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Recent Headlines
a la Mod:

Domino is
a "disarmingly
straight-forward"
work that "pushes
us to reexamine our
relationship to images
and their consumption,
not only ethically
but metaphysically"
-Collin Brinkman

De Palma on Domino
"It was not recut.
I was not involved
in the ADR, the
musical recording
sessions, the final
mix or the color
timing of the
final print."

Listen to
Donaggio's full score
for Domino online

De Palma/Lehman
rapport at work
in Snakes

De Palma/Lehman
next novel is Terry

De Palma developing
Catch And Kill,
"a horror movie
based on real things
that have happened
in the news"

Supercut video
of De Palma's films
edited by Carl Rodrigue

Washington Post
review of Keesey book

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Exclusive Passion
Interviews:

Brian De Palma
Karoline Herfurth
Leila Rozario

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AV Club Review
of Dumas book

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Entries by Topic
A note about topics: Some blog posts have more than one topic, in which case only one main topic can be chosen to represent that post. This means that some topics may have been discussed in posts labeled otherwise. For instance, a post that discusses both The Boston Stranglers and The Demolished Man may only be labeled one or the other. Please keep this in mind as you navigate this list.
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Monday, September 12, 2011
'RINGER' CREATOR CITES DE PALMA AS INSPIRATION
THRILLER SERIES STARRING SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR PREMIERES TUESDAY ON CW
Eric Charmelo, who created the new TV series Ringer with his regular co-writer Nicole Snyder, tells dailybreeze.com's Steven Herbert that various films by Brian De Palma, including Dressed To Kill, provided inspiration for the series, which premieres tomorrow night on the CW network. "Just when you think you have it figured out," Charmelo tells Herbert, "we'll throw in a twist that completely takes it in a new direction." Charmelo describes Ringer, which stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as identical twins, as a "neo-noir thriller" that "will keep the audience guessing," according to Herbert. Charmelo elaborated that he and Snyder have an obsession "with the concept of good twin versus evil twin. We always thought it was kind of funny and campy, but we wanted to play it straight, like a serialized thriller."

Posted by Geoff at 6:19 PM CDT
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
CLIFF ROBERTSON HAS DIED
OSCAR-WINNING ACTOR HAD JUST TURNED 88


News came late last night that Cliff Robertson died of natural causes Saturday (Sept 10), one day after his 88th birthday. Robertson, of course, portrayed the wealthy real estate developer Michael Courtland in Brian De Palma's Obsession, which was released 35 years ago in 1976. The film, written by Paul Schrader, was just released this past summer in a special region-free Blu-Ray edition from Arrow Video. In addition to winning an Oscar for his lead role in Charly in 1968, Robertson had a number of memorable roles in a long acting career. He played the CIA head in Sydney Pollack's conspiracy thriller Three Days Of The Condor, which was released a year before Obsession, and which provided much inspiration for De Palma's 1996 film Mission: Impossible (Condor has also been used as a comparison point for De Palma's upcoming project, The Key Man). In 1962, President John F. Kennedy personally chose Robertson to portray him in PT 109, which was based on Kennedy's experiences in WWII. More recently, Robertson became known as "Uncle Ben," the great beacon of responsibility in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Robertson also had run-ins with Batman, portraying the cowardly cowboy of crime, Shame, in several episodes of the TV series in 1966. In 1983, he portrayed Hugh Hefner in Bob Fosse's Star 80. Robertson also directed two films: J.W. Coop (1971, which Robertson also co-wrote and produced), has themes similar to that of De Palma's Carlito's Way. It stars Robertson as a cowboy who, after eight years in prison, finds that society is not what it used to be. The film is a western that takes place in the modern American rodeo circuit, and used footage from actual rodeo events. In 1980, Robertson directed The Pilot, a character study about a pilot who is also an alcoholic. Robert P. Davis adapted the screenplay from his own novel, and the film is noted for its realistic depictions of commercial flying.

Posted by Geoff at 1:14 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, September 11, 2011 8:55 PM CDT
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
'PAUL WILLIAMS' DOC-MAKER NODS TO WINNIPEG
SAYS AMAZING 'PHANTOM' EVENT SHOWED HIM A TOUCHING LEVEL OF AFFECTION FOR THE SONGWRITER
The Toronto Star's Linda Barnard spoke by phone with Paul Williams and Steve Kessler, director of the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, which premieres tomorrow at the Toronto International Film Festival. Barnard asked the duo about the film's link to Winnipeg, where Kessler first made contact with Williams during one of the city's "Phantompalooza" events:

Q: The movie starts in Winnipeg where the (1974 musical directed by Brian De Palma with music by Williams) Phantom of the Paradise has a cult following. That's where Steve first makes contact with you.

