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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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De Palma interviewed
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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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Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
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Friday, June 22, 2012
A GREAT IDEA...


Posted by Geoff at 8:54 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, June 22, 2012 8:56 PM CDT
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Thursday, June 21, 2012
NEW 'PASSION' PIC SURFACES
GOOD OLD-FASHIONED PUBLICITY SHOT FROM WILD BUNCH

The above publicity shot from the set of Brian De Palma's Passion has appeared on the Wild Bunch international sales site. Without getting into any spoilers, the image shows that De Palma has surely made some tricky changes to the Love Crime story, which should keep those that have seen the Alain Corneau film on their toes.

Posted by Geoff at 4:46 PM CDT
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Wednesday, June 20, 2012
R.I.P. ANDREW SARRIS
The influential film critic Andrew Sarris passed away today at the age of 83. While Sarris was not exactly a fan of Brian De Palma's films, he often had positive things to say about them to go along with the bad. His favorite De Palma film was Mission To Mars. His least favorite appeared to be Dressed To Kill, for which he wrote two reviews, the second of which served as a rebuttal to Pauline Kael's and David Denby's positive reviews. The debate over Hitchcock and De Palma was played out between these reviews by Kael and Sarris. In his great new book, Un-American Psycho: Brian De Palma And The Political Invisible, Chris Dumas uses the Sarris/Kael reviews of Dressed To Kill as a sort of springboard into his attempt to "reposition De Palma in regard to Hitchcock." (I'm currently reading that book, and will write more about it later.)

This passage from the conclusion of Sarris' 2007 review of De Palma's most recent film, Redacted, sums up his general views on De Palma's cinema: "Mr. De Palma, now 67, has camped on the darker side of existence for most of his 40-year, 38-film career. The horrors of Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), The Untouchables (1987) and Raising Cain (1992), among his more successful works, seem to have anticipated the current craze for morbidity in our entertainments. Still, my favorite De Palma effort is his much underrated Mission to Mars (2000). The point is that he didn’t need Vietnam or Iraq to explore the evil depths to which human beings can descend when the opportunity arises. In this respect, the horrors of war simply multiply the horrors of so-called peacetime."

Posted by Geoff at 6:00 PM CDT
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
WES ANDERSON: DE PALMA IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES
"THE MOST SOPHISTICATED VISUAL STYLE OF ANYBODY"

In the video above, the Hollywood Reporter's Todd Gilchrist sits down with Wes Anderson, and suggests to the director that his new film, Moonrise Kingdom, seems the most Stanley Kubrick-inspired film he's done, in terms of some of the techniques used. Anderson acknowledges that Kubrick is one of his favorites, but responds that when he is making a movie, he isn't consciously aware of what he is "stealing everything from." He goes on to name other influences: Roman Polanski, John Huston, Martin Scorsese, and Orson Welles. "They're guys whose way with the camera I feel like I’m always taking something from," Anderson says in the video. A bit later, the following exchange takes place...
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Todd Gilchrist: You’ve created such a singular and identifiable body of work. Have you ever thought about, or have you ever been offered sort of the opportunity to apply the style that you’ve created for yourself to maybe a more conventional sort of storytelling structure? I mean, look at, you know, Brian De Palma, maybe doing a commercial movie and then doing something that’s very uniquely his. Have you thought about flirting with those kinds of projects?

Wes Anderson: Well, Brian De Palma is a very interesting one. You know, Brian De Palma is one of my favorite directors ever, and such a… the most sophisticated visual style of anybody. And [his] way with a camera. But I think in a way, Brian De Palma is somebody who can take a giant, complicated action sequence, and say, “I know precisely how to execute this,” and he can do it in a way that is completely his, and yet is highly effective as a, you know, suspense and as… [waving his arms] understanding the space and how this action is occurring. And, you know, I’m a completely different kind of moviemaker. The basic crucial talents of that, that Brian De Palma has, are exactly what I lack. Probably.


