A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON:
WHEN DARIO ARGENTO INTERVIEWED PINK FLOYD IN 1987
Let’s get a few fun facts out of the way before we take a look at the eight or so awkward minutes shared between Pink Floyd vocalist and guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and Italian horror master, Dario Argento. For Pink Floyd, 1987 was a new beginning without bassist Roger Waters—a founding member of the Floyd along with Nick Mason. After years of legal hassles, the Waterless version of Pink Floyd released A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The subsequent tour (which started before the album was completed), was full of challenges, legal and otherwise. When it was all said and done, the tour in support of A Momentary Lapse of Reason would be the most successful U.S. rock tour of 1987. And that’s saying something, as David Bowie’s Glass Spider tour played 44 U.S. dates that same year. When it comes to Dario Argento and his relationship with Pink Floyd, we go back to 1975 when Italy’s version of Alfred Hitchcock tried, unsuccessfully, to engage the band to record the soundtrack for Profondo Rosso (aka, Deep Red, and The Hatchet Murders) as they were deep in work on their ninth album, Wish You Were Here. This, of course, didn’t turn out to be a bad thing. It gave us all the gift that is Italian prog-rock pioneers, Goblin, who were engaged to rewrite the score composed by Giorgio Gaslini, who had previously composed the score for Argento’s 1973 film The Five Days. It would also leave room for Argento’s collaboration with Keith Emerson of ELP, who composed the insanely good soundtrack for Argento’s 1980 film Inferno.
Now, let’s get back to the eight minutes of international time-delayed satellite video connection which had to be translated live in Italy and New York City. You might want to sit down because the combination of Dario Argento and members of Pink Floyd can make one quite dizzy.
Dario Argento was perpetually busy in the 1970s and 1980s. But he still somehow found time to do a self-hosted television show in Italy called Gli incubi di Dario Argento (The Nightmares of Dario Argento). Only nine episodes of The Nightmares of Dario Argento were filmed as part of the television series Giallo. He was often joined by Italian actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni dolled up like Siouxsie Sioux. You may recall, Cataldi-Tassoni was the star of Argento’s 1987 film, Opera. Though it’s a little unclear exactly when this segment aired, Pink Floyd was noted to be in New York City at the time. Since the video shows both Gilmore and Mason staying at the Ritz Carlton’s Central Park location, that would probably put the filming of this magic mushroom moment sometime during their three-night stint at Madison Square Garden. At the beginning of the “interview” Argento praises A Momentary Lapse of Reason, calling the album “stupendous.” Then, Argento’s complex, esoteric questions seem to mystify both Gilmour and Mason—and the live translation, which at times is not accurate, does not help matters one bit. I don’t want to reveal any more of what goes down in this very strange video, but had Roger Waters seen it back in the day, it would have pissed off his already very pissed off self.
