Mother of Tears
Encyclopedia
The Mother of Tears is a 2007 Italian/American supernatural
horror film
written and directed by Dario Argento
. The film stars Asia Argento
, Daria Nicolodi
, Moran Atias
, Udo Kier
, and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
. The film has also been billed in English speaking media as Mater Lachrymarum, The Third Mother (English translation of the film's original Italian title), and Mother of Tears: The Third Mother. Written by Argento, Jace Anderson, Walter Fasano, Adam Gierasch, and Simona Simonetti, the film is the concluding installment of Argento's supernatural horror trilogy The Three Mothers, which began with Suspiria
in 1977. The film depicts the confrontation with the final "Mother" witch
, known as Mater Lachrymarum.
), the last surviving member of the Three Mothers; an ancient trio of powerful black witches. In particular, the box contains a magic cloak that, when worn by Mater Lachrymarum, increases her powers significantly.
The urn is shipped to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome
, where Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento
), an American studying art restoration
works. Sarah is dating the curator Michael Pierce, a single father who is away from the museum that night. With help from the assistant curator, Sarah opens the box and finds the cloak, a dagger, and three statues representing the three witches. Sending Sarah to her office to retrieve tools to help her translate the text on the artifacts, the curator is promptly attacked by the demonic agents of Mater Lachrymarum. Sarah arrives too late to save her boss (who is being disembowelled by the monsters) and starts to flee the museum. Unfortunately, she is pursued by Mater Lachrymarum's familiar (a baboon) and is only able to escape when a disembodied voice magically throws open a series of locked doors keeping her trapped inside the museum. Sarah tells the police what happened as she spends the night with Michael and his son. Michael visits the Cardinal who sent him the urn only to find out that, shortly after mailing the urn to him, he had a severe stroke and is now in a coma. An assistant of the priest gives Michael a piece of paper, which the Cardinal was writing on before collapsing. On it is scrawled the name "Mater Lachrymarum". As he leaves the hospital, a pair of witches observe Michael leaving the building.
Back in Rome, chaos descends as a wave of mass suicides, murder, and violence engulfs the city. Sarah continues her own research only to be summoned by Michael to his apartment. The witches have kidnapped his young son and won't return the boy to him unless he stops his investigation. Sarah begs him to call the police (who are tailing Sarah, ever since the murder at the museum) but Michael refuses to and instead opts to visit a local priest who is a trained exorcist. This goes badly for Michael; the two witches see him and he is soon captured and murdered, along with his son, whose body is cannibalized by the rapidly-expanding coven
. However, before he is killed, Michael calls Sarah and begs for her to come and help him. As she makes her way through a crowded train station, Sarah is spotted by a gang of witches who, like so many other witches, have arrived in Rome in order to pledge their loyalty to Mater Lachrymarum. Pursued by the witches and the police, the disembodied voice from before instructs Sarah on how to magically make herself invisible. She uses this to avoid the police detective, though she is forced to kill an Asian witch who catches and corners her on the train.
At the priest's home, Sarah meets Marta, a fellow white witch and friend of Sarah's deceased mother. Realizing that Sarah's mother is the voice guiding her, Marta reveals details to Sarah about her parents. Her mother was a powerful white witch
who dared to challenge and severely wound Mater Suspiriorum, the eldest and wisest of the Three Mothers. In response to this, Suspiriorum caused the fatal car crash that killed Sarah's parents. Though Mater Suspiriorum and her sister Mater Tenebrarum are now dead, their sibling Mater Lachrymarum has emerged from the shadows to bring about the second age of magic, with the fall of Rome as her coming out party. They talk to the priest, only for him to be killed before he can give the two a copy of a book that would explain Mater Lachrymarum's backstory to them by a patient of his. Escaping back to the city, Sarah goes to her own home but finds Mater Lachrymarum's goons waiting for her. She heads to Marta's house, but once again Mater Lachrymarum's minions strike and Marta and her lesbian lover are murdered. Fleeing, Sarah spots Michael, who takes her back to his apartment. Unfortunately, Sarah soon realizes that Michael is dead and that Mater Lachrymarum is animating his body in an attempt to kill her. As she burns her lover's still-animate body, the ghost of her mother intervenes one final time to grab Michael and banish him (and possibly herself) to Hell.
Sarah locates a powerful alchemist, who Marta mentioned as her only hope to learn how to fight Mater Lachrymarum. After being briefly paralyzed by the alchemist
(so that he could perform a test on her to see if she was a white witch or an evil witch), the alchemist gives Sarah the only help he has in locating Mater Lachrymarum's dwelling. Sarah is given a copy of "The Three Mothers" to read, and from this (and from following a group of witches) Sarah finds Mater Lachrymarum's lair; a now run-down and disrepaired mansion. At this point, she is joined by one of the police detectives hunting her and the two go into the catacombs to find Mater Lachrymarum. However, the two become separated, and the detective is tortured alongside the alchemist and his assistant, who dies after his arm is chopped off by one of Mater Lachrymarum's minions. Sarah is caught and brought before Mater Lachrymarum, who offers Sarah up to her cannibal followers but makes the mistake of removing her cloak. Sarah, having healed the detective's wounds, grabs the cloak and tosses it into a nearby fire. This causes the mansion to collapse as a pillar falls and impales Mater Lachrymarum. With the Mother's followers crushed as the caves collapse, Sarah and the detective laugh in horror and shock as they reach the surface, as they realize that the threat of the Three Mothers has been defeated once and for all.
