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Mother of Tears

2007 film by Dario Argento

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ1788187
Source-derived summary

Mother of Tears (Italian: La Terza madre; lit. 'The Third Mother') is a 2007 supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento, and starring 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 and Adam Gierasch, the film is the concluding installment of Argento's supernatural horror trilogy The Three Mothers, preceded by Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980). The film depicts the confrontation with the final "Mother" witch, known as Mater Lachrymarum.

Plot

Catholic Church workers dig up the body of a 19th-century church official, whose casket has a box-shaped urn chained to it. Inside they discover artifacts of Mater Lachrymarum, the last surviving member of the Three Mothers, an ancient trio of powerful witches. The box contains a magic tunic 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, 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 Giselle, Sarah opens the box and finds the tunic.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Mother of Tears” as 2007 film by Dario Argento. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mother, Tears and film.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2007, 1977, 1980—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2007-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Mother, Tears and film providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mother of Tears”, the useful work is to connect “2007 film by Dario Argento” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1788187. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007, 1977 and 1980.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mother of Tears”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mother of Tears primary sources, Mother of Tears archive and Mother research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mother of Tears”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Mother of Tears” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.