De Palma

Brian De Palma is one of those directors whose films are very polarizing (with a few exceptions, of course). Being that he no longer works within the Hollywood establishment and his output has been drastically reduced, I guess a documentary will have to do. And boy, what a documentary! Still, the word 'documentary' doesn't really describe this film that well, since it's more like a one-on-one conversation. De Palma is very candid about his past and doesn't shy away from emphatically stating his opinions on people he's worked with and his own work. One thing that did surprise me was how little Hitchcock, his clearest influence, was brought up. Not a criticism, just an observation. Clips from VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and REAR WINDOW are shown, though, in the context of techniques or stylistic features that De Palma learned from them. If anything, the range of artistic influences was much wider than I had ever realized before. Even if he never made another film, De Palma has left behind an incredible body of work that deserves serious study and consideration, and this documentary fills a void for everyone. It provides a nice retrospective for those already familiar and, for those not, a great place to start.

This documentary is by and large an excellent film school in 108 minutes, which is just slightly ironic as at one point in a moment of candor (among several if not often points for this man), he says how film schools produce many people who just won't ever really get into the film business (he gives a percentage of people who just won't make it, and it's high). Sometimes things do simply come out to good luck, good timing, and maybe for certain studio heads and people frankly go to see the blasted things (Carrie, as we can see here, was from all four of those things coming together at once).

The whole thing is De Palma only, talking to the camera, with a tiny bit at the end of him walking down the street for... some reason I'm not sure of, maybe .98% of him doing something other than talking and gesticulating was necessary - and this is juxtaposed with some photos and newspaper clippings and footage from ALL the De Palma movies (including little side pieces like "Wonton's Wake", a student film, and he even gives an anecdote about being the one with the idea to bring Courtney Cox on stage for his charming music video for "Dancin' in the Dark"). It's a full retrospective of the violent, the satiric, the operatic, and the messy.

I'm glad Paltrow and Baumbach took this approach; if it had been the requisite usual documentary where other talking heads chimed in about who this guy was and his films perhaps other opinions could pipe in, but if the movie is called DE PALMA, give us a full course of the man! And this does as far as it being a full life story, with the semi-framing of Vertigo, Hitchcock's masterwork of surrealism and voyeuristic nightmares realizes, being the lynchpin for many of his works (Obsession, Dressed to Kill, Body Double, basically any movie that has a long take of a character following another or doubles being used, not to mention Bernard Herrmann). There's also, something I'm glad about, not too much in the way of trying to deep-focus-psychoanalyze the man as far as his films; the questions, though we don't hear them, seem to lead to straightforward answers (whether you like what he has to say about women - in his plain language, he says, "I like following women, I think they make good subjects on film" in so many words, that depends on how you see it in his films).

Because it's all on him for those interviews, camera planted down as De Palma talks, the scenes from his many films, from The Wedding Party to Passion (50 years!), it doesn't feel bogged down at any time - from one movie it leads to another and another, and I liked that I came away understanding there was no real grand plan for De Palma as a filmmaker (he didn't know he wanted to even be one until college, again with good timing the Nouvelle Vague changed everything as well as American experimental cinema), and this is a documentary that is charting a real commercial artist of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

By this I mean he is conscious of the money - one of the anecdotes about Carrie reveals how he knew down to 200 grand what a movie *would* cost with a certainty - and yet even with this consciousness he could go too far; look at what happened between 1987 and 1993, where he goes from one of his biggest successes (Untouchables) to a personal triumph but financial flop (Casualties of War), a general fiasco (Bonfire, though he says he still enjoys the movie, "Don't read the book", he says half jokingly), and then another personal film but this time as one of *his* thrillers (Raising Cain) and finally what he thought of as "I can't make something better than this (Carlito's Way, one of my personal favorites) - it all shows a man working in the system (perhaps sometimes against his better judgment, though it's not to say he didn't want his films to be seen and appreciated, he clearly did and still does), but he was always finding his way through the films, falling on his face at times, but still coming away with how he wants to do it, if only by the skin of his teeth.

If there is a complaint to have it's not even that it's too short, per-say, but near the end the section of De Palma's life and career in this century feels short-changed; perhaps this may be intentional by way of the director's point near the end where he brings it back to Hitchcock, that, according to him, post-Psycho his films didn't connect because a filmmaker's best work is in their 30's-40's-50's (spoken like a true Tarantino eh?), however I still wanted to know more about this latter-day films, that have interesting elements even as they go back to his roots (Femme Fatale, Redacted, Passion being good films, the middle one showing some innovation even in his latter years). This said, for at least 100 minutes this is film-geek ecstasy, with stories that sometimes feel like their from the front-lines, and you can't help but laugh at some/several of them. His candor brings you in, but it's also that he can simply be fully engaging with an audience as a speaker (albeit it's clear occasionally he's talking to two filmmakers behind the camera), and so for regular audiences who may have only seen Scarface or Carrie or the first M:I movie and want to more more it can be compelling as well.

To put it another way, if I showed this to my film school students, I'd almost feel like I wouldn't need to hold too many other classes - except, maybe, probably, to just make a damn movie as a collective ala Home Movies!

