Mia Merrill<\/p>\n
FMST 310<\/p>\n
Final Paper<\/p>\n
The Witches Are Back: Feminism, Violence, and the Male Gaze in the Two Suspiria<\/em>s<\/p>\n In 2018, Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino released his take on Suspiria<\/em>, a cult classic horror film originally made by Dario Argento in 1977. Guadagnino\u2019s film runs one hour longer than Argento\u2019s and offers much more backstory than Argento\u2019s: He places the protagonist, Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), as a former member of the Ohio Mennonite Church; he features the violence and disruption of German domestic terrorism in the background of many scenes; and he expands on the dancing so critical to the film. Where Argento\u2019s Suzy (Jessica Harper) was a beautiful and meek heroine who seems unable to solve the puzzle of the haunted dance academy until the last available moment, Guadagnino\u2019s Susie takes charge of her fate before the audience even realizes it. Guadagnino\u2019s changed ending seems at first to offer Susie more agency, but it ultimately serves to perpetuate the male gaze in the film and transform the protagonist into the body politic.<\/p>\n Guadagnino\u2019s film thoroughly studies the role of modern dance in German Cold War art and culture. Argento\u2019s film mostly features background actors in short, traditional ballet combinations; when Suzy gets dizzy and falls ill at rehearsal, it is quite noticeable that Harper is not actually dancing, as only her upper body is in the frame. Guadagnino, in contrast, uses the history of modern dance in post-war Germany to his advantage, inserting several expressionist dance sequences in his film. The film stresses the historical association of the female body with supernatural or satanic forces, as dance becomes a vehicle for witchcraft. In Guadagnino\u2019s film, the feminine, the violent, the artistic, the sexual, and the satanic become one.<\/p>\n Where Harper\u2019s Suzy was one of many unsung dancers, Johnson\u2019s Susie is the star pupil of Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton). She quickly climbs the ranks and earns the principal role in \u201cVolk\u201d, a dance Madame Blanc first choreographed in the 1940s. \u201cVolk\u201d translates to \u201cpeople\u201d, a common rallying cry of the National Socialist movement; the early twentieth-century v\u00f6lkisch<\/em>, or people\u2019s, movement laid the foundation for Nazism (Kolb 27). Like his exploration of Cold War politics, Guadagnino\u2019s reference here is not subtle. Those familiar with German history would immediately recognize the significance of Madame Blanc welcoming the audience to a dance entitled \u201cVolk\u201d, and those versed in modern dance would see the similarities between the film\u2019s satanic dance and that of renowned Weimar-era choreographer Mary Wigman.<\/p>\n Wigman was one of the founders of modern expressionist dance, pre-dating the giant Pina Bausch. David Kajganich, who wrote the screenplay for Guadagnino\u2019s adaptation, claimed Wigman as an inspiration for his dance sequences (Castillo). Wigman is best known for three distinct versions of her \u201cHexentanz\u201d, or \u201cWitch Dance\u201d, the last version performed with permission from Third Reich officials. Though the film is full of visual and physical references to Wigman and her work, it neglects to mention her by name, perhaps because of her ambiguous connections to Nazism.<\/p>\n Interest in witchcraft and the occult peaked under the Third Reich, as some Nazi officials sought to distance Germans from organized Christianity in favor of a return to traditional German, somewhat pagan practices. Heinrich Himmler, who orchestrated the Holocaust, was obsessed with witches and the power that they represented as authentic Aryan women. He believed that most medieval witch hunts were organized by Protestant churches, as well as Jewish mobs, to identify and kill powerful German women (Kolb 28). The Markos Company, which Sara (Mia Goth) tells us continued to dance during the War, represents the untapped potential of the German woman, repressed by both the patriarchal church and the cult of domesticity propagated under Nazism.