Dario and I tried to tell the story referencing the classics of German post-expressionism with clashing colors, shapes, light and darkness and through sets with distorted perspectives, the interplay of light and shadow and the absence of light, all characteristics of this genre strongly connected to the pictorial expression of artists like Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller and George Grosz. This actually was already part of our film culture so we tried to fully embrace it, in an attempt to exacerbate the concept photographically and cinematographically, trying to achieve a shared vision of Evil by using a hand-held camera along with the breathing, the sound of footsteps and a certain kind of music, which created the presence of a being that is the Monster of the Unconscious.

Vittorio Storaro, in Spaghetti nightmares, edited by Luca M. Palmerini and Gaetano Mistretta, M&P edizioni, Roma 1996

The opening sequence of the film draws attention to the crime’s preparation and not how it happens. The sequence has artful alternating editing and is a game of eroticism that flirts with the audience’s expectations. […] The explosive dimension of this constant alternation of inside and outside, between expectation and fear, between the desire of witnessing this woman’s death and the horror of how it might happen, is amplified by Ennio Morricone’s music […]. The shadowing and the sinister sheen of the blade against a red backdrop create tension in the audience, which knows exactly what to expect. With deft ‘sadism’ in the face of those expectations, the next scene takes us directly ‘after’ the crime has happened. […] What I feel is important to stress, however, is this distinctive quality of L’uccello della piume di cristallo, the refusal to film the grisly act, which is only partially explained by the genre’s requirements and canons still being premature for pure splatter film. Instead, the film finds its own way of how to depict the crime. The shots reveal and conceal at the same time, show and hide just like in erotic cinema.

Giovanni Spagnoletti, Pornografia di un delitto. “L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo”, in Argento vivo, Vito Zagarrio (ed.), Marsilio, Venice, 2008