PW: There are two cities in the world (the other is Paris) that got it and I don't understand it. There is such a love affair with the film . . . in Winnipeg, there are people who got that piece of art.

SK: I have to say if it wasn't for the people of Winnipeg this movie would never have gotten made. When I saw the level of affection people had for Paul, I said, “I can't be the only person on earth with this level of affection for Paul.” This was an amazing event.

Q: I have to ask you about your signature hairstyle, that long blond shag you wore in the '70s.

PW: Me and Hayley Mills. I ripped her off. It's just the way it grew in — the Swan hairstyle.

WILLIAMS' NEW SONG 'SUMS UP HIS LIFE IN A VERY HONEST WAY', SAYS KESSLER
Barnard also reports that Williams wrote the title track to the documentary, and was sent an mp3 of the song, which, she writes, "it has the signature Williams mix of melancholy and flashes of self-deprecating humour." Regarding the song, Kessler told Barnard, "I think he summed up his life in a very honest way. It really adds something."


Posted by Geoff at 7:58 PM CDT
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Friday, September 9, 2011
DE PALMA TO TALENT LAB FILMMAKERS:
'YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES - YOU SHOULD ALL BE GOING OUT AND MAKING MOVIES'
The Montreal Gazette's T’Cha Dunlevy interviewed four of the twenty-four participants at this year's Talent Lab at the Toronto International Film Festival. All four participants seemed energized by Brian De Palma's one-hour talk to close the opening day of the workshop yesterday. Here is the first part of Dunlevy's article:

“It ended with Brian De Palma,” Halima Ouardiri said.

Her ’nuff-said reply came in response to my query about how the first day of the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) eighth annual Talent Lab had gone. Ouardiri and three other budding Montreal filmmakers – Omar Majeed, Catherine Chagnon and Mark Slutsky – are part of the four-day workshop that puts them and 20 other participants in close quarters with their idols.

Among Talent Lab’s guest speakers this year are Gus Van Sant, documentary icons Frederick Wiseman and Alfred Maysles, Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees Of Separation) and Davis Guggenheim (whose U2 doc From the Sky Down was the opening film of this year’s festival). But we’re getting ahead of ourselves – one at a time:

“(De Palma) was awesome,” Slutsky said, explaining how the director of such films as Scarface and Mission: Impossible had spent an hour with the group, sharing insights and telling stories. “He’s very, very smart – he’s obviously got a huge brain; and he’s pretty outspoken and honest.”

“He gave us notes,” Chagnon said, “very direct notes.”

“He said, ‘You have no excuses,’ ” Majeed continued. “‘You should all be going out and making movies.’”

Slutsky: “He also said, ‘If you can’t put a movie on a credit card, get financing from friends or make a movie with no money – give up!’ ” (General laughter.)

(Pictured above from left to right: Catherine Chagnon, Omar Majeed, Halima Ouardiri and Mark Slutsky.)

OTHER VISITS ON DAY ONE: SARAH POLLEY, FERNANDO MEIRELLES, JASON REITMAN
According to Dunlevy, day one began with an introduction by the three governors of this year's Talent Lab: Jason Reitman, documentary director Jennifer Baichwal, and Bingham Ray. The three governors "split their charges into groups for smaller discussions," according to Dunlevy. “They didn’t seem too prepared,” Slutsky told Dunlevy. “It was more, ‘What do you want to know?’” Other visitors included Sarah Polley (who brought along the crew from her new film, Take This Waltz) and Fernando Meirelles.


Posted by Geoff at 10:35 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, September 9, 2011 10:54 PM CDT
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DE PALMA TO TALENT LAB FILMMAKERS:

'YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES - YOU SHOULD ALL BE GOING OUT AND MAKING MOVIES'
The Montreal Gazette's T’Cha Dunlevy interviewed four of the twenty-four participants at this year's Talent Lab at the Toronto International Film Festival. All four participants seemed energized by Brian De Palma's one-hour talk to close the opening day of the workshop yesterday. Here is the first part of Dunlevy's article:

“It ended with Brian De Palma,” Halima Ouardiri said.