and Our Ladies of Sorrow", a section of Thomas de Quincey
's Suspiria de Profundis
. The prose poem outlines the existence of three women that are the personification of sorrow: Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum, and Mater Tenebrarum. Argento and Daria Nicolodi
recast de Quincey's Three Sorrows as three malevolent witches who rule the world with tears, sighs, and shadows. When released in 1977 the first film, Suspiria
introduced the major stylistic elements of the series, including the bold use of primary color
s and elaborate setpiece
s for each murder. The sequel, Inferno
, developed the overarching plot continuities concerning the three central witches when released in 1980.
asserted in an interview with Fangoria – alongside Argento – that they had "finished the script for the third [film] but there are a few things we are still working on to perfect the project, a couple of special effects and locations, that sort of thing." Although Nicolodi mentioned her version of the script again in an interview for Alan Jones' book, Profondo Argento: The Man, The Myths And The Magic, it was not used in whole or part for The Third Mother.
, alchemy
, terrorism
and Gnosticism
[...]. So many people were tortured because the Church said Gnosticism was heresy, and that will be the starting point for the story. [...] It has been over 20 years since I left the Three Mothers behind [...] and it has felt surprisingly good to go back and explore the whole story from a retrospective point of view." The film was to be set in Rome and begin with Mater Lachrimarum in the Middle Ages
. Argento originally hoped to cast a Russian model in the role of Mater Lachrimarum. (He later chose Israeli actress Moran Atias
.) Argento also said that a Hollywood studio might finance the film.
The script for The Third Mother was still being refined in February 2006, with Anderson and Gierasch having composed a first draft which Argento then revised. This early script began immediately after Inferno
, with a witch who survived the destruction of Mater Tenebrarum's home watching a detective (Ennio Fantastichini) investigating a series of murders at a University. Other tentative cast members were Chiara Caselli
as a psychiatrist, Max von Sydow
as a mysterious university professor, and Giordano Petri as a young investigator who takes the case when Fantastichini's character is killed. At this point, shooting was set to begin in late spring of the same year and was to be released between November 2006 and January 2007. However, in early 2006 rumors circulated that Argento had dismissed Anderson and Gierasch after being displeased with their script. French horror magazine L'Écran Fantastique reported that Argento alone would receive a screenwriting credit. On the tenth of March it was announced that shooting The Third Mother would be delayed until September. In mid April it was announced that Argento would return to Italy in June to immediately begin filming The Third Mother, which would be "a big budget feature, produced by Medusa along with a major American company [Myriad]." In May 2006 the title Mother of Tears surfaced as a possible name for the film. According to journalist Alan Jones, this title "was never in the running as far as Dario was concerned. That was the title the originally contacted American sales agent Myriad wanted for international distribution." In the same month, rumors from the Cannes Film Festival
linked actress Sienna Miller
to the film's lead female role. Also at Cannes, Medusa's CEO
Giampaolo Letta was quoted by Anderson and Gierasch as saying "This is going to be vintage Argento. Pretty strong stuff." In July it was revealed that The Third Mother had been delayed yet again until "next November or later" and that Argento's daughter, Asia
, had been cast in the film.
and at the studios of Cinecittà at Terni
.
The film's digital effects were created by Lee Wilson
and Sergio Stivaletti. According to the director of photography, Frederic Fasano, the film will begin with a subdued cool color palette that will segue to red as the film progresses.
The Italian distributor of The Third Mother, Medusa Film, believed the film was too violent and want it to be edited. Medusa's main objection is to "the depiction of perverse sex in the witch gathering satanic scenes and one cannibal killing of a major character." Argento was asked to re-edit the film to make it more mainstream. It was confirmed on 28 May 2007 that the film would receive a rating of 14 in Italy, necessitating the removal of "all hardcore gore" which would later "be re-instated for the dvd release."
on 27 November 2006. A short, eighteen-second preview of The Third Mother was released on 18 December 2006 at Cinecitta.com. Several black and white photographs of the filming were published on 19 January 2007 in the book Dario Argento et le cinéma by Bernard Joisten. In May 2007, just before the event at Cannes, a promotional poster for The Third Mother was featured on the cover of Variety magazine's digital edition. The Third Mother premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival
on 6 September 2007, just moments before midnight and Argento's 67th birthday (on the 7th). The film debuted in Italy on 24 October 2007 at the Rome Film Fest. Its Italian wide release occurred on 31 October 2007, Halloween
. In the United States, Myriad Pictures
released the film uncut in select cities in June 2008.
requested that The Third Mother be ready in time for consideration as a 2007 competition contender
. However, the film was not screened in its entirety at the festival. On 17 May 2007 at 9:30 a.m. Myriad
premiered 20 minutes of footage from the film, consisting of eight lengthy scenes, to a packed audience. The preview was preceded by a credit roll and disclaimer that warned of graphic violence. The eight scenes included: the complete beginning to the point where Asia opens the Mother of Tears urn, the arrival of several demons, Daria Nicolodi
's "powder puff" scene, a lesbian death scene, Udo Kier
's major scene, Asia running through the streets of Rome, Adam James' major scene, and the entrance of Mater Lachrimarum. According to reporter Alan Jones the audiences' reaction was mixed: the acting quality varied and the script contained too much exposition, but the cinematography was beautiful.
screening, on the 18 May at 3:45 p.m., co-scripter Jace Anderson and actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
were on The Third Mother discussion panel at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors
convention on the West Coast
. On 27 May, a second promotional poster – featuring an eye weeping tears of blood – surfaced on the internet bearing only the title Mother of Tears. In early June, a teaser trailer
for The Third Mother was attached to Grindhouse in Italy. Camera-recorded copies of the trailer surfaced soon afterward on the internet. The Cannes promo reel was also screened during Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors East Coast
convention in Secaucus, New Jersey
on 1 July at 12:15 p.m. Cataldi-Tassoni introduced the footage. Pirated stills and audio from the preview surfaced the same day on the forum of the Dario Argento fansite DarkDreams.org. In late August, an American trailer for the film was screened at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear.
and a DVD release by The Weinstein Company
via Dimension Extreme DVDs on 23 September 2008.
