The sheer audacity of attempting to remake “Suspiria” is also what’s exciting about the project from stylish filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. The director has stepped into a potential horror fan hornet’s nest by taking on Dario Argento‘s classic, with a star-studded cast to boot ( Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, Mia Goth, Chloë Grace Moretz, Lutz Ebersdorf and Jessica Harper). However, Guadagnino is the first recognize his own hubris.
Speaking with The Guardian while doing the rounds for his celebrated “Call Me By Your Name,” the filmmaker acknowledges the criticism he has already faced over “Suspiria,” but explains how he’s approaching the material.
“Every movie I make is a step inside my teenage dreams, and Suspiria is the most remarkably precise teenage megalomaniac dream I could have had. I saw the poster when I was 11 and then I saw the film when I was 14, and it hit me hard. I immediately started to dream about making my own version of it. So in a way it makes me smile when I hear people say, ‘How dare you remake Suspiria. Typical commerce-driven mentality.’ I was just a boy who had seen a movie that made him what he became. So that’s how I am approaching it: a homage to the incredible, powerful emotion I felt when I saw it,” Guadagnino said.
He also underscores that the same story can be told in different ways, and that’s his hope for “Suspiria.”
“Do you stop watching ‘Tristan und Isolde‘s mise-en-scène because Patrice Chéreau’s was so incredible? No, there will be a new one that will be fantastic. How many Hamlets have we experienced in our lifetimes that were fantastic? Human art is not about inventing originality, it’s about finding a new point of view,” Guadagnino added.
That’s more than fair, and hopefully Guadagnino has created his own take on “Suspiria” that’s singular, and terrific. Certainly, it won’t erase the memory of Argento’s work. No release date yet, but it’s expected to arrive next year.