<\/p>\n Unlike Argento\u2019s film, which did not overtly explore the politics of 1970s Germany, Guadagnino\u2019s film ostensibly becomes a critique of Nazism and subsequent Cold War authoritarianism. Susie frees the dancers from the binds of the corrupt government of Markos and Blanc. The witches become liberated women, a coven with artistic and sexual freedom \u2013 the stuff of anti-feminist nightmares. Guadagnino\u2019s condemnation of dictatorship is ironic considering Argento\u2019s subtle association of the witch as Jew in his Suspiria<\/em>. Argento\u2019s dance matrons have a sneaking obsession with money, and are feared by local Christians, who think they know the true nature of the mothers. They also move around constantly, fleeing cities and countries whenever someone uncovers their secret. To many viewers, Argento\u2019s witches are archetypal monsters, possessors of the demonic feminine qualities that can manipulate and destroy innocents. But putting Argento\u2019s Suspiria <\/em>in the context of broader twentieth-century European conflicts allows for more nuanced, less one-dimensional interpretations of the witch, and may explain why Guadagnino and his team leaned in to heavy political themes in his adaptation.<\/p>\n Guadagnino\u2019s film does not address the witch as wandering Jew in either a positive or negative light. While Argento\u2019s Suspiria <\/em>brims with immigration panic \u2013 the constant paranoia that outsiders will infiltrate and conquer your territory \u2013, Guadagnino\u2019s seeps with gay panic. Susie\u2019s sexuality blossoms as she studies with the Markos Company, and she is encouraged to explore her body and newfound independence. The dancers blur the boundaries of the platonic and the romantic, as Madame Blanc kisses each student on the cheek before class, Sara climbs into Susie\u2019s bed to comfort her, and the Company forms a writhing, half-naked matriarchy of the occult. While dance and theatre obscures some social boundaries naturally \u2013 dancers change in crowded dressing rooms and share each other\u2019s body weight in choreography \u2013, the camerawork emphasizes Susie\u2019s sexual awakening. The more choreography she learns, the more sexually free she becomes, grinding against the floor as she is drawn to the waiting witch below its surface. This association of the supernatural and the sexual is made clear by juxtaposed shots of the floor and close-ups of Johnson\u2019s rear as she pushes her body as close to the floor as possible. Despite Guadagnino\u2019s attempts to instill Susie with a modern sense of agency and bodily autonomy, his film still projects the male gaze onto his characters through his association of witchcraft with bodily liberation.<\/p>\n Guadagnino\u2019s changed ending both celebrates and denigrates the liberated by associating her with witchcraft. Despite the use of electronic music, exploration of German Cold War politics, and the shift from \u201ccandy apple blood\u201d to a tonalist color palette, the changed ending was the most notable difference in the adaptation for film critics and fans of Argento (Chang). Fans were shocked, though in examining the film retrospectively, it is clear that Guadagnino hinted at Susie\u2019s true fate throughout.<\/p>\n In the original film, Suzy recalls Patricia (Eva Ax\u00e9n)\u2019s words the night she fled, leading her to a hidden passageway where she discovers the mutilated body of Sara. She accidentally awakens Helena Markos (Lela Svasta), who possesses Sara (Stefania Castini)\u2019s bloody body in an attempt to kill Suzy. But Suzy sees the outline of Markos\u2019 fleshy, decomposing body behind a curtain when lightning flashes. As the demonic Sara approaches, Suzy stabs Markos in an ending that may feel too convenient to contemporary consumers of horror. The witches shriek, the academy burns, and Suzy escapes, unscathed, as the credits roll.<\/p>\n Guadagnino\u2019s Suspiria <\/em>is long, drawn-out fantasia on the body and the body politic. As Susie creeps toward madness and begins to understand her role in the coven \u2013 she even communicates telepathically with Madame Blanc about her knowledge of the past, present, and future of the coven \u2013, she goes to greet Markos with dignity and grace. She appears unfazed by students dancing wildly at a witches\u2019 Sabbath while the matrons torture Dr. Klemperer (Swinton in heavy prosthetics) and prepare to sacrifice Sara, Olga (Elena Fokina), and Patricia (Chlo\u00eb Grace Mortez). Madame Blanc seeks to affirm Susie\u2019s consent in the possession, and Markos maims the matron for interfering. Susie then confronts Markos about her corrupt governance of the coven, and, as her biological mother succumbs to death back in Ohio, she summons Death itself and reveals herself as Mater Suspiriorum, one of the original Three Mothers from whom all other witches spring. She kills Markos, grants painless deaths to the ravaged Sara, Olga, and Patricia, and encourages the students to keep dancing in her honor. When they wake the next morning, the students think the Sabbath was but a nightmare.