Asia Argento (1975 - )
Lifespan: 1975 -
Related: Dario Argento (father) - Italian cinema - actress
Films: The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
Biography
Asia Anna Maria Argento (born September 20, 1975, Rome) is an Italian television and film actress and director.
Her mother is the actress Daria Nicolodi and her father is Dario Argento, an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter well known for his work in the Italian giallo genre, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies. Her first child, a girl, was born on June 20, 2001. Italian rock and roll musician Marco Castoldi (lead singer of Bluvertigo), also known as Morgan, is the father.
While Argento is certainly a celebrity in her native country, the coverage that the Italian press showers on her is not always favorable. She has drawn criticism for her openness toward drug use and posing nude, as well as the erotic scenes she has performed in, particularly those that her father has filmed. [1]
The 'apparent' femme fatale extraordinaire
The 'apparent' femme fatale extraordinaire Asia Argento, daughter of writer/director Dario Argento and actress/screenwriter Daria Nicolodi, has been making films since the ripe old age of nine (Sogni e Bisogni 1984). I question her bad girl status because her latest debut feature film Scarlet Diva is partly an artistic response to this image propagated by the Italian media. In the sense that this film demonstrates that Asia Argento is much more than a sexual provocateur. Also, as the only image we outside of Italy have of this remarkably talented actress/director/writer, it is all too easy to think of Asia as father Argento's whipping girl, and forget that she has actually made far more Italian art and mainstream films than horror or giallo films. Asia has starred in three of her father's films, Trauma (1993), (the underrated) The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), and (the awful) The Phantom of the Opera (1998). On top of these are small roles in two other horror films, The Church (1986) and Demons 2 (1988). That is five out of close to 30 films (including her non-Italian films). --http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/scarlet_diva.html [Nov 2004]
Scarlet Diva (2000) - Asia Argento
- Scarlet Diva (2000) - Asia Argento [Amazon.com]
While decidedly modern in its style, Scarlet Diva presents an
artistic world not far removed from Andy Warhol's 1960's The Factory.
The music, the looks, the style, it is all there (all represented in actor Jean Shepard's silver pants, long, jet black hair, and Lou Reed-like drones). The film's disinterest in classical narrative structure, its thematic existentialism (Anna's search for her artistic calling), and its foregrounding of a strong female character also recalls cinema's high modernist period (late 1950's-late 1960's). But what sets Scarlet Diva apart from that form of cinematic high art, for better or worse, is its aura of (at times embarrassingly) narcissism and self-indulgence. At its worse it feels like an epic home movie; at its best, a courageous trip through a sinful Wonderland. One particular line of dialogue nicely summarises the film's precarious balance between high modernist existentialism and film school self-indulgence, which leads to incredibly audacious lines like: "I have an oblique personality that is in direct proportion to what is wrong with me." But Argento's precocious talents keep this from slipping into the former for very long. --http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/scarlet_diva.html [Nov 2004]
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