Variety
´s Dennis Harvey wrote "This hectic pileup of supernatural nonsense is a treasure trove of seemingly unintentional hilarity...this "Mother" is a cheesy, breathless future camp
classic." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com
opined that "Mother of Tears is depraved, bloody and unrepentantly exploitive, and the plot makes virtually no sense—it's the sort of movie nobody, save Argento himself, is crazy enough to make these days. It's also so full of life that it dwarfs contemporary horror pictures of the Saw
and Hostel variety." Jim Ridley in the Village Voice felt the film was further evidence of the declining quality of a once great director's abilities, stating that "for people who revere the horror maestro's vital work—roughly the period between his debut, 1970's proto–De Palma
giallo
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
, and his 1990 segment of the anthology film Two Evil Eyes
— it's painful to watch the Hieronymus Bosch of '70s horror sink this low...If you believe someone of Dario Argento's proven talent would make a movie so deliberately sucky, feel free to join in." Maitland McDonagh hated the film, describing it as "sadly lacking in the baroque atmosphere and visual aesthetic that elevated Argento above the horror hacks—it's flatly lit, indifferently staged, coarsely violent and brutally straightforward. The English-language dubbing is the final indignity: even the voices are ugly."
Writing in the New York Times, Nathan Lee described the film as "...silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime...[Ì]t may be the most entertaining film of [Argento´s] career...It's true that "The Mother of Tears," strictly as visual storytelling, suffers by comparison with the first and second Mother movies, or one of Mr. Argento's better baroque thrillers, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. But it does something as well as, if not better than, anything in his oeuvre: it goes all the way." Scooter McCrae of Fangoria
was extremely enthusiastic about the film, and said that "Mother of Tears is a great movie, and well worth the wait. Does it have flaws? Oh yeah, but so do Tenebrae
, Phenomena
, Suspiria and Inferno, and they’re now all part of the accepted canon of classic Argento cinema." Cinefantastique
´s Steve Biodrowski also felt the film was worthy of praise, noting that "the experience of watching Mother of Tears is like a delirious descent into primordial chaos, where the powers of darkness hold sway...As a long-awaited coda to Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy, [it] may not be exactly what was expected, but it is perfectly satisfying resolution...."
Argento has noted that he is dismissive of critical reaction, saying that "the critics don’t understand very well. But critics are not important – absolutely not important. Because now audiences don’t believe anymore in critics. Many years ago critics wrote long articles about films. Now in seven lines they are finished: ‘The story is this. The actor is this. The color is good.’"
composed the soundtrack for The Third Mother, which was completed in early April 2007 after four months of work. He chose a classical style
with Gothic
influences present in many of the choruses. Simonetti described the score as "very different" from his previous work due to the subject matter of the film. The music was influenced by his own work for Argento's Masters of Horror
episodes ("Jenifer
" and "Pelts
") as well as composers such as Carl Orff
, Jerry Goldsmith
, and Bernard Herrmann
(among others). The score also incorporates electronic music
and influences from Simonetti's earlier work on Argento films, such as Suspiria
and Phenomena
.
The piece at the end of Simonetti's "Mater Lachrimarum" is called "Dulcis in Fondo" and was performed by his heavy metal band, Daemonia. Cradle of Filth
frontman Dani Filth
recorded a song with Simonetti, Mater Lacrimarum, for the soundtrack of the film.
The soundtrack was recorded in the Acquario Studio of Castelnuovo in Porto-Roma. The symphonic orchestra parts were performed by the Orchestra D.I.M.I. The choral parts were performed by the Nova Lyrica chorus in February 2007. Both were recorded in Lead Studios in Rome with the help of sound-man Giuseppe Ranieri. Filmmakers finished dubbing the soundtrack into the film on 5 April 2007. At the preview during the Cannes Film Festival, journalist Alan Jones described Simonetti's score as an "unqualified success".
The soundtrack was released around the same time as the film's Italian wide release (31 October 2007) by Edel Music
.
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written and directed by Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
. The film stars Asia Argento
Asia Argento
Aria Asia Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian actress, singer, model and director.-Family and early life:...
, Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
, Moran Atias
Moran Atias
-Early life and family:Atias was born in Haifa, Israel, to parents of Moroccan Jewish descent. Atias appeared on the youth TV show "Out of Focus" at age 15, although plans of serving in the Israeli Defense Forces were cut short with a diagnosis of meningitis at age 17...
, Udo Kier
Udo Kier
Udo Kier is a German actor, known primarily for his work in horror and exploitation movies.-Early life:...
, and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni is an American actress, musician, and artist.-Early life:She was born in Manhattan; she and her parents moved to Rome, Italy when she was four years old...