<\/p>\n This invocation of the title character reinstates Susie\u2019s agency, as she may be in control of her fate from the moment she enters the academy. Flashbacks show her drawn to Berlin as a child; her mother burns her fingers with an iron when she rejects her American geography lesson in favor of learning about her German Anabaptist roots. Dream sequences show Susie dancing with Madame Blanc and exploring her ethereal dance abilities \u2013 which seem to live in her despite her acknowledged lack of training \u2013 as a rebellious teenager in Ohio. She cries out in the middle of the night, \u201cI know who I am!\u201d Close-ups of her face frequently feature Susie breathing heavily, only to juxtapose her breath with the diseased snores of her dying mother. In this respect, the revelation that Susie is literally the mother of sighs feels obvious, perhaps even stilted. Whether or not the foreshadowing feels imaginative or heavy-handed, Susie\u2019s evolution from unwitting victim to the orchestrator of the film\u2019s events feels refreshing, reflecting an enlightened interpretation of the witch.<\/p>\n But the male gaze still permeates the film, whether employed purposefully or not. Susie revolts against the patriarchal order of the Ohio Mennonite Church, sneaking off to see dance performances and making her way to Germany without her family\u2019s approval. Her tattered, fringed dance costumes that barely cover her body are a far cry from her stiff Mennonite dresses. Along on Susie\u2019s journey with her, we praise her courage for leaving home and embracing the modern world.<\/p>\n Other instances of Susie\u2019s rebellion against the patriarchy are not so innocuous. In a dream-flashback sequence, Susie takes a sharp hook that the witches use to impale and maim their victims and masturbates with it. This image is not a mere exploration of sexuality, but an equation of the inhumane with a gratifying carnal experience. Perhaps the moment is there for shock value \u2013 it\u2019s certainly not what we expect from the shy and nervous Susie, who aims to please others and reveres her teachers. It must be noted, however, that the witches use their hooks not only on the dancers, but on random, unlucky men. In one scene, a hidden Susie observes the mothers sexually humiliating naked detectives, mutilating their genitals with the hooks. Until now, we have thought the academy to be a refuge from the horrors of the patriarchy, a place where women can explore their bodies, their independence, and their interpersonal relationships in a matriarchal setting. But by showing the witches needlessly sexually torturing men, Guadagnino reinforces the stereotype of the liberated woman as the dominator and destroyer of men. Susie\u2019s weaponized masturbation, then, is not only an unnecessarily sexualized image in a film about her coming-of-age, but a signal that she is something worse than a witch: she is a feminist.<\/p>\n Guadagnino\u2019s equation of the sexual with the satanic aligns him more so with Argento than fans of his oeuvre may expect. Guadagnino is known for romantic dramas, some of which include turbulent plots, many of which are complete with indulgent, luxurious cinematography. His Suspiria <\/em>is full of quick, jarring jump-cuts meant to induce cinematic whiplash. The camera snaps from Johnson\u2019s perspective to Swinton\u2019s often to link the two women together as witches. Where Argento\u2019s Suspiria <\/em>features many shots narrowing in to the academy\u2019s hallways, Guadagnino parrots this with many shots pulling out from the architecture. Both filmmakers feature scenes with high angled cut away shots, implying that the characters are being watched by someone unseen, and allowing the viewer to identify with this unknown observer.<\/p>\n Guadagnino imitates Argento in more than just his cinematographic mimicry. Argento is known for exploring nonconventional behaviors and experiences of gender, a common trope in horror and psychological thrillers. But Argento \u201cseems to complicate and pervert gender more than most directors\u201d, often conflating someone who deviates from their prescribed gender and\/or sexual role with the monstrous, villainous, or murderous (de Ville 54). His films often include twisted mothers who subvert their societal-biological duties. The witches of Suspiria <\/em>are the ultimate damaged mothers, remorseful of their creations and yet unable to release them.<\/p>\n Scholars of women\u2019s film studies and women\u2019s horror have criticized Argento over the years for his methods of murdering women onscreen. His victims are often hypersexualized, naked or scantily clad; he has both sexualized and tortured his own daughter onscreen multiple times (de Ville 55). In Suspiria<\/em> alone, an unseen murderer rips open Patricia\u2019s nightgown to stab her repeatedly in the heart; Sara\u2019s body reemerges blood soaked, her dress clinging to her skin; and a hand angrily chokes Patricia\u2019s face against the window of her room, holding her head against the glass in a moment that resembles forceful oral sex and suffocation. Yet Suspiria <\/em>features only a few of Argento\u2019s many exploitations of women\u2019s bodies onscreen.