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De Palma a la Mod

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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


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

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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
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Beaune Thriller Fest
Becoming Visionary
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Bill Pankow
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Blue Afternoon
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Bonfire Of The Vanities
Books
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Cannes
Capone Rising
Carlito's Way
Carrie
Casualties Of War
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Columbia University
Columbo - Shooting Script
Congo
Conversation, The
Cop-Out
Cruising
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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
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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
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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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Newton 1861
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Palmetto
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Print The Legend
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Raising Cain
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Redacted
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Rotwang muß weg!
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Sisters
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Saturday, January 7, 2017
PIC - DE PALMA w/SCORSESE & JAY COCKS
AT LUNCHEON TUESDAY TO CELEBRATE PARAMOUNT'S NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW WINNERS
The photo at left, taken by Marion Curtis, shows Brian De Palma with Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks at a luncheon hosted by Paramount Pictures this past Tuesday to celebrate the studio's National Board of Review award winners (Scorsese and Cocks won best adapted screenplay for Silence). The three have been friends, of course, for many many years. Cocks did the documentary-within-the-film for De Palma's Sisters, and the two are also credited together with rewriting George Lucas' opening crawl for Star Wars (back when it was just called Star Wars). In 1998, Cocks co-wrote De Palma's unrealized project Nazi Gold.

As for the luncheon, The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg included a brief description in an article about that night's awards ceremony:
Other big winners included Arrival's Amy Adams for best actress, introduced as a "badass" by Chris Messina; and Silence's Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese for best adapted screenplay, introduced by the film's supporting actors Adam Driver and Liam Neeson. (Adams, Cocks and Scorsese also were feted earlier in the day with a Paramount-hosted, Academy member-packed luncheon high above Manhattan in Rockefeller Center's Rainbow Room; many attendees of that gathering subsequently hustled over to the 21 Club, where Lonergan and Affleck were at the center of a similar event, hosted by Manchester distributors Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions; and later to The Monkey Bar, where The Weinstein Co., which was shut out of the NBR Awards, toasted Lion lead actor Sunny Pawar, supporting actor Dev Patel and supporting actress Nicole Kidman.)

Posted by Geoff at 6:33 PM CST
Updated: Saturday, January 7, 2017 6:38 PM CST
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Friday, January 6, 2017
CARLOTTA ULTRA 'PHANTOM' BOX - APRIL 12
NEW RESTORATION, BLU-RAY/DVD, BOOK, COVER ART AND OTHER SPECS STILL TO BE REVEALED
Carlotta Films announced on its Facebook page today that it will release an Ultra Collector's Box of Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise on April 12. The set will include a brand new 2K restoration of the film. If it is mostly like the Ultra Collector's Box of De Palma's Body Double that they released in 2015, we can expect that the discs will be region free. The cover art depicted here is not final-- for Body Double, Carlotta had commissioned a fantastic illustration by Jay Shaw. Other features of the set have not yet been specified, but when pressed in the comments of the Facebook post, Carlotta responded, "the book will bring together many texts and analyses unreleased on the film archives, exclusive promotions, interviews of the era... and much more!"

Posted by Geoff at 10:25 PM CST
Updated: Saturday, January 7, 2017 11:04 AM CST
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Wednesday, January 4, 2017
WATCH & TWEET 'THE FURY' TONIGHT

Posted by Geoff at 8:22 PM CST
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Monday, January 2, 2017
NEW SHORT FROM ROMAIN LEHNHOFF
NEW YEAR'S THEMED 'STARTING FROM SCRATCH', W/ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Posted by Geoff at 2:03 PM CST
Updated: Monday, January 2, 2017 2:05 PM CST
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Friday, December 30, 2016
'SCARFACE' POSTER ART

Posted by Geoff at 5:47 PM CST
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Thursday, December 29, 2016
LEGUIZAMO ON WORKING WITH DE PALMA
SPECIFICALLY 'CARLITO'S WAY' - SAYS CONTRACT WITH FOX KEPT HIM FROM BEING IN 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE'
Birth.Movies.Death.'s Jacob Knight posted an interview with John Leguizamo two weeks ago, and asked him about his work with Brian De Palma. Here is the excerpt:
BMD: Before I let you go, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about working with Brian De Palma. He’s my favorite filmmaker of all time and you were in one of his absolute masterpieces, Carlito’s Way.

