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De Palma a la Mod

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De Palma Discussion
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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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« June 2013 »
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Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


Enthusiasms...

De Palma Community

The Virtuoso
of the 7th Art

The De Palma Touch

The Swan Archives

Carrie...A Fan's Site

Phantompalooza

No Harm In Charm

Paul Schrader

Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock Films

Snake Eyes
a la Mod

Mission To Mars
a la Mod

Sergio Leone
and the Infield
Fly Rule

Movie Mags

Directorama

The Filmmaker Who
Came In From The Cold

Jim Emerson on
Greetings & Hi, Mom!

Scarface: Make Way
For The Bad Guy

The Big Dive
(Blow Out)

Carrie: The Movie

Deborah Shelton
Official Web Site

The Phantom Project

Welcome to the
Offices of Death Records

The Carlito's Way
Fan Page

The House Next Door

Kubrick on the
Guillotine

FilmLand Empire

Astigmia Cinema

LOLA

Cultural Weekly

A Lonely Place

The Film Doctor

italkyoubored

Icebox Movies

Medfly Quarantine

Not Just Movies

Hope Lies at
24 Frames Per Second

Motion Pictures Comics

Diary of a
Country Cinephile

So Why This Movie?

Obsessive Movie Nerd

Nothing Is Written

Ferdy on Films

Cashiers De Cinema

This Recording

Mike's Movie Guide

Every '70s Movie

Dangerous Minds

EatSleepLiveFilm

No Time For
Love, Dr. Jones!

The former
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.
All topics  «
Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
BAMcinématek
Bart De Palma
Beaune Thriller Fest
Becoming Visionary
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Bill Pankow
Black Dahlia
Blow Out
Blue Afternoon
Body Double
Bonfire Of The Vanities
Books
Boston Stranglers
Bruce Springsteen
Cannes
Capone Rising
Carlito's Way
Carrie
Casualties Of War
Catch And Kill
Cinema Studies
Clarksville 1861
Columbia University
Columbo - Shooting Script
Congo
Conversation, The
Cop-Out
Cruising
Daft Punk
Dancing In The Dark
David Koepp
De Niro
De Palma & Donaggio
De Palma (doc)
De Palma Blog-A-Thon
De Palma Discussion
Demolished Man
Dick Vorisek
Dionysus In '69
Domino
Dressed To Kill
Edward R. Pressman
Eric Schwab
Fatal Attraction
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Film Series
Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
George Litto
Get To Know Your Rabbit
Ghost & The Darkness
Greetings
Happy Valley
Havana Film Fest
Heat
Hi, Mom!
Hitchcock
Home Movies
Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
Jack Fisk
Jared Martin
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Keith Gordon
Key Man, The
Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
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Magic Hour
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Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
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Murder a la Mod
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Nazi Gold
Newton 1861
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Palmetto
Paranormal Activity 2
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Passion
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Print The Legend
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Raising Cain
Red Shoes, The
Redacted
Responsive Eye
Retribution
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Rotwang muß weg!
Sakamoto
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Sisters
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Monday, June 10, 2013
1987 VIDEO: DE PALMA TALKS 'UNTOUCHABLES'

Posted by Geoff at 7:33 PM CDT
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Saturday, June 8, 2013
4K DIGITAL RESTORATION OF 'BODY DOUBLE'
IS GETTING RAVE REVIEWS; WILL SCREEN AT PORTLAND'S HOLLYWOOD THEATRE IN JULY


As Twilight Time gets ready to release its limited edition Blu-Ray of Body Double on August 13, the 4K Digital Restoration of the Brian De Palma film has been getting rave reviews all over the place. Christopher O'Neill hosted a small De Palma retrospective last month in Dundee, Scotland as a part of the Dundead Film Festival. In an e-mail, O'Neill said, "The three films - Dressed To Kill, Blow Out and Body Double - were screened from DCP. While all of the films looked well, I have to say I was blown away by the digital edition of Body Double. While the venue is equipped with 2K theatrical projection, the film was scanned at 4K and the transfer benefited from the higher resolution - it looked incredible."