. The film has also been billed in English speaking media as Mater Lachrymarum, The Third Mother (English translation of the film's original Italian title), and Mother of Tears: The Third Mother. Written by Argento, Jace Anderson, Walter Fasano, Adam Gierasch, and Simona Simonetti, the film is the concluding installment of Argento's supernatural horror trilogy The Three Mothers, which began with Suspiria
Suspiria
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi. The film follows an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany, only to discover that it is controlled by a coven of witches. The film's score was...
in 1977. The film depicts the confrontation with the final "Mother" witch
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
, known as Mater Lachrymarum.
Plot
The film begins with members of the Catholic Church digging up the body of a 19th century church official, whose casket has a box-shaped urn chained to it. Inside the box they discover artifacts belonging to Mater Lachrymarum (Moran AtiasMoran Atias
-Early life and family:Atias was born in Haifa, Israel, to parents of Moroccan Jewish descent. Atias appeared on the youth TV show "Out of Focus" at age 15, although plans of serving in the Israeli Defense Forces were cut short with a diagnosis of meningitis at age 17...
), the last surviving member of the Three Mothers; an ancient trio of powerful black witches. In particular, the box contains a magic cloak that, when worn by Mater Lachrymarum, increases her powers significantly.
The urn is shipped to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, where Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento
Asia Argento
Aria Asia Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian actress, singer, model and director.-Family and early life:...
), an American studying art restoration
Art conservation and restoration
Conservation-restoration, also referred to as conservation, is a profession devoted to the preservation of cultural heritage for the future. Conservation activities include examination, documentation, treatment, and preventive care...
works. Sarah is dating the curator Michael Pierce, a single father who is away from the museum that night. With help from the assistant curator, Sarah opens the box and finds the cloak, a dagger, and three statues representing the three witches. Sending Sarah to her office to retrieve tools to help her translate the text on the artifacts, the curator is promptly attacked by the demonic agents of Mater Lachrymarum. Sarah arrives too late to save her boss (who is being disembowelled by the monsters) and starts to flee the museum. Unfortunately, she is pursued by Mater Lachrymarum's familiar (a baboon) and is only able to escape when a disembodied voice magically throws open a series of locked doors keeping her trapped inside the museum. Sarah tells the police what happened as she spends the night with Michael and his son. Michael visits the Cardinal who sent him the urn only to find out that, shortly after mailing the urn to him, he had a severe stroke and is now in a coma. An assistant of the priest gives Michael a piece of paper, which the Cardinal was writing on before collapsing. On it is scrawled the name "Mater Lachrymarum". As he leaves the hospital, a pair of witches observe Michael leaving the building.
Back in Rome, chaos descends as a wave of mass suicides, murder, and violence engulfs the city. Sarah continues her own research only to be summoned by Michael to his apartment. The witches have kidnapped his young son and won't return the boy to him unless he stops his investigation. Sarah begs him to call the police (who are tailing Sarah, ever since the murder at the museum) but Michael refuses to and instead opts to visit a local priest who is a trained exorcist. This goes badly for Michael; the two witches see him and he is soon captured and murdered, along with his son, whose body is cannibalized by the rapidly-expanding coven
Coven
A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven....
. However, before he is killed, Michael calls Sarah and begs for her to come and help him. As she makes her way through a crowded train station, Sarah is spotted by a gang of witches who, like so many other witches, have arrived in Rome in order to pledge their loyalty to Mater Lachrymarum. Pursued by the witches and the police, the disembodied voice from before instructs Sarah on how to magically make herself invisible. She uses this to avoid the police detective, though she is forced to kill an Asian witch who catches and corners her on the train.
At the priest's home, Sarah meets Marta, a fellow white witch and friend of Sarah's deceased mother. Realizing that Sarah's mother is the voice guiding her, Marta reveals details to Sarah about her parents. Her mother was a powerful white witch
White witch
White witch and good witch are qualifying terms in English used to distinguish practitioners of folk magic for benevolent purposes from practitioners of malevolent witchcraft...
who dared to challenge and severely wound Mater Suspiriorum, the eldest and wisest of the Three Mothers. In response to this, Suspiriorum caused the fatal car crash that killed Sarah's parents. Though Mater Suspiriorum and her sister Mater Tenebrarum are now dead, their sibling Mater Lachrymarum has emerged from the shadows to bring about the second age of magic, with the fall of Rome as her coming out party. They talk to the priest, only for him to be killed before he can give the two a copy of a book that would explain Mater Lachrymarum's backstory to them by a patient of his. Escaping back to the city, Sarah goes to her own home but finds Mater Lachrymarum's goons waiting for her. She heads to Marta's house, but once again Mater Lachrymarum's minions strike and Marta and her lesbian lover are murdered. Fleeing, Sarah spots Michael, who takes her back to his apartment. Unfortunately, Sarah soon realizes that Michael is dead and that Mater Lachrymarum is animating his body in an attempt to kill her. As she burns her lover's still-animate body, the ghost of her mother intervenes one final time to grab Michael and banish him (and possibly herself) to Hell.
Sarah locates a powerful alchemist, who Marta mentioned as her only hope to learn how to fight Mater Lachrymarum. After being briefly paralyzed by the alchemist
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
(so that he could perform a test on her to see if she was a white witch or an evil witch), the alchemist gives Sarah the only help he has in locating Mater Lachrymarum's dwelling. Sarah is given a copy of "The Three Mothers" to read, and from this (and from following a group of witches) Sarah finds Mater Lachrymarum's lair; a now run-down and disrepaired mansion. At this point, she is joined by one of the police detectives hunting her and the two go into the catacombs to find Mater Lachrymarum. However, the two become separated, and the detective is tortured alongside the alchemist and his assistant, who dies after his arm is chopped off by one of Mater Lachrymarum's minions. Sarah is caught and brought before Mater Lachrymarum, who offers Sarah up to her cannibal followers but makes the mistake of removing her cloak. Sarah, having healed the detective's wounds, grabs the cloak and tosses it into a nearby fire. This causes the mansion to collapse as a pillar falls and impales Mater Lachrymarum. With the Mother's followers crushed as the caves collapse, Sarah and the detective laugh in horror and shock as they reach the surface, as they realize that the threat of the Three Mothers has been defeated once and for all.
