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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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Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


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Scarface: Make Way
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italkyoubored

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De Palma a la Mod
site

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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Saturday, October 20, 2012


Posted by Geoff at 3:55 PM CDT
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Friday, October 19, 2012
DOUBLE DOUBLE DE PALMA WEEKEND AT THE AERO
'BLOW OUT' PAIRED WITH 'BLOW-UP', 'DRESSED TO KILL' WITH 'PSYCHO'

The Aero Theatre in Santa Monica has a couple of De Palma-related double features this weekend. Tonight at 7:30 (Friday) is Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, followed by Brian De Palma's Blow Out. Tomorrow night at 7:30 is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, followed by De Palma's Dressed To Kill. In each case, the De Palma film will be screened via DCP, while the Antonioni and Hitchcock films will be screened from 35mm prints.

POST-ELECTION SSCREENING OF 'BLOW OUT' IN DALLAS
Meanwhile, our old friend Bill Fentum informs us that Blow Out, which involves the death of a presidential candidate just prior to an election, will have two screenings the night after the upcoming November election at the Magnolia in Dallas. The screening is part of a series at the Magnolia called "The Big Movie," which normally runs on Tuesday nights. However, since November 6 is election day, it appears they moved the screening that week to Wednesday, November 7.
(Thanks Bill!)

Posted by Geoff at 8:21 PM CDT
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Posted by Geoff at 7:37 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:42 PM CDT
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Thursday, October 18, 2012
'PASSION' IS OFFICIAL CLOSING FILM AT GHENT
UPDATE: DONAGGIO INTRODUCING FRIDAY NIGHT SCREENING OF 'PASSION'
SCREENING THIS SATURDAY; DONAGGIO AWARD & CONCERT THAT SAME EVENING
Back in April, Variety reported that Pino Donaggio will receive the 12th Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's World Soundtrack Awards, an event which takes place on the closing night (this Saturday, October 20) of Belgium's Ghent Film Festival. One thing we seem to have missed was an announcement that the official closing night film of the festival is Brian De Palma's Passion, for which Donaggio composed the score. In a reader's comment below, Alex tells us that Donaggio will be on hand to introduce a special screening of Passion Friday night (and Alex will be in attendance-- thanks Alex!). The World Soundtrack Awards Concert & Ceremony will include a concert celebrating the music of James Newton Howard, who will share conducting duties with Dirk Brossé. The Ghent website states that a selection of Donaggio's work will also be performed at the concert. The festival opened October 9th.

Posted by Geoff at 9:16 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, October 19, 2012 7:03 PM CDT
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Posted by Geoff at 6:09 PM CDT
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Posted by Geoff at 12:26 AM CDT
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
'CARRIE' CUES & ECHOES OF 'SISTERS'
AS 'AMERICAN HORROR STORY' BEGINS ITS SECOND SEASON
[Possible Spoilers] So I'm watching the season premiere earlier tonight of American Horror Story, the F/X series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, and about 10-15 minutes in, I hear this very familiar Pino Donaggio music. At first I wondered if it was just a little musical homage to Donaggio's "Bucket Of Blood" cue from Brian De Palma's Carrie, but as it went on, it became clear to me that it was that precise recording-- it was indeed "Bucket Of Blood," edited to fit in with what was happening on screen.

And the scene in question was the introduction of the character pictured here, Lana Winters, a journalist played by Sarah Paulson. "Bucket Of Blood" (as the track was titled on the original Carrie soundtrack release) plays as Lana approaches the asylum (in 1964) that provides the main setting of season two-- and the Donaggio track is repeated twice more in the episode, creating a little motif for Lana. Lana is working on a story about the asylum under the false pretense of doing a fluff piece on the bakery run by Sister Jude (Jessica Lange). The "Bucket Of Blood" cue is heard a second time, just moments later in the episode, during the scene pictured here: Lana is watching as the latest "patient" (Kit Walker, played by Evan Peters) is delivered to the asylum, and the music builds suspense as he is led up the stairs, and the Donaggio crescendo peaks as Kit is stripped and thrown into a shower stall.

In between these two "Bucket Of Blood" cues is another Donaggio cue from Carrie: "For The Last Time We'll Pray" plays as Lana makes her way inside the asylum for the first time. Sister Mary (Lily Rabe) leads Lana up the stairs to meet Sister Jude, and they walk in on her just as she is beginning to shave the head of a patient, Shelly (Chloe Sevigny).

