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De Palma the Perverted
October 2006
This site has given me a good excuse to go back and re-evaluate the work of my favorite living director, Brian De Palma, and rather than wait until I’ve seen everything, which would be too much anyway, I thought we could get started with a breakdown into two categories: the semi-perverted, and the [forthcoming] semi-respectable. We can also claim that the recent release of the fabulous Black Dahlia gives us a good excuse to do this. But no one ever needs an excuse to revel in some awesome De Palma, and as my mother always said, it’s better to start with the perverted and get to the respectable later, if time allows.
The De Palma Obsession Index:
I = The Illusions of the Movies
D = Doubles and Doppelgangers
V = Voyeurism
SVAW = Sexualized Violence Against Women
NA = Nancy Allen
KASS = Kick-Ass Suspense Setpieces
The Black Dahlia
[I, SVAW, D, KASS]
De Plama’s newest is perhaps his most solid movie to date, integrating his signature obsessions with a restrained style in keeping with the seriousness of the story. James Ellroy’s version of the investigation surrounding the Black Dahlia murder perfectly blends with De Palma themes like doubles, the power of images and their ability to deceive, sexualized violence toward women, Hollywood, etc. This movie is very complex and hard to follow, and requires that you pay attention and think, but if you do, it can be one of the most satisfying De Palma movies ever.
RELATED: WICKER PARK is the only movie I’ve seen that is ripping off De Palma as opposed to Hitchcock, and will help you understand that Josh Harnett is actually a quite good actor, he’s just very restrained.
Carrie
[SVAW, NA, KASS]
Perhaps the first time De Palma totally knocked one out of the park, this movie’s writing, subtext and incredible performances elevate it above the rabble of “70s teen horror flicks.” De Palma’s direction makes something special out of almost every opportunity, including the masterpiece of music and editing leading up to the dropping of the blood and Carrie’s unleashing of her powers. If you haven’t watched this in a while, you’ll be surprised how good it is.
The Fury
[KASS]
Sort of an Escape to Witch Mountain for grown-ups, John Cassavetes and a gorgeous Amy Irving are young psychics that the unscrupulous want to control for their own ends, while John’s dad Kirk Douglas tries to free him. Along the way there’s lots of room for many a vintage De Palma sequence, and the whole thing remains intriguing and fun. Watch for the amazingly goofy little interlude with Mother Knuckells. I want to watch all these movies again right now, but this one especially.
Obsession
[D, KASS]
De Palma does a take on Vertigo with this flawed but fascinating movie. Cliff Robertson loses his wife and daughter in an accident at the beginning, then meets and woos another woman who looks exactly like his dead wife. Features John Lithgow in a fun role and a wonderful score by Bernard Herrmann.
Sisters
[D, V]
More Hitchcock pastiche and obsessions with doubles, doubles, doubles [with a few twins thrown in for good measure], and a little bit of voyeurism, this is one of the less satisfying of De Palma’s early films, but does feature a good performance by Margot Kidder [if you can believe such a thing possible], a narrative ultra-whammy at the end, and one of my favorite lines of dialogue ever: “That’s how I got sick; somebody called me on the telephone!”
Hi Mom!
[V, I]
For hardcore De Palma fans, this way early sequel of sorts to Greetings stars Robert DeNiro as a Vietnam vet who wants to make a living selling “reality” pornography of the people in the apartment complex across the street doing the do. So yes, the voyeurism’s all here. The centerpiece of this movie is a 20-minute film-within-the-film called “Be Black, Baby,” an avant-garde theater piece in which white get painted in blackface and brutalized and raped. I love that De Palma did this, but I don’t want to watch it again for another 10 years.
Body Double
[I, D, V, SVAW, KASS]
One of De Palma’s most fun and playful movies, this is also unabashedly his sleaziest. You have your examination of the illusions of cinema, your doubles, your voyeurism, your standout setpieces… it’s all here in a movie that looks better and better as the years roll on.
Femme Fatale
[I, D, V, SVAW, KASS]
Narrative, schmarrative. Perhaps De Palma’s most abstract and meta movie [and also his most sweetly hopeful], we follow tasty Rebecca Romijn as she pulls off a stunning jewel heist at Cannes, is taken in by a family whose daughter looks exactly like her, is pursued by the thieves she double-crossed, and has a really vivid dream. But it’s all really about deconstructing noirs, the illusions of images, and the various routes life can take. I hope you weren’t expecting a plot.
Raising Cain
[D, V, SVAW, KASS]
Also a fucking blast, this movie serves as a compilation reel of some of De Palma’s most ingenious and fun suspense setpieces more than a movie with a sensible story that you could, you know, follow. The image that keeps coming to my mind about this movie is a giant all-you-can-eat banquet table piled high with heaping helpings of everything you love about De Palma. Holy shit, I need to buy this fucker right now. Okay, I just did.
Dressed To Kill
[V, SVAW, NA, KASS]
Partly a reworking of Psycho, this serial killer movie features a lot of great De Palma technique, and features as its centerpiece a fantastic, 22-minute nearly wordless sequence that begins with a museum seduction and ends with a bloody murder. Like Raising Cain, it is a neat little package for De Palma to string a number of spectacular suspense setpieces into, although this one has more of a story. And, of course, it has Nancy Allen and Angie Dickinson.
The Phantom of the Paradise
[D]
De Palma’s rock revision of The Phantom of the Opera is a crazy, hilarious and bizarrely moving musical that beat The Rocky Horror Picture Show to the punch, and has actual quality. This is an amazing melee of style and tone, simultaneously satirical about the campy movie tropes it's using, a parady of those tropes, and completely serious about it all. Looks better and more avant-garde now than it ever did.
Blow Out
[I, V, SVAW, NA, KASS]
De Palma’s reworking of Antonioni’s Blow Up features John Travolta as a movie sound engineer who records a killing, then has to sift through the sound and get to the bottom of the murder. I own it, I’m just waiting to watch it again to give it a proper review.