Cast
- Asia ArgentoAsia ArgentoAria Asia Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian actress, singer, model and director.-Family and early life:...
as Sarah Mandy - Daria NicolodiDaria NicolodiDaria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
as Elisa Mandy - Udo KierUdo KierUdo Kier is a German actor, known primarily for his work in horror and exploitation movies.-Early life:...
as Padre Johannes - Moran AtiasMoran Atias-Early life and family:Atias was born in Haifa, Israel, to parents of Moroccan Jewish descent. Atias appeared on the youth TV show "Out of Focus" at age 15, although plans of serving in the Israeli Defense Forces were cut short with a diagnosis of meningitis at age 17...
as Mater Lachrimarum - Coralina Cataldi-TassoniCoralina Cataldi-TassoniCoralina Cataldi-Tassoni is an American actress, musician, and artist.-Early life:She was born in Manhattan; she and her parents moved to Rome, Italy when she was four years old...
as Giselle - Philippe LeroyPhilippe Leroy (actor)Philippe Leroy, full name Philippe Leroy-Beaulieu is a French film actor. He has appeared in over 150 films since 1960. Leroy has been living mostly in Italy since the 1960s and has worked extensively in Italian cinema, as well as in his native country...
as Guglielmo De Witt - Adam JamesAdam James (actor)Adam James is a British actor. His credits include Band of Brothers, The Mother of Tears, Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, Bonekickers, Henry VIII: The Mind of a Tyrant and the Doctor Who episode Planet of the Dead, as well as an episode of ITV2 drama Secret Diary of a Call Girl...
as Michael Pierce - Valeria Cavalli as Marta
- Clive Riche as Uomo col Cappotto
- Massimo Sarchielli
- Silvia Rubino as Elga
- Jun Ichikawa as Katerina
The Three Mothers trilogy
The Third Mother is the final film in Argento's trilogy known as The Three Mothers. The trilogy is loosely based on characters from "LevanaLevana
In ancient Roman religion, Levana was the goddess of newborn babies. Her name comes from the practice of the father lifting the child off the ground where it was placed by the child's mother to show that he officially accepts the child as his own.Thomas de Quincey's prose poem Levana and Our...
and Our Ladies of Sorrow", a section of Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de Quincey
Thomas Penson de Quincey was an English esssayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater .-Child and student:...
's Suspiria de Profundis
Suspiria de Profundis
Suspiria de Profundis is one of the best-known and most distinctive literary works of the English essayist Thomas De Quincey.__FORCETOC__-Genre:...
. The prose poem outlines the existence of three women that are the personification of sorrow: Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum, and Mater Tenebrarum. Argento and Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
recast de Quincey's Three Sorrows as three malevolent witches who rule the world with tears, sighs, and shadows. When released in 1977 the first film, Suspiria
Suspiria
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi. The film follows an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany, only to discover that it is controlled by a coven of witches. The film's score was...
introduced the major stylistic elements of the series, including the bold use of primary color
Primary color
Primary colors are sets of colors that can be combined to make a useful range of colors. For human applications, three primary colors are usually used, since human color vision is trichromatic....
s and elaborate setpiece
Setpiece
In film production, a setpiece is a scene or sequence of scenes the execution of which requires serious logistical planning and considerable expenditure of money. The term setpiece is often used more broadly to describe any important dramatic or comedic highpoint in a film or story, particularly...
s for each murder. The sequel, Inferno
Inferno (1980 film)
Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi, and Alida Valli. The cinematography was by Romano Albani, and Keith Emerson composed the film's thunderous musical score...
, developed the overarching plot continuities concerning the three central witches when released in 1980.
Nicolodi script (1980s)
As early as 1984 Daria NicolodiDaria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
asserted in an interview with Fangoria – alongside Argento – that they had "finished the script for the third [film] but there are a few things we are still working on to perfect the project, a couple of special effects and locations, that sort of thing." Although Nicolodi mentioned her version of the script again in an interview for Alan Jones' book, Profondo Argento: The Man, The Myths And The Magic, it was not used in whole or part for The Third Mother.
Argento script (2003/4)
On 29 November 2003, at the Trieste Science Plus Fiction Festival in Northern Italy, Argento revealed that he hoped to start filming The Third Mother in August 2004 and was currently working on the script. Thematically it concerned "mysticismMysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and Gnosticism
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
[...]. So many people were tortured because the Church said Gnosticism was heresy, and that will be the starting point for the story. [...] It has been over 20 years since I left the Three Mothers behind [...] and it has felt surprisingly good to go back and explore the whole story from a retrospective point of view." The film was to be set in Rome and begin with Mater Lachrimarum in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. Argento originally hoped to cast a Russian model in the role of Mater Lachrimarum. (He later chose Israeli actress Moran Atias
Moran Atias
-Early life and family:Atias was born in Haifa, Israel, to parents of Moroccan Jewish descent. Atias appeared on the youth TV show "Out of Focus" at age 15, although plans of serving in the Israeli Defense Forces were cut short with a diagnosis of meningitis at age 17...
