Let's just say first that this Giallo has a very long title that doesn't seem to make sense unless you've seen more of Sergio Martino's work, and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh in particular. Also, it's a fairly typical Eurosleaze that isn't going to be everybody's cup of wine. And did I mention it's inspired by Poe's The Black Cat?
Oliviero Rouvigny is a washed-up writer who hasn't written a word in three years and is sleeping around with a bookstore worker, throwing extravagant orgies with the local hippy commune, and abusing his wife, Irina. On top of all that, he's also got a bit of a fetish for his mom's memory as evidenced by his admiration for a dress of hers he still owns and her black cat, Satan, who now lives with him after her death. Anyway, women die and Oliviero becomes the chief suspect, but is he guilty, or is someone setting him up? And then the mystery deepens when his lovely and now grown-up niece arrives and plays games with both Oliviero and Irina. People die, plots twist, fake blood flows, and my brain reminds itself that this is just the way the best Giallos work.
The filming is beautiful. The characters are memorable. The plot twists keep me guessing. And all in all, this long-titled flick is a really nice piece of Eurosleeze if you're a fan of the genre. If not, it won't bring you over to the dark side.
Now, enough about all that. What can we learn about being writers from this weird little Italian masterpiece?
Two things really stuck out to me as I watched it.
The first comes when Oliviero is being questioned by the Inspector and is asked if he plans to take a trip anytime soon (the Italian version of "Don't leave town. You're a suspect" I suppose). When the writer responds that he isn't going anywhere, the Inspector says, "A writer's mind does all his wandering."
I too have experienced this. The farthest I've been out of the United States is Calgary, Alberta, Canada. But that never stops me from placing my characters in all kinds of localities all over the world. Off the top of my head, they've been in the Paris Catacombs, Notre Dame, London, and numerous cities I've never set foot in. But my mind does my wandering. I don't need to vacation in those exotic locales (not that I don't WANT to, of course) in order to write about them. As a writer, the best tool in my toolkit is the ability to research and to explore not only the world but also other planets and dimensions and times at my leisure.
Sure, sometimes I can get bogged down in the details of my wandering mind or even derailed by the rabbit trails I chase as I research, but none of that negates the value of a writer's wandering mind. In fact, it's been truer in my life that those details and rabbit trails can open up new stories later down the line.
The second is from an exchange between Oliviero and his niece Floriana. It's obvious he's smitten with her and that he and his wife aren't particularly happy together. Irina hints derisively that her husband is often impotent, and Floriana questions both his ability to create as a writer and his ability to perform as a lover: "All the imagination in the world won't help you if you can't get a hard-on."
Sadly, just like the awful human being in the center of this movie, I have also experienced creative impotence. I dare not call it "writer's block" because I still don't really believe in that. What we often call "writer's block" is usually one of two things -- either laziness to want to push through when the work is more difficult than usual, or a sort of event that locks down much more than just our ability to write. It's more a "life block," a depression, an inability to perform when we face almost anything.
That said, it truly is like a kind of impotence, I believe. There are times when my writing can't get a "hard-on" to use Floriana's metaphor. And not any or all of my imagination or research or "want to" can make me perform.
But with the right change in situation, even that can be overcome. After all, if our "hero" (he's really not, he's a right royal bastard, this Oliviero) can overcome his physical impotence to bed not only Irina, but also Floriana, and the bookstore worker, sometimes the right introduction to a new person, a new job, a little more distance to a bad situation, or just a revised point of view thanks to a good cup of coffee and a few days break from the pressures can help us overcome creative impotence.
But just the creative one, please. Our friend Oliviero wouldn't recommend sleeping around to fix the other kind, especially after his fate in this gritty little Giallo.
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