Her ’nuff-said reply came in response to my query about how the first day of the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) eighth annual Talent Lab had gone. Ouardiri and three other budding Montreal filmmakers – Omar Majeed, Catherine Chagnon and Mark Slutsky – are part of the four-day workshop that puts them and 20 other participants in close quarters with their idols.

Among Talent Lab’s guest speakers this year are Gus Van Sant, documentary icons Frederick Wiseman and Alfred Maysles, Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees Of Separation) and Davis Guggenheim (whose U2 doc From the Sky Down was the opening film of this year’s festival). But we’re getting ahead of ourselves – one at a time:

“(De Palma) was awesome,” Slutsky said, explaining how the director of such films as Scarface and Mission: Impossible had spent an hour with the group, sharing insights and telling stories. “He’s very, very smart – he’s obviously got a huge brain; and he’s pretty outspoken and honest.”

“He gave us notes,” Chagnon said, “very direct notes.”

“He said, ‘You have no excuses,’ ” Majeed continued. “‘You should all be going out and making movies.’”

Slutsky: “He also said, ‘If you can’t put a movie on a credit card, get financing from friends or make a movie with no money – give up!’ ” (General laughter.)

(Pictured above from left to right: Catherine Chagnon, Omar Majeed, Halima Ouardiri and Mark Slutsky.)

OTHER VISITS ON DAY ONE: SARAH POLLEY, FERNANDO MEIRELLES, JASON REITMAN
According to Dunlevy, day one began with an introduction by the three governors of this year's Talent Lab: Jason Reitman, documentary director Jennifer Baichwal, and Bingham Ray. The three governors "split their charges into groups for smaller discussions," according to Dunlevy. “They didn’t seem too prepared,” Slutsky told Dunlevy. “It was more, ‘What do you want to know?’” Other visitors included Sarah Polley (who brought along the crew from her new film, Take This Waltz) and Fernando Meirelles.


Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
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Thursday, September 8, 2011
DE PALMA SPOKE AT TIFF TALENT LAB TODAY
WAS AT DEAUVILLE OVER THE WEEKEND, AS FESTIVAL SEASON HITS FULL SWING
Brian De Palma is pictured speaking at the Talent Lab at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier today, the first day of the festival. This year's TIFF will include the premiere of Paul Williams Still Alive, a documentary by Stephen Kessler. Colin Geddes provides a TIFF description of the film, which premieres this Sunday (De Palma's birthday)...

With songs about loneliness and his outsider persona, Williams struck a chord with many, including director Stephen Kessler. When he began to investigate his childhood idol, Kessler was surprised to learn that Williams is still very much alive, and set out to make a documentary. Williams allows Kessler to accompany him on his travels, but the director soon discovers that his subject isn’t the same man from television that he once idolized.

Despite Kessler’s initial plan to stay behind the camera, Williams coaxes him out, and Kessler becomes part of the story. He follows Williams from small hotel gigs to celebrity golf tournaments to a stadium show in the Philippines — where the downright manic and nervous director must accompany Williams on a six-hour bus ride through a terrorist-infested jungle to get to a gig. During this expedition, their strained relationship helps shape a candid examination of an artist who fought against his own drug-fuelled ego run amok and then became more in love with the attention than the music.

Paul Williams Still Alive is both a rollicking pop-culture flashback filled with great television and performance clips, and the humorous journey of an awkward documentarian and his reluctant subject. Yet it ultimately evolves into the touching tale of a man who has made peace with the beast that fame and celebrity awoke.

DE PALMA PICTURED AT DEAUVILLE
De Palma was photographed at the Deauville Film Festival in France over the weekend, courtesy News De Stars.


Posted by Geoff at 11:57 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, September 8, 2011 11:58 PM CDT
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Wednesday, September 7, 2011
BAUER TALKS 'SCARFACE' & 'RAISING CAIN'
AND HIS CAMEO IN 'BODY DOUBLE'
Starpulse's Jason Coleman sat down with Steven Bauer for a career-spanning interview, timed to the release of Scarface on Blu-Ray this week. Bauer talked about Brian De Palma's directing style, Oliver Stone's shocked reaction to being told that one of the scenes he had written for Scarface was not going to be filmed, and how De Palma restrained him for his role as Jack in Raising Cain. Here are some excerpts:

[Coleman] I’ve always wanted to know what De Palma is like as a director and specifically his filmmaking process when it come to working with the actors?