<\/p>\n Guadagnino may be more soft spoken in his other films, but his ode to Argento runs rampant with images of violence against women\u2019s bodies. The witches cause Sara\u2019s leg bone to protrude bloodily from her body; they starve Patricia until she appears ghoulish; they (or Susie) break and mangle Olga\u2019s bones until she is a contorted mess, vomiting and urinating and begging for death. Guadagnino\u2019s violence is made more visually compelling and disturbing by the development of special effects; in comparison, Argento\u2019s murders look clownishly unrealistic. \u00a0Guadagnino also explores non-traditional gender in a problematic way, highlighting violence against an androgynous dancer\u2019s body and casting the openly gender-fluid Swinton as not one, but two witches (Young). Guadagnino\u2019s conflation of sex, violence, nonconventional gender, and the occult echoes Argento\u2019s.<\/p>\n In fact, Guadagnino\u2019s twist ending places him among a long list of male filmmakers who have used women\u2019s characters and bodies as sacrifices for the state. By making Susie into Mater Suspiriorum, Guadagnino makes her the body politic. Susie rips open her chest and exposes her black, immortal heart. Her body, in all its lithe femininity, becomes the academy, the coven, the very perpetuation of witchcraft itself. She is a more powerful being than Argento\u2019s na\u00efve Suzy, but she sacrifices her own interests for the good of the state. As Susie catches Sara\u2019s body, finally free from the tortures of life, in a blood-colored pieta, Guadagnino cements himself as a male filmmaker who employs and manipulates the bodies of his women to serve a misguided greater good.<\/p>\n Guadagnino\u2019s Suspiria <\/em>is a well-studied meditation on the meanings of violence. It offers a very different cinematic experience than the original. Their similarities lie not only in characters and plot, but in Guadagnino\u2019s problematic perpetuation of the male gaze onto women\u2019s bodies, agencies, decisions, and downfalls. While many critics have proclaimed the film to be strikingly different from Argento\u2019s original, the two films\u2019 overlaps represent the unfortunate reality of how women\u2019s stories are defined, limited, and represented by men in cinema.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Castillo, Monica. \u201cThe Dance Legends Who Inspired Suspiria<\/em>\u2019s Bewitching Movement.\u201d Vanity Fair<\/em>, 26 October 2018, https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/hollywood\/2018\/10\/suspiria-choreography-modern-dance-tilda-swinton-martha-graham-pina-bausch.<\/p>\n Chang, Justin. \u201cNew, Magnificently Obsessive \u2018Suspiria\u2019 Is More Rebirth Than Remake.\u201d NPR<\/em>, 25 October 2018, https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/10\/25\/660509969\/new-magnificently-obsessive-suspiria-is-more-rebirth-than-remake.<\/p>\n de Ville, Donna. \u201cMenopausal Monsters and Sexual Transgression in Argento\u2019s Art Horror.\u201d Cinema Inferno: Celluloid Explosions from the Cultural Margins<\/em>, edited by Robert G. Weiner and Dr. John Cline, Scarecrow Press, 2010, pp. 53-69.<\/p>\n Kolb, Alexandra. \u201cWigman\u2019s Witches: Reformism, Orientalism, Nazism.\u201d Dance Research Journal <\/em>48.2 (2016): 26-43.<\/p>\n Suspiria<\/em>. Directed by Dario Argento, Produzioni Atlas Consorziate, 1977.<\/p>\n Suspiria<\/em>. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Amazon Studios\/Videa, 2018.<\/p>\n Young, Victoria. \u201cWhat happens if you\u2019re both a man and a woman? Welcome to the \u2018third sex\u2019 generation.\u201d The Telegraph<\/em>, 4 March 2017, https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/women\/life\/happens-man-woman-welcome-third-sex-generation\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mia Merrill FMST 310 Final Paper The Witches Are Back: Feminism, Violence, and the Male Gaze in the Two Suspirias In 2018, Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino released his take on Suspiria, a cult classic horror film originally made by Dario Argento in 1977. Guadagnino\u2019s film runs one hour longer than Argento\u2019s and offers much more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224549],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mia-merrill","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/iamyours\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}