.) Argento also said that a Hollywood studio might finance the film.
Anderson and Gierasch script (2005/6)
In late 2005 Argento went into the North of Europe to begin conceptual work on The Third Mother. Soon after, it was announced that Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch had been asked by Argento to help him write the film's script. "When we got there [Rome] Dario had already done his own pass on the treatment, and we spent three weeks holed up in an apartment, meeting with Dario, visiting the catacombs, and getting the first draft done." Around this time, Fangoria reported that the film would be entitled Mater Lachrymarum.The script for The Third Mother was still being refined in February 2006, with Anderson and Gierasch having composed a first draft which Argento then revised. This early script began immediately after Inferno
Inferno (1980 film)
Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi, and Alida Valli. The cinematography was by Romano Albani, and Keith Emerson composed the film's thunderous musical score...
, with a witch who survived the destruction of Mater Tenebrarum's home watching a detective (Ennio Fantastichini) investigating a series of murders at a University. Other tentative cast members were Chiara Caselli
Chiara Caselli
Chiara Caselli is an Italian actress. In 1994, Caselli won the Nastro d'Argento Best Actress award as well as the David di Donatello for Best Actress award...
as a psychiatrist, Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow
Max von Sydow is a Swedish actor. He has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more...
as a mysterious university professor, and Giordano Petri as a young investigator who takes the case when Fantastichini's character is killed. At this point, shooting was set to begin in late spring of the same year and was to be released between November 2006 and January 2007. However, in early 2006 rumors circulated that Argento had dismissed Anderson and Gierasch after being displeased with their script. French horror magazine L'Écran Fantastique reported that Argento alone would receive a screenwriting credit. On the tenth of March it was announced that shooting The Third Mother would be delayed until September. In mid April it was announced that Argento would return to Italy in June to immediately begin filming The Third Mother, which would be "a big budget feature, produced by Medusa along with a major American company [Myriad]." In May 2006 the title Mother of Tears surfaced as a possible name for the film. According to journalist Alan Jones, this title "was never in the running as far as Dario was concerned. That was the title the originally contacted American sales agent Myriad wanted for international distribution." In the same month, rumors from the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
linked actress Sienna Miller
Sienna Miller
Sienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...
to the film's lead female role. Also at Cannes, Medusa's CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
Giampaolo Letta was quoted by Anderson and Gierasch as saying "This is going to be vintage Argento. Pretty strong stuff." In July it was revealed that The Third Mother had been delayed yet again until "next November or later" and that Argento's daughter, Asia
Asia Argento
Aria Asia Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian actress, singer, model and director.-Family and early life:...
, had been cast in the film.
Filming
In mid October 2006, Gierasch revealed that The Third Mother would finally begin filming later in the month. Primary filming occurred in Rome, although some parts were filmed in TurinTurin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and at the studios of Cinecittà at Terni
Terni
Terni is a city in southern Umbria, central Italy, capital of the province of Terni, located in the plain of the Nera river. It is 104 km N of Rome, 36 km NW of Rieti, and 29 km S of Spoleto.-History:...
.
Post-production
The editing of The Third Mother was more or less finished by March 2007. Dubbing the soundtrack into the Italian and English language versions of the film was finished on 5 April 2007.The film's digital effects were created by Lee Wilson
Lee Wilson
Lee Wilson is a former professional footballer and former first team manager of various non-league clubs including Shepshed Dynamo.-External links:* at...
and Sergio Stivaletti. According to the director of photography, Frederic Fasano, the film will begin with a subdued cool color palette that will segue to red as the film progresses.
The Italian distributor of The Third Mother, Medusa Film, believed the film was too violent and want it to be edited. Medusa's main objection is to "the depiction of perverse sex in the witch gathering satanic scenes and one cannibal killing of a major character." Argento was asked to re-edit the film to make it more mainstream. It was confirmed on 28 May 2007 that the film would receive a rating of 14 in Italy, necessitating the removal of "all hardcore gore" which would later "be re-instated for the dvd release."
Promotion
Promotion of The Third Mother before Cannes 2007 was limited. Several behind-the-scenes photographs surfaced, the first official one at FangoriaFangoria (magazine)
Fangoria is an internationally-distributed US film fan magazine specializing in the genres of horror, slasher, splatter and exploitation films, in regular publication since 1979.-Planning:...
on 27 November 2006. A short, eighteen-second preview of The Third Mother was released on 18 December 2006 at Cinecitta.com. Several black and white photographs of the filming were published on 19 January 2007 in the book Dario Argento et le cinéma by Bernard Joisten. In May 2007, just before the event at Cannes, a promotional poster for The Third Mother was featured on the cover of Variety magazine's digital edition. The Third Mother premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
on 6 September 2007, just moments before midnight and Argento's 67th birthday (on the 7th). The film debuted in Italy on 24 October 2007 at the Rome Film Fest. Its Italian wide release occurred on 31 October 2007, Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
. In the United States, Myriad Pictures
Myriad Pictures
Based in Santa Monica, California, Myriad Pictures is a leading independent entertainment company specializing in production, financing and worldwide distribution of feature films and television programming. President and CEO Kirk D’Amico opened the company in 1999 and has built a diverse library...
released the film uncut in select cities in June 2008.
Cannes 2007
The Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
requested that The Third Mother be ready in time for consideration as a 2007 competition contender
2007 Cannes Film Festival
The 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the sixtieth, ran from 16 to 27 May 2007. Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights opened the festival, and Denys Arcand's The Age of Ignorance closed...
