time. Most of them didn’t have many layers. I added a psychological depth to it. It is probably the reason why it was so popular and also why it was so imitated by other directors afterwards.
I was very influenced by American movies from the 1950s and 60s in that regard, in particular those produced by Val Lewton. He used to produce very low-budget movies. The distribution companies used to screen them as B-movies or second movies in double bills. But Lewton allowed directors like Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, and Robert Wise to make low-budget films with incredible, psychological stories.
BBCC: The score for The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was by the famed Ennio Morricone. You are known for your detailed relationship to film music, in particular with the experimental rock group Goblin [who scored Suspiria and a number of others], as well as taking a role in it yourself. How is working with a singular composer and a band different?
DA: It’s totally different. With Morricone, he had to create a symphony for long scenes and long shots to create an atmosphere. A band like Goblin has the freedom to go crazy, really crazy in fact. The score that the band creates for a single scene has to be instantly explosive so the relationship to composition is different.
BBCC: With your thriller Deep Red [1975], there entered into your cinema a more supernatural element, as opposed to the straighter murder-led thrillers and Giallo films. Do you distinguish your straighter Giallo from your more supernatural films such as Suspiria and Phenomena [1985]?
DA: I don’t make such a distinction myself as my inspiration does not come from my mind but my soul. I am never able to predict which films will have more supernatural elements than thriller elements, or vice-versa.
BBCC: Architecture is important in your films. How do you choose your buildings and locations?
DA: Sometimes I have cities in mind that could fit into my films, so I drive around them looking for buildings. Sometimes I already know buildings that could work well in particular places, too. I really like to drive around and search for the right atmosphere until I know the city and its buildings well enough to decide.
BBCC: Suspiria, your tale of witches haunting a German dance school, is arguably your most famous film. It’s also one of the most visually striking films ever made. How did you achieve its stark array of colours?
DA: That required a long study for me and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli. We wanted to have the same colours of those early Western movies shot in Technicolor. So colourisation and finding a colour palette was the first thing we decided together; inspired by the colours of the red sunsets, the blue uniforms etc. in those early Westerns. We also watched the colours of early Disney animations like Cinderella [1950]. That was so we could get the colours just right.