De Palma (2015)

**** (out of 4)

Directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow got Brian De Palma to sit down and talk about all of the movies that he has made. This documentary has De Palma basically giving a history lesson about all of his movies. He talks about his influences, their failures or things that he wish he had done differently.

If you're a fan of De Palma's work then you probably already know that he has contributed to countless interviews and special features for his movies. There's a lot of stuff out there where the director talks about his career but this documentary works because you can pretty much get everything in one sitting. I really liked the flow of the picture because it really does come across as being shot in real time and it's just like you're sitting down at a table with the director and listening to him talk about his career.

DE PALMA is certainly a must-see for film buffs because the director is quite honest with his talk. At this point in his career he certainly doesn't have to worry about offending anyone and this leads to some very good stories about issue he had on films with actors including Robert DeNiro on THE UNTOUCHABLES. Each film is given a good amount of discussion and it's fascinating getting to hear the director pat himself on the back when he thought he did a great job or pointing out things that went wrong.

None of them films are given great, full details but as I said there are countless bonus features out there that dive into each film in more detail. This film works remarkably well because of how simple it is. The camera is set up close to De Palma and he simply talks and tells stories.

In this film, Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow interview one of Hollywood's most polarizing directors in Brian De Palma. De Palma has been praised for his innovative camera techniques and his suspenseful stories but has been criticised for misogyny in his films as well as seemingly ripping of many "Hitchcockian" traits. I am familiar with De Palma's work, although I haven't seen too many of his films apart from his most well known ones (Scarface, Untouchables, Carlito's Way etc.) but this documentary certainly wants me to explore more of his movies. The film is mainly just one shot of De Palma talking to the camera intercut with scenes from many of his movies. He goes into extreme detail about every single one of his movies, whilst occasionally talking about aspects of his personal life.

De Palma is a very interesting character. He's eccentric and funny but also can be arrogant sometimes. However, as a director he is a great storyteller and talks about most of his movies in extremely intricate and interesting detail e.g. how he performed certain shots to how he dealt with many of the different egos on his set. If you're someone who isn't particularly interested in film, you'll probably not find too much enjoyment in this documentary. It really is a documentary for cinephiles (such as myself) or at least people who have some interest in the art of film making. I do sometimes wish the documentary would perhaps tap into more aspects of De Palma's personal life such as his childhood or his relationship with his peers (Scorsese, Spielberg etc.). There are moments when De Palma talks about his childhood and refers to incidents that impacted his voyeuristic style but I wish the movie tapped into more moments like these. One other criticism I also have is perhaps De Palma does tend to talk about certain movies more than other ones. I would've liked for him to go into more detail about some of his more notable failures like Mission to Mars and Passion but De Palma generally just skips over these particular films.

However, if you're a movie fan or Brian De Palma fan( hell, even a detractor) you'll find great enjoyment out of this fascinating documentary about one of Hollywood's most prolific directors.

Greetings again from the darkness. A self-inflicted career retrospective … that's my most fitting description of this project from co-directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. Rather than line-up a slew of third-party observers and collaborators, we get the famed director himself walking us film-by-film through his resume. That's right, Brian De Palma discusses the De Palma film canon … and we movie lovers couldn't ask for anything better.

Beginning with a clip of Vertigo, the doc leads with the Hitchcock influence, almost as a form of disclosure. It's as if everyone associated is saying, Yes we admit it … Director De Palma has been heavily influenced and inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock. Now pay attention to what he's done with his career – some really good, some not so good, some downright awful. "Underappreciated" might be the best label for De Palma. He was part of the "New Hollywood" with Spielberg, Scorcese, Coppola, and Lucas, yet they are worshiped, while De Palma is mostly ignored.

Mr. De Palma speaks directly to the camera and seems to thoroughly enjoy this opportunity to analyze (and at times defend) his career, providing a self guided reflective approach - a chronological retrospective that doesn't shy away from his inability to put together a streak of successful films. This is direct talk (describing a particular bomb as "one of many disasters") with no apologies from a filmmaker who has worked for five decades. He tells behind the scenes stories in a matter-of-fact manner, not always complimentary of himself, actors or the industry.

The stories and recollections are the highlight here. De Palma speaks highly of Wilford Leach (his mentor and professor at Sarah Lawrence), composer Bernard Hermann and Robert DeNiro, with less than flattering tales of Cliff Robertson (Obsession), Sean Penn (Casualties of War), and Oliver Stone (Scarface). It's fascinating to hear De Palma explain the box office failure of his version of The Bonfire of the Vanities, address the scandal of Body Double, and describe in detail the simultaneous casting (with Spielberg) of Star Wars and Carrie. Even more eye-opening is his reminiscing on the back-and-forth with director Sidney Lumet as they played hot-potato with Scarface and Prince of the City.

Brian De Palma was Columbia University educated (math and physics), and has directed some of the most creative, colorful and controversial films – some of which never received their "due". This may be mostly a film for those who want more inside-industry scoop, but it's a man who takes pride in the fact that famed film critic Pauline Kael was a fan of his work, and that few directors have a more varied canon of film.

His patented "holy mackerel" is on full display as he takes us on the journey of De Palma films, and it's a reminder that "talking head" documentaries can still work … provided the talking head doing the talking is saying something worth listening to.