. However, the film was not screened in its entirety at the festival. On 17 May 2007 at 9:30 a.m. Myriad
Myriad Pictures
Based in Santa Monica, California, Myriad Pictures is a leading independent entertainment company specializing in production, financing and worldwide distribution of feature films and television programming. President and CEO Kirk D’Amico opened the company in 1999 and has built a diverse library...
premiered 20 minutes of footage from the film, consisting of eight lengthy scenes, to a packed audience. The preview was preceded by a credit roll and disclaimer that warned of graphic violence. The eight scenes included: the complete beginning to the point where Asia opens the Mother of Tears urn, the arrival of several demons, Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi
Daria Nicolodi is an Italian actress and screenwriter.- Early life and career :Daria Nicolodi was born in Florence on June 19, 1950. Her father was a Florentine lawyer and her mother, Fulvia, was a scholar of ancient languages. Her maternal grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella...
's "powder puff" scene, a lesbian death scene, Udo Kier
Udo Kier
Udo Kier is a German actor, known primarily for his work in horror and exploitation movies.-Early life:...
's major scene, Asia running through the streets of Rome, Adam James' major scene, and the entrance of Mater Lachrimarum. According to reporter Alan Jones the audiences' reaction was mixed: the acting quality varied and the script contained too much exposition, but the cinematography was beautiful.
Post Cannes
The day after the CannesCannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
screening, on the 18 May at 3:45 p.m., co-scripter Jace Anderson and actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni
Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni is an American actress, musician, and artist.-Early life:She was born in Manhattan; she and her parents moved to Rome, Italy when she was four years old...
were on The Third Mother discussion panel at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors
Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors
Weekend of Horrors is a tri-annual traveling convention which focuses on horror films. Formerly produced and operated by Fangoria Magazine with its name and likeness owned by Creation Entertainment, the convention is now produced solely by Creation.The convention also deals in areas of the horror...
convention on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
. On 27 May, a second promotional poster – featuring an eye weeping tears of blood – surfaced on the internet bearing only the title Mother of Tears. In early June, a teaser trailer
Teaser trailer
A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic, challenging advertisements that anticipate a larger, full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. These advertisements are called "teasers" or "teaser ads"...
for The Third Mother was attached to Grindhouse in Italy. Camera-recorded copies of the trailer surfaced soon afterward on the internet. The Cannes promo reel was also screened during Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
convention in Secaucus, New Jersey
Secaucus, New Jersey
Secaucus is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 16,264. Located within the New Jersey Meadowlands, it is the most suburban of the county's municipalities, though large parts of the town are dedicated to light manufacturing, retail, and...
on 1 July at 12:15 p.m. Cataldi-Tassoni introduced the footage. Pirated stills and audio from the preview surfaced the same day on the forum of the Dario Argento fansite DarkDreams.org. In late August, an American trailer for the film was screened at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear.
US release
The film had its US premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival on 25 April 2008. This was followed by a limited theatrical run in June courtesy of Myriad PicturesMyriad Pictures
Based in Santa Monica, California, Myriad Pictures is a leading independent entertainment company specializing in production, financing and worldwide distribution of feature films and television programming. President and CEO Kirk D’Amico opened the company in 1999 and has built a diverse library...
and a DVD release by The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company is an American film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979...
via Dimension Extreme DVDs on 23 September 2008.
Critical reaction
Critical response was mixed, although many reviewers felt the film, despite its flaws, was entertaining. The concluding film of The Three Mothers trilogy provided some reviewers with an opportunity to reflect on Argento's career as a whole, and parallels were often drawn between The Mother of Tears and Argento's films from the 1970s and 1980s.Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
´s Dennis Harvey wrote "This hectic pileup of supernatural nonsense is a treasure trove of seemingly unintentional hilarity...this "Mother" is a cheesy, breathless future camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
classic." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
opined that "Mother of Tears is depraved, bloody and unrepentantly exploitive, and the plot makes virtually no sense—it's the sort of movie nobody, save Argento himself, is crazy enough to make these days. It's also so full of life that it dwarfs contemporary horror pictures of the Saw
Saw (film series)
Saw is a horror franchise distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment and produced by Twisted Pictures that consists of seven films and two video games, published by Konami. The franchise began with the 2003 short film which was created by Australian director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell...
and Hostel variety." Jim Ridley in the Village Voice felt the film was further evidence of the declining quality of a once great director's abilities, stating that "for people who revere the horror maestro's vital work—roughly the period between his debut, 1970's proto–De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
giallo
Giallo
Giallo is an Italian 20th century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. In the English language it refers to a genre similar to the French fantastique genre and includes elements of horror fiction and eroticism...
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a 1970 giallo suspense thriller directed by Dario Argento . The film is considered a landmark in the Italian giallo genre...
, and his 1990 segment of the anthology film Two Evil Eyes
Two Evil Eyes
Two Evil Eyes is a 1990 double feature horror film written and directed by the Italian Dario Argento and the American George A. Romero. The two had previously worked together on the immensely popular Dawn of the Dead in 1978.-Overview:...
— it's painful to watch the Hieronymus Bosch of '70s horror sink this low...If you believe someone of Dario Argento's proven talent would make a movie so deliberately sucky, feel free to join in." Maitland McDonagh hated the film, describing it as "sadly lacking in the baroque atmosphere and visual aesthetic that elevated Argento above the horror hacks—it's flatly lit, indifferently staged, coarsely violent and brutally straightforward. The English-language dubbing is the final indignity: even the voices are ugly."
