The Mother of All Sighs

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I'm fairly ashamed to admit this - I sure hope you don't stop thinking of me as less than one hundred percent pure and perfect! - but I never knew until just right now that the title of Dario Argento's film Suspiria was the Latin word for "Sighs." Suspiria's one of my favorite movies, and yet I apparently never had the curiosity to think about its title beyond "Oh that was just Dario Argento playing around with the word 'Suspense.'" I am ashamed, ashamed, ashamed. You should all definitely throw heads of lettuce at me if you ever see me on the street. Make sure you always keep a head of lettuce on you from now on just in case! (And I am in no way attempting to manipulate you to do so because I went out before writing this post and invested my savings in lettuce stocks.)

Okay let's start this post over, I am in a weird mood today -- hey did you hear that the original star of Suspiria, Jessica Harper, has joined the cast of Luca Guadagnino's currently filming (ahhhh) remake? IMDb has her character listed as someone named "Anke" but I an not sure who that will be.

The original film had Alida Valli as the dance instructor named "Miss Tanner" and Joan Bennett was the school's headmistress named "Madame Blanc" of course, but it sounds as if Luca's mixing things up just a bit since here's how the new plot's being described:

"According to the official log line, the film concerns Susie Bannion, a young American woman who travels to the prestigious Markos Tanz Company in Berlin in 1977, arriving just as one of its members, Patricia, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As Susie makes extraordinary progress under the guidance of Madame Blanc, the Company’s revolutionary artistic director, she befriends another dancer, Sara, who shares her suspicions that the Matrons, and the Company itself, may be harboring a dark and menacing secret."

Tilda Swinton is playing "Madame Blanc" in the new film, and that description -- of her as "the Company’s revolutionary artistic director" -- makes this new Madame Blanc sound like a mixture of the original two elder female characters. But perhaps I am reading too much into it? Perhaps I should just be simply and enthusiastically wetting myself with glee that Tilda Swinton is playing a dance instructor in a remake of Suspiria from the director of I Am Love and A Bigger Splash? I think I'll go with that last one.