Meanwhile, another De Palma a la Mod reader, Chris Baker, caught a screening of the 4K Body Double at San Francisco's Castro Theatre, where it was the tail end of a double bill with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window on May 18th. Baker tells us that the film "looked and sounded phenomenal."

The month of July brings a De Palma series, "Deja Vertigo," to the Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon. The series starts with the digital restoration of Body Double on the weekend of July 5th-July 7th. The other three films in the series (running each weekend in July) will be presented from 35mm prints: Dressed To Kill, Blow Out, and Scarface. The theatre website admits that the latter film does not fit the theme of the series, which focuses on De Palma's Hitchcockian psychological thrillers. "This series will focus on the early 80′s," states the site's description, "when De Palma crafted gripping tales of mystery and murder, brimming with operatic set pieces, off-kilter camera work, steamy sexuality, and nail-biting suspense." As a bonus on the final two days, the theatre will also screen a 35mm print of Howard Hawks' Scarface from 1932.


Posted by Geoff at 7:48 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, June 15, 2013 10:37 PM CDT
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Friday, June 7, 2013
DE PALMA TALKS 'BLOW OUT'
IN SUNDAY NY TIMES ARTICLE SPARKED BY 'BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO'
The New York Times posted an article online today that will appear in this Sunday's print edition. The article, written by Mekado Murphy, focuses on movies about movie sound recordists, centered on the current release of Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio, and featuring quotes from Brian De Palma about Blow Out, which the article states is "probably the best known" among the handful of films "that put sound work in the spotlight."

"A person holding a microphone or sitting at a mixing board adjusting faders may not at first seem like the most compelling cinematic subject," Murphy writes. "The challenge is supplying creative visuals to illuminate characters focused on the aural."

A bit later in the article, Murphy brings De Palma into the discussion...

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Working on a larger spectrum was John Travolta, who played a sound recordist for B-horror movies who accidentally records the murder of a presidential hopeful in Mr. De Palma’s 1981 thriller, Blow Out. Mr. De Palma, known for his focus on visual style, drew from his own experience with a sound editor.

“When I was mixing Dressed to Kill, ” — his Psycho pastiche from 1980 — “I was working with sound effects editor Dan Sable, who had done a bunch of movies for me,” Mr. De Palma said by phone. “We were looking for an effect. We had some wind in the trees, and I heard the effect he used and said: ‘Dan, I’ve heard that same wind effect in the last three movies. Can’t you get me some new sound?’ ” (They both laughed; the next day Mr. Sable went out to record some new wind.) Mr. De Palma wrote a scene in Blow Out that is taken almost directly from this exchange.

While the film involves a serial killer and features elaborately staged action sequences, Mr. De Palma makes time for detailed moments that explore his main character’s work. In a crucial scene, he syncs his recording to film images of the same event. “I did this as an editor, and sound editors do it, but I don’t think anybody had ever seen the process,” he said.

The whirring reels, large recording equipment and rolls of audiotape seen in Blow Out and Berberian Sound Studio are artifacts of the pre-digital filmmaking eras in which these movies take place. The imposing hardware, as well as the sounds it produces, plays a supporting role, too. Joakim Sundström, the supervising sound editor for Berberian, said that his team used digital equipment but he gave the sound a retro feel.

“What I did was take the majority of sounds that were in the film and I retransferred them onto magnetic tape and quarter-inch tape,” Mr. Sundström said.


Posted by Geoff at 7:33 PM CDT
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Thursday, June 6, 2013


Posted by Geoff at 11:07 PM CDT
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Posted by Geoff at 12:29 AM CDT
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Tuesday, June 4, 2013
TRAILER: BESSON - DE NIRO - PFEIFFER - ARBOGAST
"THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I HAD IT ALL. PEOPLE WOULD ASK ME, 'WHAT WAS IT LIKE BEING UNTOUCHABLE?'"