SB: Well, he was very, very hands off – he’s actually very trusting of the actors. He chooses great actors and let’s them do their thing. The most I ever saw him do was with Michelle. For us, he never said anything to us except ‘where are you walking in’ or ‘where do you want to do this’, you know? He let us play the scene and then he would move the camera. But with Michelle because she was so new, she was intimidated and it worked for the character and he kept her off balance I think. He wasn’t very nurturing and encouraging with her. She was having her issues of being the girl, the only girl, and us being in our own world and it worked for her. She explodes and she’s so angry and so done with Tony being such an ass and it was all about the boys. And that worked for her – she walked around like that. Really fragile and Brian didn't do anything to help that.

[Coleman] If screenplay writer Oliver Stone was on set a lot, were there any interesting discussions that came up between the two of you during shooting?

SB: Oliver was NOT on the set a lot – another news bulletin! Oliver was basically banned from the set after the second or third week out of seventeen weeks we shot. He was banned and the reason is because he had a lot to say about the scenes that he wrote and how they were played and what was said and everything. And once we started shooting it was like Oliver, please! Because he’d come around and he’d say, ‘What are you doing? What are you shooting today? What’s going on? What are you gonna do?’ And Brian would say, ‘Can you just relax and please let us do what we’re doing?’

[Coleman] Do you feel like it was that director side of Oliver coming to the surface?

SB: Absolutely! He was ready to go! He was ready to make his own movie! He couldn't help it! Put him on the set and he’s gonna tell you how to shoot the scene! It was just not a happy union - there was not a collaboration there at all. The collaboration was that he delivered this beautiful screenplay and we went to work with it. But his offerings were not welcome and eventually he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome. And I think it really bugged the shit out of him – he was not a happy camper. One day he was standing outside the gates at Universal and I was pulling up and he called me over and he goes, ‘Hey, Steven! Steven!’ And I go, ‘What are you doing there?’ And he goes, ‘Well, they won’t let me on the set!’ So I said, ‘What?!’ And he goes, ‘Can you just tell me what your shooting today?’ (Laughs) And I remember this one moment – I can't tell you specifically, but the script was bigger then what we shot obviously and there were scenes we had to cut because they were to expensive. And I remember one day he found me and he goes, ‘Have you done the scene with the so and so...” and I said, ‘Uhhh...no, we’re not doing that scene.’ And he was like, ‘What do you mean you’re not doing that scene?’ And I’m like, ‘They cut it.’ And he goes, ‘Are you KIDDING me?!’ – like crazy! That’s another interesting thing that most people don't know.

'RAISING CAIN'
[Coleman] "Raising Cain" was you second acting collaboration with De Palma – can you tell me what was both similar and different from working with him when you did "Scarface" vs. "Raising Cain?"

SB: "Raising Cain" is much more his comfort zone I think. "Scarface" was a tremendous undertaking and I’m one of those who really feel that no one could have done it like Brian De Palma. In that case I’m a Brian De Palma supporter and the way the film was made, the way the film is directed, "Scarface" is brilliant. The rhythm, tone and editing of it is perfect and a lot of that is him. Now that being said, I was sort of a skeptic before I met him and worked with him because the films that he made before "Scarface" always left me really frustrated. I was impressed by his technical and cinematic style, but I also felt manipulated always and I don't like feeling that as an audience member. I don't like feeling the director manipulating. So I wasn’t a big fan let’s just say, but when you get to "Raising Cain" after "Scarface," I’m a big fan. One more time he had me – I loved what he did with that movie. Loved the way it’s done, love the way it works on the senses and the surprises and I loved the acting in it. John Lithgow is amazing – he’s just so weird and goofy and beautiful. And he directed me really well too and he got a performance out of me I didn’t expect to deliver. I really thought of myself as much more active and he kept me really restrained, even in my physical appearance. I had to do everything possible to not fight him on it because it was like he wanted my hair combed all the time, he wanted the overcoat and he wanted me in a 3-piece suit. I said, ‘Why a 3-piece – why do I have to wear a vest?’ He goes, ‘Because I want you to be absolutely beautiful and gorgeous and I want you to be absolutely groomed perfectly in every scene – that’s who you are!’ (Laughs) He has these precepts and concepts on film visually that he imposes on the story and he’ll make it work, or not! In that movie it really works.

