Overlooked Movies: Scarlet Diva

"It was always meant to be a celebrity odyssey fuelled by sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. There was no real message as such - it was just about all the trappings and highs of fame and fortune. It's all there; producers wanting to eat my pussy in return for a film role, photographer monsters who give me the Special K amphetamine to ensure I'll provide great tabloid pictures and all that horrible shit. I'm not saying everything happened to me personally, but it's stuff I knew all about. My life is much more interesting than anything I describe in Scarlet Diva. I can't say the script was based on everything I've done or I'd ruin my life and destroy my reputation. All I'll say is that it's a personal voyage through the world of cinema because that's what I know about. I grew up in film and this film is about movies, moviemaking and life behind the camera. The film enabled me to get rid of a lot of bullshit in my life and I will admit to it exorcising many demons. But I don't want people for one second to think Anna's story was my own disguised". ~Asia Argento

This semi-autobiographical film is a darkly dramatic and surreal descent into the shockingly intimate world of rising actress Anna Battista. Anna's harrowing and graphic journey plunges her into the dark heart of the film industry, where she experiences despair, loneliness and degradation while trying to recapture her innocence. Filmed in a bold, experimental style, Scarlet Diva is an intense, sexually charged and unforgettable cinema experience.

Read the A.V. Club Review Here.

Watch the Trailer Here:


Fun Trivia:
Vincent Gallo was asked to play the roll of Kirk but Gallo wanted too much money (Is  anyone really suprised that the groos man who wanted to sell his sperm on ebay for a million wanted more money than was offered?).

Most video releases cut out the scene of Asia Argento shaving her pubic hair.

Asia Argento and Daria Nicolodi are mother and daughter in real life as well as in the movie.

The film won a 2001 Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival Award for Best New Director, which actually tied with two other films.

Fun Quotes:
Anna Battista: I am the loneliest girl in the world.
Kirk: How sad.
Anna Battista: It's not sad, it's just how it is.

Anna Battista: I'm sorry. It's the first time I've ever made love.
Kirk: Don't tell me you're a virgin.
Anna Battista: No. I'm a whore.

Asia on her father director Dario Argento:
"I found an old diary recently from when I was 13 and one angry entry said, why isn't my father hiring me for any of his movies? I think he deliberately let me forge my career away from his so I would find my own identity and sense of self-expression. The day he offered me the role of Aura Petrescu in Trauma was one of the happiest days of my life. I do think Dario is very courageous in what he does and I do admire him more than any other director I've worked with. And I'm not saying that just because he's my father. He acknowledges his fears and is brave enough to show them to the world. I never thought it was weird that my father would have me naked and raped in his movies until a friend pointed it out to me. I was just making movies and never even thought about the possible subtext going on. Nor do I have the psychological tools to decode his latent feelings. Perhaps I haven't wanted to either because it might reveal something I have no desire to discover. Is Dario reliving his relationship with Daria through me? I did think at one time I was only born so my father had an actress in the family he could work with in the future."

Asia Argento on Directing:
"I became a real totalitarian on set. I even surprised myself over how in control I felt. It was great - I screamed 'Silence' and everyone stopped. It was fabulous. No  one ever took any notice of me as an actress when I did that! I was clearly meant to do this in my life and I suppose it's in my blood. It's one thing to work with my father or Abel, but otherwise acting is a stupid profession. I've seen my father work for years on a project and sweat blood over it. And that's how it should be". Unfortunately, the reviews for Scarlet Diva were hardly noteworthy and the box-office take disappointing in Italy but Asia expected the bad reviews. "Critics were waiting for me to fail. I've led a charmed life and people seem jealous of my success. They couldn't wait for it to be shit. I believed in what I was doing and if they didn't understand that it was a work of truth, then there's nothing I can do about it".



Click here for a really great Asia Argento interview by Drive in Critic Joe Bob Briggs.

Click here to read Asia's "I love you Kirk" passages from her book.

 

and as a bonus, watch Asia DJ for Villiage Radio NYC: