David Gordon Green Intends To Be Very, Very Faithful To SUSPIRIA

Devin asks the director ‘Why remake SUSPIRIA?’

By Mar. 30, 2011

This weekend I spoke with David Gordon Green about Your Highness, but I couldn’t help  but get some questions in about Suspiria. I wasn’t even sure if Green was still doing this remake of the Argento classic, but it turns out he is - and it’s his next film (although not his next to theaters. The Sitter is all but finished and hits this December).

The big question I have is ‘Why remake Suspiria?’ The original film is a classic mostly because of Dario Argento’s incredible style. So I brought that question directly to Green, asking him if he was keeping the aesthetic Argento established, with rich colors and deep shadows.

The script is very faithful to the original. It’s less about ballet and more of a story about the occult and a boarding school for girls in Germany. Scene for scene it’s very similar. In terms of the aesthetic, I haven’t really worked [it] out yet. I’ve just started to get my cinematographer and production designer to look at it, and I’m sure we’re all going to bring our ideas to the table. I don’t want to emulate him or rip him off, I don’t want to do a shot for shot remake of it. But I do feel like it’s a springboard to a lot of huge ideas, and a lot of artful, magnificent ideas. Things that aren’t in the movie theaters in the genre right now.

Argento has created a really strange mythology that has really scares me. It’s an opportunity to do things that are not only cinematically beautiful - I co-wrote it with my sound designer. We’re really trying to take a unique perspective of this otherworldly paranoia within the movie.

It’s evolving creatively right now, so I don’t want to say too much because I’ll probably change my mind in two weeks. It’s a great property, it’s a great project and hopefully I’ll be able to do something pretty cool with it.

Green told Movieline that he’s actually using the original Goblin score (one of the great horror scores of all time), so him saying it’s very faithful ain’t kidding around.
So what exactly IS Green doing with the movie? I believe him when he says it’s not a shot for shot remake, but the faithfulness of the script on a scene by scene level, as well as bringing back the Goblin score makes this sound almost Van Santian.
Still, it’s David Gordon Green. He’s one of the finest directors working today, and most of all he’s not stupid. He has a plan, I’m sure, even if it’s a vague one he’s still filling out. This isn’t a cash in movie - he’s been trying to get it going for years now, and could obviously make more money doing more comedies like he has been. I’m excited to see what he ends up with, and to follow along for the ride.

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