Bauer was also asked about his cameo in De Palma's Body Double ("It was just a cameo role that Brian put me in as a joke"), which he describes with just a bit of misremembrance (his cameo is actually during the "Holly Does Hollywood" commercial, not during the Frankie Goes To Hollywood segment), and several of his other films, including Steven Soderbergh's Traffic.


Posted by Geoff at 10:56 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 7, 2011 10:57 PM CDT
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Tuesday, September 6, 2011
RON JEREMY ON 'DRESSED TO KILL' IN 1980
AND GLENN KENNY ON THE NEW BLU-RAY, OUT TODAY
Two Brian De Palma films were released today in the Blu-Ray format: Scarface and, from the director of Scarface, Dressed To Kill. Glenn Kenny offers a unique look at the latter by recalling the opinions of porn star Ron Jeremy, with whom Kenny knew through working as a production assistant in the porn industry during the "waning years of porno chic," as Kenny describes them. As Kenny explains, Jeremy felt that his past as a porn star would be less and less of a stigma as porn had been going through its "chic" years and mainstream films were becoming more permissive as far as depictions of sex:

Back in 1980 Mr. Jeremy was even more peculiarly delusional than he is depicted in the strangely poignant 2001 documentary Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy—albeit, perhaps, with better reason. A buff and boisterous 27 years of age, he was crowing to whoever would listen that he had just acquired his SAG card, and also completed some extra work in the new Woody Allen picture, which, as was even then the case with Woody Allen pictures, was as yet untitled. (My calculations put it as Stardust Memories, and I don't believe Ron made the final cut.) Because porno chic really still was a thing, and because of what was being perceived as the "new" or "newish" permissiveness in mainstream film, Ron believed that the porn thing would soon no longer be a stigma and that he'd be able to make a relatively painless and strain-free entry into the Hollywood firmament. I remember him waxing particularly eloquent on this topic with then-Playboy-writer David Rensin, who was visiting the set for an article and who sat around quietly dictating his notes into a mini-cassette recorder. Ron, I remember, had just done a threesome scene with two blondes that had sufficiently discombobulated him that he emerged from the bedroom set with his Fruit of the Loom briefs on inside-out. Warming to his topic, Jeremy ultimately decried the hypocrisy of the ratings system. "Did you see Dressed to Kill?" he asked Rensin. Of course he had; we'd all seen DePalma's Dressed to Kill, which had been released earlier that summer and was something of a succès de scandale. (Hey, look, I did the accent grave!!) I think I had seen it two or three times, 'cause me and my boys were big DePalma fans. Ron wasn't quite so sanguine about the picture. "I can't believe they gave that picture an R! It's total bullshit! I mean, come on. That shower scene in the beginning? I saw that finger go up there, you can't fool me. And they call US perverts."

Ron was referring of course, to the film's notorious opening shower-rape-fantasy scene, in which Angie Dickinson and, alternately, her nude double Penthouse Pet Victoria Lynn (and boy did Penthouse make hay out of THAT connection, if I recall correctly) are violently taken by an unknown hunky assailant. It was Mr. Jeremy's contention that the sex play in that scene indeed crossed the line into "hardcore," e.g., "penetration" and was getting away with something. Mr. Jeremy's subsequent public pronouncements, inasmuch as I've followed them, have not infrequently taken a similar why's-everybody-always-picking-on-me-when-somebody-else-is-doing-worse-stuff tone.

SCORSESE AND DE PALMA WENT TO SEE 'DEEP THROAT'
In Richard Schickel's recent Conversations With Scorsese, on page 116, Martin Scorsese delves into the days when porn was beginning to go mainstream:

[Discussing Taxi Driver]

Schickel: The woman—a society campaign worker—is attracted to Travis because he’s so out of her league, as it were. Her Junior League, I guess. Which makes this notion of taking her to a porn movie—

Scorsese: Oh! I know. Well, you have to remember, a lot of people don’t remember now, but at that time, they were trying to make porn acceptable, with Deep Throat and Sometimes Sweet Susan, and pictures like that.

Schickel: I went to a few of those.

Scorsese: It was okay to go with a girl. But Brian De Palma and I went to see Deep Throat, and he said, Look at the people around us, it doesn’t feel right. There were couples. I said, You’re right. We should be with all these old guys in raincoats. It was a wonderful kind of hypocritical thing that was happening—it opened up the society.