Writing in the New York Times, Nathan Lee described the film as "...silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime...[Ì]t may be the most entertaining film of [Argento´s] career...It's true that "The Mother of Tears," strictly as visual storytelling, suffers by comparison with the first and second Mother movies, or one of Mr. Argento's better baroque thrillers, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. But it does something as well as, if not better than, anything in his oeuvre: it goes all the way." Scooter McCrae of Fangoria
Fangoria (magazine)
Fangoria is an internationally-distributed US film fan magazine specializing in the genres of horror, slasher, splatter and exploitation films, in regular publication since 1979.-Planning:...
was extremely enthusiastic about the film, and said that "Mother of Tears is a great movie, and well worth the wait. Does it have flaws? Oh yeah, but so do Tenebrae
Tenebrae (film)
Tenebrae is a 1982 Italian horror thriller film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Anthony Franciosa, John Saxon, and Daria Nicolodi...
, Phenomena
Phenomena (film)
Phenomena is a 1985 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento. An edited version of the film was released in the United States under the title Creepers , the game called Clock_Tower_ that was released in 1995 for snes , was loosely based on Phenomena.Jennifer Connelly stars as a young girl who...
, Suspiria and Inferno, and they’re now all part of the accepted canon of classic Argento cinema." Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique
Cinefantastique was a horror, fantasy, and science fiction film magazine originally started as a mimeographed fanzine in 1967, then relaunched as a glossy, offset quarterly in 1970 by publisher/editor Frederick S. Clarke...
´s Steve Biodrowski also felt the film was worthy of praise, noting that "the experience of watching Mother of Tears is like a delirious descent into primordial chaos, where the powers of darkness hold sway...As a long-awaited coda to Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy, [it] may not be exactly what was expected, but it is perfectly satisfying resolution...."
Argento has noted that he is dismissive of critical reaction, saying that "the critics don’t understand very well. But critics are not important – absolutely not important. Because now audiences don’t believe anymore in critics. Many years ago critics wrote long articles about films. Now in seven lines they are finished: ‘The story is this. The actor is this. The color is good.’"
Box office performance
In Italy, La Terza madre in 2 days at 273 theaters generated $827,000. By the end of its opening week in 303 theaters it had amassed $1,917,934 and took the 4th spot at the Italian box office. To date it has taken 2.077.000 Euro.($3,114,070). During its first week of limited theatrical release in the United States, The Mother of Tears grossed $19,418 at seven theaters, for a per theater gross of $2,774, taking 55th place on Varietys weekly box office chart.Soundtrack
Claudio SimonettiClaudio Simonetti
Claudio Simonetti is an Italian composer who has specialized in the scores for Italian and American horror films since the 1970s.- Biography :...
composed the soundtrack for The Third Mother, which was completed in early April 2007 after four months of work. He chose a classical style
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
with Gothic
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
influences present in many of the choruses. Simonetti described the score as "very different" from his previous work due to the subject matter of the film. The music was influenced by his own work for Argento's Masters of Horror
Masters of Horror
Masters of Horror is an informal social group of international film writers and directors specializing in horror movies and an American television series created by director Mick Garris for the Showtime cable network.- Origin :...
episodes ("Jenifer
Jenifer (Masters of Horror episode)
Jenifer is the fourth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on November 18, 2005. It was directed by Dario Argento, and written by and starring Steven Weber...
" and "Pelts
Pelts (Masters of Horror episode)
Pelts is the sixth episode of the second season of Masters of Horror, first aired December 1, 2006, based on a short story by F. Paul Wilson.-Plot:...
") as well as composers such as Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
, Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
, and Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
(among others). The score also incorporates electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
and influences from Simonetti's earlier work on Argento films, such as Suspiria
Suspiria
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi. The film follows an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany, only to discover that it is controlled by a coven of witches. The film's score was...
and Phenomena
Phenomena (film)
Phenomena is a 1985 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento. An edited version of the film was released in the United States under the title Creepers , the game called Clock_Tower_ that was released in 1995 for snes , was loosely based on Phenomena.Jennifer Connelly stars as a young girl who...
.
The piece at the end of Simonetti's "Mater Lachrimarum" is called "Dulcis in Fondo" and was performed by his heavy metal band, Daemonia. Cradle of Filth
Cradle of Filth
Cradle of Filth are an English extreme metal band, formed in Suffolk in 1991. The band's musical style evolved from black metal to a cleaner and more "produced" amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic black metal, and other extreme metal styles, while their lyrical themes and imagery are heavily...
frontman Dani Filth
Dani Filth
Dani Filth is the lyricist, vocalist and founding member of the metal band Cradle of Filth.-Personal life:...
recorded a song with Simonetti, Mater Lacrimarum, for the soundtrack of the film.
The soundtrack was recorded in the Acquario Studio of Castelnuovo in Porto-Roma. The symphonic orchestra parts were performed by the Orchestra D.I.M.I. The choral parts were performed by the Nova Lyrica chorus in February 2007. Both were recorded in Lead Studios in Rome with the help of sound-man Giuseppe Ranieri. Filmmakers finished dubbing the soundtrack into the film on 5 April 2007. At the preview during the Cannes Film Festival, journalist Alan Jones described Simonetti's score as an "unqualified success".
The soundtrack was released around the same time as the film's Italian wide release (31 October 2007) by Edel Music
Edel Music
-History:Edel Music was founded in 1986 by Michael Haentjes in Germany as a mail order record company selling mostly soundtracks. With artists such as Scooter, SASH!, Holly Johnson and many others, it became a very successful pop music label...
.