Posted by Geoff at 11:30 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 5:23 PM CDT
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eONE POSTS NEW PIC FROM SET OF 'PASSION'

Posted by Geoff at 6:25 PM CDT
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Saturday, June 1, 2013
'PASSION' TALK
SUMMER PREVIEWS, MELBOURNE FEST, & A SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON WITH 'LOVE CRIME'
Earlier this week, it was announced that Brian De Palma's Passion will be included in this year's Melbourne International Film Festival. A day or so later, the fest's web site posted its description of the film:
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Sex, sin, terror and torment, De Palma style.

With bountiful betrayal and abundant bitchiness, Passion is a classic Brian De Palma (Redacted, MIFF 2008) psychological thriller – complete with the requisite battling beauties. Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams play against type as corporate-climbing colleagues locked in a professional power struggle that soon takes a turn toward the personal.

Steeped in the filmmaker’s own back catalogue, and shaped by his trademark flourishes, the pulpy, neo-noir remaking of Alain Corneau’s final film, Love Crime, is as visually arresting as it is emotionally lurid. As obsessions spiral into a seductive symphony, the hallucinations and humiliations are amplified with every dramatic interaction between the fated femme fatales, accompanied by a bawdy sense of humour.

TWO SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEWS
On Thursday, Miami New Times posted a 2013 Summer Movie Guide written by Simon Abrams. While the article still has Passion listed incorrectly for June 7 (the film will not be released in theaters until August 30), Abrams loves the film, so it's always fun to read what he has to say about it:

"Brian De Palma returns with this visually delirious, Hitchcock-inspired pulp remake of 2010 French thriller Love Crime. Rachel McAdams and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace co-star as social-climbing ad women whose rivalry leads to a hilariously convoluted murder plot. The film is full of everything De Palma's fans and detractors have come to associate him with, building to a fantastic orchestra hall set piece, complete with split-screen photography. It's good, mean fun."

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Examiner's Jeffrey M. Anderson has put together a selected list of summer films that "may be the cream of the crop." He includes Passion (with the correct theatrical date of August 30), and makes it the third film mentioned in the article. "De Palma returns to the comfortable (or uncomfortable) territory that has made so many of his films classics and guilty pleasures," writes Anderson. "McAdams plays a conniving boss who steals an idea from her new protege (Rapace), leading to an ever-escalating battle of wills. The movie promises great obsession and voyeurism in De Palma’s high style."

FRENCH BLOGGER: 'PASSION' IN THREE WORDS: MUSIQUE - ZOOM - FEMMES
On May 23rd, Timekeeper at the blog Visionarium posted "Passion in three words: Musique - zoom - femmes." He continued, "And I wanted to stop there. Enough, it satisfies me, it sums up what I like most about Passion, but I could say exactly the same thing about Femme Fatale and almost the same thing about Body Double or Snake Eyes." Yesterday, Timekeeper posted a comparison between Love Crime and Passion, calling the former "Passion without passion." The post is illustrated with several stills comparing shots from each film. Timekeeper criticizes Love Crime for being a "French film" in the sense that it has very little camera movement, as though it was filmed in the manner of writing a novel. "As if the image does not count," writes Timekeeper. "As if story alone is sufficient to itself."


Posted by Geoff at 12:30 AM CDT
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Monday, May 27, 2013




Posted by Geoff at 7:42 PM CDT
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'PASSION' TO PLAY MELBOURNE FILM FEST
INITIAL TITLES ANNOUNCED TODAY; FEST RUNS JULY 25 TO AUG 11
Brian De Palma's Passion has been confirmed for this year's Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), according to The Border Mail. The three-week festival runs from July 25 through August 11. Other titles confirmed so far include Park Chan-wook's Stoker, Sally Potter's Ginger And Rosa, and Giuseppe Tornatore's The Best Offer. The complete program will be announced July 2nd.

Posted by Geoff at 4:39 PM CDT
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