Posted by Geoff at 12:21 AM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 12:22 AM CDT
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
MUNICH FEST TO HONOR MELANIE GRIFFITH
FOUR-FILM SHOWCASE, PLUS WORLD PREMIERE OF THRILLER 'THE GRIEF TOURIST'
Melanie Griffith will receive the CineMerit Award at this year's Munich Film Festival, which runs June 29-July 7. The award honors outstanding personalities in international cinema, according to Variety's Ed Meza. Griffith will appear in person on July 3 to accept the prize, and also attend the world premiere of her new thriller, The Grief Tourist, from British director Siri Krishnamma. That film is about a nightwatchman who, as a hobby, takes week-long vacations to grief tourist locations where serial killers have left their mark. Griffith plays a café waitress named Betsy. The Munich fest will also include a showcase retrospective featuring four of Griffith's films: Jonathan Demme's Something Wild, Mike NicolsWorking Girl (for which Griffith was nominated for a best actress Oscar), Mike FiggisStormy Monday, and Fernando Trueba's Two Much. It was on the set of the latter film that Griffith met her husband, Antonio Banderas, in 1995. Griffith made a big splash in Brian De Palma's Body Double in 1984, but she doesn't make her entrance into that film until almost the halfway mark, which is probably why it is not included in the brief retrospective. She also appeared in De Palma's Bonfire Of The Vanities.

Posted by Geoff at 10:42 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, June 10, 2012 10:46 PM CDT
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Friday, June 8, 2012
1978 VIDEO INTERVIEWS FOR 'THE FURY'
DE PALMA, YABLANS, IRVING, SNODGRESS EACH SIT DOWN WITH AUSTIN'S CAROLYN JACKSON
The Texas Archive of the Moving Image includes a collection of on-camera interviews conducted by Austin TV personality Carolyn Jackson. Among the videos in this collection are four conversations that appear to have been part of a press junket for The Fury in 1978, featuring director Brian De Palma, producer Frank Yablans, and actresses Amy Irving and Carrie Snodgress. De Palma explains how they shot many of the special effects sequences in the film, and Yablans mentions The Demolished Man. I cannot seem to get these videos embedded here, but go to each of the following links to watch them:

Brian De Palma
Frank Yablans
Amy Irving
Carrie Snodgress

Posted by Geoff at 12:28 AM CDT
Updated: Friday, June 8, 2012 7:04 PM CDT
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Wednesday, June 6, 2012
MORE NOOMI RAPACE
ON MAPPING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE OF HER 'PASSION' CHARACTER
Contributor Magazine's Antonia Nessen has a nice interview with Noomi Rapace, conducted as she was just beginning to film Brian De Palma's Passion. While nothing too much more about Passion is revealed than has been published before, she does go a little deeper into some of the ways in which she invests herself into her characters, Passion included. The article also provides the last name of Rapace's character, and also features some great fashion photographs of the actress, such as the shot to the left. Here is an excerpt which delves into Rapace's research and roles:
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The Norwegian thriller Babycall recently premiered in Europe, and was filmed in Oslo two years ago. Without revealing too much of what happens, it’s easy to understand that playing the leading role of the single mother Anna was mentally taxing. I ask Noomi if there’s such a thing as getting too much into character:

”No, but there have been times when I haven’t realised that the role has taken over. My character in Babycall is very fragile and traumatised after a destructive relationship. During my research I met a woman whose close relative had been raped and murdered. She felt physical pain for years afterwards and had a hard time controlling her body. When she was driving for example, her hands would suddenly just lock up. Our bodies seem to handle pain, grief and trauma in ways that can be quite unpredictable.”

In the movie a babycall monitor sets off the nerve-wrenching plot. Anna buys it to make sure nothing her 8-year-old son stays safe at night, only to find out that the babycall picks up another child crying somewhere in the apartment building.

“When we had been filming for maybe three weeks my hips started hurting. I felt like an old Labrador that couldn’t walk. I could hardly get out of bed. The doctors and chiropractors couldn’t say what it was. It didn’t get better until the day after we finished shooting. Then the pain disappeared, it was just gone. When I look back at it, it seems like my subconscious picked up on the woman’s story and then my body somehow induced the state psychosomatically. And it was beyond my control.”

Preparing for both Babycall and now Passion, Noomi has regular conversations with Dr Clara Gumpert, associate professor and Director of the Centre for Psychiatric Research in Stockholm.

“Before Babycall I tried to learn to understand what it’s like to live in a world where you know that you can slip into a psychosis that you will experience as reality. I could be sitting here being psychotic and seeing devils and demons but pretending everything is normal and be able to control them. But as soon as we log off Skype I will say to them ‘Why can’t you leave me alone when I’m sitting here talking to Antonia’.”

In Brian De Palma’s drama thriller Passion, Noomi plays the lead character Isabella James, a young ambitious businesswoman who gets into a close relationship - with several intriguing turns - with her boss and mentor, played by Rachel McAdams. In preparation for the film, Noomi has practiced Bikram yoga pretty much every day, but most of all she tries to map James’ psyche, her psychological landscape:

“Now that I’m immersing myself in a new part, I try to understand each scene based on the character’s motivations and goals. How does her mind work? I have to make sure that the actions of my characters are psychologically convincing. If I don’t it becomes almost physically impossible to proceed.”


