Footnotes for Breaking the Fourth Wall in Tessari's BLOODSTAINED BUTTERFLY (1971)

1. The credits here remind me of the extended sequence that serves a similar purpose—to introduce the movie’s ensemble cast—in John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987).
   
2. Tranquilli was, like so many genre actors of his day, a seemingly ubiquitous face in Italian films: He played the bastardly, abusive husband suspected of Barbara Bouchet’s murder in Paolo Cavara’s downbeat giallo BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA (1971); the amoral lawyer who cheats on his wife with a caustic Nieves Navarro in Roberto Bianchi Montero’s seriously underrated SO SWEET, SO DEAD (1972); Eva Czemerys’ neglectful husband in the giallo chamber piece THE CAT IN HEAT (1972); a lecherous (also probably murderous) stepfather in Silvio Amadio’s uber-sleazy SMILE BEFORE DEATH (1972); the list goes on.
   
3. We learn, for instance, that the events described by the woman in the park — who claims to have clearly seen the identity of the murderer — can’t be trusted, as she was not wearing her glasses at the time. Or, that the version of events sworn to by Berger’s character have been deliberately falsified by him, in the hopes that his lie will allow him to punish the murderer himself.
   
4. That famous final shot of Argento’s DEEP RED (1975) is perhaps the single best visual summation of this theme.
   
5. And, in a nice stylistic touch, as soon as Tranquilli’s character becomes aware of the camera, the film passes “through” the TV screen and arrives at the crime scene itself. Once he is aware of the screen mediating him, it seems, the film discards that screen.
   
6. In this way, he seems to be imitating the image of the “sex maniac” that populates Sergio Martino’s gialli.
   
7. Take, for instance, his meandering conversation with D’Olive and the experimental, ennui-ridden way in which it’s shot — the use of empty architectural space feels like it could belong just as well in an Antonioni movie.
   
8. Only when you have seen the ending and have had the murderer’s identity confirmed do you realize why it would be relevant to see Berger’s broken relationship with his own father—as the murderer, a father himself, has betrayed the trust that should exist between parent and child by murdering (after sexually attacking) his child’s best friend.