JL: Aw man, I was supposed to be in Mission: Impossible, too, but had a Fox contract that they wouldn’t let me out of. I was so looking forward to being in that movie. It would’ve been the third time I got to do something with Brian. I was so devastated. I loved working with him. I owe my career to him. He creates this environment where anything is possible.

In Carlito’s Way, I found myself as an actor. With my entrance as Benny Blanco, he let me do between twenty and thirty takes. And we’re talking about doing this on film, not digital. This was the era when you usually got three takes and had to beg for more. Not with Brian. Brian would let you play, because he was digging what I was doing; all my flamboyance and improv.

BMD: Do you have any specific recollections about how he directed you on that set?

JL: He loves to tell one actor one thing and another actor another thing and then just watch them go at it. It’s all about conflict with Brian. He just wants to get everyone riled up. He gets off on tension and watching actors cross the line. I’m so glad you brought him up because he’s really one of the geniuses of our time.

BMD: Earlier this year, I got to watch Carlito’s Way on 35mm and took my girlfriend, who had never seen it, and she was completely blown away.

JL: I think it’s due to finally get recognized for what it is. I was so proud of my work in that.

BMD: As you should be. You got to play against peak Pacino and killed it.


Posted by Geoff at 11:57 PM CST
Updated: Thursday, December 29, 2016 11:58 PM CST
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Wednesday, December 28, 2016
TWEET - SERRA'S 'DEATH OF LOUIS XIV'

Posted by Geoff at 11:54 PM CST
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Friday, December 23, 2016
GARRETT BROWN - STEADICAM IN 'CARLITO'S WAY'
IN CONJUNCTION W/CUTS, SUBWAY SEQUENCES "ACQUIRE AN ENERGY & DYNAMISM" THAT WOULD BE DIMINISHED AS SINGLE-TAKE
As reported here last weekend, Brian De Palma's Raising Cain and Carlito's Way were screened back-to-back Friday afternoon/evening at The Film Society of Lincoln Center, as part of its current series, "Going Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam." The Lincoln Center series is the cover story of the current issue of Film Comment, which includes an interview with Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown, who mentions Carlito's Way as a prime example of the Steadicam being used to shoot in conjunction with cuts, or edits, to create a dynamic flow of images (as opposed to elaborate single-take sequences). The interview was conducted by John Bailey-- here is the excerpt:
What do you think of movies that use the Steadicam as a real-time technique-- the entire film being shot in a continuous take? I think of a movie like Russian Ark.
Of course I enjoyed Russian Ark, and likewise several more recent, less rigorous examples that invisibly devided the operating chore into more manageable hunks. But they are tours de force and inevitably degrade the stoytelling to achieve a continuousness that non-cineastes might not even notice. I love cuts. Moviegoers don't even notice them, and I loved shooting for cuts with Steadicam. At best, such as in the subway sequences of Carlito's Way, they acquire an energy and dynamism and pure bold kinetic energy that would be inevitably diminished by any attempt at a "one-er." I cherish the Western cinema tradition as is... cuts and all!

"A DEVASTATING ARGUMENT AGAINST HANDHELD"

Earlier this month, No Film School's Emily Buder interviewed Brown, and asked him to name "some of those greatest Steadicam shots which you have not operated yourself"...

Well, I was immediately a fan of the Goodfellas shot. God, there are just tons of them. The one from Boogie Nights I loved. Carlito's Way has some fantastic shots in it. Kill Bill. There's astounding Steadicam in that. And a vast number of foreign films. An inability to think of them as a sign that there are so many that are spectacular. It's like asking somebody, "What are your favorite violin solos in history?" and they flood in on you, the most astonishing ones by this and that artist.

The important thing that I learned—and we've all learned—is Steadicam is a rather crappy invention. By itself, it doesn't do a thing. In the hands of a gifted operator, it is an instrument and is of no more use than the skill of the operator. It just barely allows a gifted human being to do this amazing trick: to run along with their ever-moving corpus. Out the other end comes an astonishing dolly shot smooth as glass.

Not only that, it's a dolly shot that can do stuff a dolly can't. As a fingertip operation, you could put the lens precisely where it wants to be, not just in dolly to the right, but in French curves. It would drive a dolly group crazy. Instinctively putting the lens where you want as boom up and down, and traverse left and right and aim, pan, and tilt. Everywhere your feet can take you and your arms can put this thing, there is the potential path for a lens. But the point isn't to be flashy.