Posted by Geoff at 8:54 PM CDT
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Tuesday, June 5, 2012
ZACHAREK ON 'PROMETHEUS' & 'MISSION TO MARS'
M2M "A MUCH MORE PASSIONATE, MORE NARRATIVELY SOUND, VERSION OF THIS SORT OF INTERPLANETARY SPIRITUAL IDEALISM"
Movieline's Stephanie Zacharek finds Ridley Scott's Prometheus a bit too tasteful, overcomplicated, and ultimately lackluster. "You can practically hear Prometheus groaning under the weight of its ambitions," she muses disappointedly, adding, "it’s a far cry from the sound Scott was going for, the music of the celestial spheres." Her review includes some spoilers, but none in the following excerpt, in which she compares Prometheus to Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars...
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Scott is trying to make sure Prometheus is about something, and his ideals may have distracted him from the more prosaic task of just getting on with the storytelling. When Brian De Palma presented, with Mission to Mars, a much more passionate, and more narratively sound, version of this sort of interplanetary spiritual idealism, it was treated as a “bad” science fiction movie. Prometheus, on the other hand, is tasteful even in the midst of all its squirm-inducing gross-outs, and that’s a liability: It’s impossible to have tasteful passion.
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Meanwhile, De Palma a la Mod reader Sergio posted on another thread: "I just saw Prometheus and it really is a lot like Mission To Mars, and not just because they are both channelling Kubrick's 2001. Most of the action beats and story beats are pretty much the same, as is the subtext of the movie, too, about aliens seeding earth. There's even a 'Face' ..."

Posted by Geoff at 6:39 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 12:21 AM CDT
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RAPACE: DE PALMA & I STARTED ON DIFFERENT ISLANDS
BY THE END WE HAD MOVED INTO THE SAME COUNTRY, SHARING THE VISION, SHARING THE SAME DREAM
Moviefone's Drew Taylor interviewed Noomi Rapace on the junket trail of Prometheus, and, good man that he is, managed to ask her a question about working with Brian De Palma on Passion...

[Moviefone] From one great director to the next, you've just worked with Brian De Palma on "Passion," a remake of last year's French thriller "Love Crime." What was that like?

[Noomi Rapace] Wow, yeah, that was a very different experience. I had never done anything like that. And stepping into his world, we had discussions and conversations about the script and the relationship between my character and Rachel McAdams' character. It was really interesting because it started off and we were on two different islands, me and De Palma, and when I finished, I felt we had moved into the same country and we were sharing the vision and sharing the same dream... I became really influenced and colored by my character, and she has a weird emotional life.

[Moviefone] It seems like you're kind of a lucky charm for these filmmakers returning to their favorite genres, with Ridley going back to sci-fi and De Palma returning to an erotic thriller.

[Rapace] [Laughs] Maybe!


Posted by Geoff at 6:18 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 6:20 PM CDT
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RAPACE DESCRIBES HER 'PASSION' CHARACTER
"COMPLETELY DISTURBED...SHE HAS A VERY WEIRD INNER LANDSCAPE"
During an interview about Prometheus with Cinema Blend's Sean O'Connell, Noomi Rapace found herself briefly discussing her character in the upcoming Passion. Near the end of the interview, O'Connell asked Rapace about her Prometheus character, Elizabeth Shaw...

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[O'Connell] Your character has the very difficult task of bringing religion into the equation. And faith. As an actress, how much of this do you have to believe as an individual to help sell the performance? Can they be wildly different from your own beliefs?

[Noomi Rapace] I think so. I did a movie with Brian De Palma called Passion, and my character’s spirit is so completely disturbed. She has a very weird inner landscape. Her thoughts are pretty far away from my thoughts. Elizabeth Shaw is more close to me. It’s easier for me to step into her shoes. But I always say that I have to find a way to always use myself and translate things from my own life. For example, to find the religious side of her, I really had to travel back to my own childhood to remember what I thought and how I saw things. And I believed in angels. I was always pretty sure that we have two different kinds of angels – dark angels and good angels. So a lot of time, as I tried to find Elizabeth, it was almost like I traveled back into myself. You have to use yourself. Or, that’s what I need to do. I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want to fake it. I want to live it.

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Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott, is said to have themes akin to De Palma's Mission To Mars. It opens Friday in North America. Rapace will be a guest tonight on CBS' Late Show with David Letterman.


Posted by Geoff at 1:03 AM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, June 5, 2012 1:07 AM CDT
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