Posted by Geoff at 11:37 PM CDT
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Monday, September 5, 2011
DE PALMA: 'I HAVE NEVER READ NATIONAL LAMPOON'
SAYS IDEA THAT 'PHANTOM' MAY HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY MAG'S PARODY IS 'COMPLETELY FALSE'
A couple of days ago, I posted a link to the latest episode of The Projection Booth, which was devoted to Phantom Of The Paradise, and featured interviews with Jessica Harper and Ari, the Principal Archivist at The Swan Archives. Near the end of the program, the hosts asked Ari about the "dark side" of Phantom, namely the speculation that a photoplay published in a 1971 issue of National Lampoon called "The Phantom Of The Rock Opera" may have provided some inspiration for De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise (the photoplay can be viewed on the Swan Archives' Production page).

De Palma listened to the podcast, and said he "was quite impressed with Ari's understanding of Phantom Of The Paradise." However, the filmmaker would like to correct the speculative "dark side" mentioned above. "The 'revelation' that Phantom Of The Paradise was inspired by a National Lampoon satire is completely false," stated De Palma. "I have never read the National Lampoon and I can only guess the similarities are purely coincidental. Needless to to say, I have no problem borrowing from the classics, but this wasn't one of them."

Posted by Geoff at 6:20 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, September 5, 2011 6:21 PM CDT
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CUMBOW'S MOVIETONE ESSAY ON 'OBSESSION'
"THE NEW LIFE BEGINS: DANTEAN OBSESSION IN 'OBSESSION'"

As Brian De Palma's Obsession turns 35 this year, it seems the perfect time for Robert Cumbow's essay on the film to be uncovered. Originally published in the January 1977 issue of Seattle's Movietone News, Cumbow's essay explores parallels between Obsession and Dante, but also digs deep into the ways De Palma's cinematic techniques provide subtextual clues to the psychological states of his characters (Obsession was written by Paul Schrader, based on a story by Schrader and De Palma). Cumbow (who also credits Grace Cumbow and Richard T. Jameson with assisting him in writing the piece) posited his own version of a 1977 "spoiler alert" by warning readers in his third paragraph that if they hadn't yet seen Obsession, "reading on can irreparably harm one’s experience of the film." I like the way Cumbow delves into the film's subtle clues in the following paragraph:

We are cinematographically tipped to LaSalle’s involvement in the plot against Court quite early in the film, even before we are fully aware there is such a plot. There is that arresting, unexpected, nobody’s point-of-view shot of LaSalle in the taxi, leaving Court in front of the Florentine church, LaSalle’s ambiguous expression inappropriately in focus while, through the rear window, Court blurs into the background as the taxi pulls away. But earlier still, we are given a stunning and troublesome presentiment of the increasing distance between the two partners (though at the time we may think Court’s obsession, not La Salle’s, to be the root of the separation): At a café party a drunken LaSalle lets slip his discontentment with Court’s disregard for money and his wasteful use of valuable park land as a memorial plot to his wife and daughter. Next day, Court and LaSalle face each other across a café table, more than a Panavision frame’s width between them, as we recall the previous evening’s moment of truth. As they talk, Zsigmond’s camera pans from one face to the other, distinctly not timing the pans with the alternating lines of dialogue, and racking focus as the camera rakes the space between the two men, fixing on the street scene outside the café window, so that each time the panning camera comes to rest on one or the other’s face, it must be refocused. This most dramatic stylistic emphasis stresses not only that both men are somehow out-of-synch with the real world, but also that they are no longer themselves compatible. Their partnership, no longer the unity of purpose it appeared to be in the opening sequence, has become a separateness of viewpoint and command.

Meanwhile, the PDF file of the entire Movietone News issue happens to include a year-end guide to the best films of 1976, a year that also saw the release of De Palma's Carrie. Cumbow listed Obsession as his film of the year, while Jameson found that film "tainted and trivializing," although he mentioned that Carrie came close to making his top ten (Cumbow found room for Carrie on his top ten list, and he also reviewed it near the end of the issue). Ken Eisler included Carrie in his top ten, and Rick Hermann included Obsession in his.

(Thanks to Peet!)


Posted by Geoff at 12:00 AM CDT
Updated: Thursday, September 8, 2011 5:29 PM CDT
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