The point is to let these storytelling shots show you what you—the viewer—ideally would love to see; where you would put your eye if you were standing on that set looking. We do this a million times a day. Human beings are fabulous camera operators of our own eyes, and our own eyes are superbly stabilized. When you run, you don't see a jerky shot. You see a very smooth Steadicam shot. We instinctively lean left and right, stand up and move around, to see what we want to see. I think that is a devastating argument against handheld: human beings don't see in the shaky way that handheld presents the world. In fact, it's stupid that your audience would see a shakier vision than your actors would see.

There's a strong argument, I think, for at least being as stable as your own magnificent little internal Steadicam. Your inner ear tells your eye muscles how to move to eliminate the bumps. Look straight across the room and fix your eyes on something and shake your head up and down violently. It just sits there, right? Shake your head side to side. It just sits there. But if that was a camera, you couldn't watch it. Now, watch this: tilt your head to one side. The room does not tilt. Your brain is conditioned to perceive the room as level no matter what angle your eye is. Why? Because evolution didn't find that of any interest for keeping us alive. It's really fundamental stuff. I could be a great bore on this subject, but I'm not a fan of handheld, and that's why the Steadicam exists. I wouldn't have been able to put it in those terms 40 years ago, but it's become quite clear to me.

When you dart your eyes around left or right and fix on something and dart to the other side of the room and look, there are only maybe 30% or 50% of Steadicam operators that can do that with a Steadicam. There's almost nothing else that can do what is called a saccad. A saccad is when you dart your eyes from one side of the room to the other.


Posted by Geoff at 9:41 PM CST
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Thursday, December 22, 2016
ZACHAREK ON 'PASSENGERS' & 'MISSION TO MARS'
SAYS "ALMOST BRILLIANT" NEW FILM INCLUDES "FAILED ATTEMPT TO CHANNEL THE INTENSE DOOMED ROMANTICISM" OF DE PALMA'S 'M2M'
TIME's Stephanie Zacharek mentions Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars in her review of Passengers, which was released in theaters yesterday:
Passengers’ director is Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), working from a script by Jon Spaihts, and he vests much of the movie with a buzzing neon glow. (The space-walk scenes, contrasting glo-stick luminescence with inky blackness, are particularly beautiful.) But the movie runs aground in the last third: It’s as if Tyldum and Spaihts know they can’t get too wiggy, so they take a hard right and try to land their ship in more conventional territory.

Along the way they make what appears to be a failed attempt to channel the intense doomed romanticism of Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars (specifically, the sorrowful and glorious scene in which astronaut Connie Nielsen fails to save her fellow astronaut husband, Tim Robbins). By that point, Tyldum has crashed his ship, figuratively speaking—inside this failed picture there’s a sicker, darker, more truthful one crying to get out. But for a while, Passengers is really going for something. The movie it might have been is lost in space, alone, never to be seen by mere mortals. All we can see from Earth are its few brightly burning scraps, but at least it’s something.


Previously:
Zacharek on Gravity and Mission To Mars
"Cuarón is even more of a romantic than De Palma, if such a thing is possible."

Zacharek on The Martian and Mission To Mars
"De Palma, himself a high school science fair winner, approached space as a mystery, a problem beautiful in its vast unsolvability. Scott, all about solutions, gives us the most seemingly authentic Mars money can buy. That doesn't make it the best."


Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CST
Updated: Friday, December 23, 2016 12:14 AM CST
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Wednesday, December 21, 2016
LABUZA & ABRAMS - DE PALMA AS BEST ACTOR '16

EACH INCLUDED DE PALMA IN TOP 3 BEST ACTOR CATEGORY FOR 2016 VILLAGE VOICE POLL
As can be seen at left, Peter Labuza included a couple of documentary subjects, including Brian De Palma, in his top three actors list for the Village Voice Film Poll 2016. Simon Abrams placed De Palma as his third best actor. De Palma ranks as the seventh best documentary of 2016 in the poll.



Six other critics who participated in the poll mentioned De Palma: Sean Burns (#7 Best Film / Best Doc), Laura Kern (Best Doc), Calum Marsh (#7 Best Film / Best Doc), Joshua Rothkopf (#9 Best Film / Best Doc), Kyle Smith (#6 Best Film / Best Doc), and Matthew Wilder (Best Doc).

Posted by Geoff at 10:39 PM CST
Updated: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:49 AM CST
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