Now before I get to the third use of "Bucket Of Blood," which comes later on in the episode (confirming the running motif), it is worth noting that Sevigny portrayed Grace Collier, the journalist, in Douglas Buck's 2006 remake of De Palma's Sisters. This, of course, is the journalist character who was played by Jennifer Salt in De Palma's Sisters. Salt is an executive producer on American Horror Story, and she wrote a couple of episodes from the first season. This current episode, and, it would appear, the season to come, has clear echoes of De Palma's Sisters, in which Grace, investigating a murder, infiltrates a mental health clinic. However, Grace is discovered and captured by Dr. Emil Breton (William Finley), who tricks the others at the clinic into thinking Grace is a stray patient. "You want to know our secrets," Emil says to Grace as he puts her under a hallucinatory sedation. "We will share them with you. Watch." On American Horror Story, Lana is eventually discovered and captured in a similar manner. "She wanted an inside look into our facility," Sister Jude later tells Lana's roomate, "and I will see that she gets it."

But before that happens, "Bucket Of Blood" is heard a third time as Sister Mary appears to be feeding someone or something in the woods, and the music this time crescendos as Lana herself startles Sister Mary-- bringing Lana's appropriated Donaggio motif full circle.

Appropriating themes from horror movies is nothing new for American Horror Story. Last season, Bernard Herrmann's whistling theme from Twisted Nerve was used as a recurring theme for Evan Peters' character. (That same theme had previously been reappropriated by Quentin Tarantino for a memorable De Palma-Dressed-To-Kill-esque split screen sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1.) For all I know, there were other such music cues that I did not recognize. But I wouldn't be surprised to hear "Bucket Of Blood" again throughout the season, if Lana's story continues.


Posted by Geoff at 11:35 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, October 20, 2012 3:57 PM CDT
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'PASSION' & COMPLETE DE PALMA RETROSPECTIVE
AT LISBON & ESTORIL FILM FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 9-18
Brian De Palma's Passion will screen out of competition as part of the official selection at the 6th annual Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival, which runs November 9-18. The screening of Passion will be the capper to a complete retrospective of De Palma's work. Below is an excerpt from the LEFFEST site's description of the retrospective...
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"Since the beginning, his films showed the experimental vein and the penchant for intertextuality and metafiction of the 'nouvelle vague', besides making use of the restrained and distilled suspense Hitchcock became famous for.

"An admirer of Bretchian distanciation who likes to keep the viewers aware of their emotional involvement in the film, De Palma values the medium of film first and foremost. 'You suck them in and annihilate them. Then you say, “It's just a movie, right? It's not real,”' he noted in an interview.

"He reached a wider audience with Carrie, the film adaptation of Stephen King´s horror novel, which garnered the actors Oscar nominations for their performances. In it, Brian De Palma made extensive use of split-screen and slow motion shots to tell the story visually rather than through dialogue. His film, The Fury, made an impression on Godard, who included De Palma in his project Histoire(s) du Cinéma."


Posted by Geoff at 7:10 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:11 PM CDT
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012


Posted by Geoff at 12:13 AM CDT
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MORE VIDEOS FROM DE PALMA/BAUMBACH TALK
DE PALMA ON FIGURING OUT WHAT WAS BOTHERING PACINO FOR 'SCARFACE' SCENE


"I went back and I was watching what was going on with the rehearsal, and then I figured out, by watching Al [Pacino] move around, I could see that the room was too small. It was something as simple as that. You know, he wanted to have that big table, so he could move around it. You know, and sort of push himself around in the chair, and have Robert Loggia come toward him. And what we actually did is, I said to Nando [Ferdinando Scarfiotti], the set designer, 'Build it four times bigger.' That's what we did. We went back and shot the scene three weeks later, it was this huge space. Because we had all these character actors there, and they didn't have enough space to move around. And it seems so simple when I tell you now, but unless you've actually witnessed this stuff happening, it's quite something."

DE PALMA HAD THE 'DRESSED TO KILL' ART DIRECTOR "BASICALLY DUPLICATE" HIS SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT

PROBLEM FOR EVERY ARTIST: HOW MUCH OF YOURSELF TO REVEAL IN QUEST FOR TRUTH


Posted by Geoff at 12:06 AM CDT
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