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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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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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Tuesday, January 30, 2018
'BODY DOUBLE' FAN ART POSTER
BY DRW.MOV DESIGN - "CAPTURES THE FILM IN A DIFFERENT WAY" THAN ORIGINAL BY STEPHEN SAYADIAN
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bdfanartdrew2018b.jpg

The fan art poster above for Body Double was created by Drew as part of a PosterADay challenge (Drw_mov on Twitter, and on Instagram). In the Instagram post, Drew explains, "It’s really hard for me to work on a film that already has a poster that I like, let alone one I love as much as Stephen “Rinse Dream” Sayadian’s original key art for this. But I think this does a very good job of capturing the film in a different way. Just makes me want to sing RELAX."

Posted by Geoff at 8:07 AM CST
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Friday, January 26, 2018
'RIVERDALE' CAST DOES 'CARRIE: THE MUSICAL' IN APRIL
SHOW-WITHIN-SHOW MIXES ELEMENTS FROM KING'S NOVEL, DE PALMA & PEIRCE FILMS, 1988/2012 MUSICAL VERSIONS
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/riverdalecarrie.jpgThe CW announced this week that the April 18th episode of its series Riverdale will feature its characters involved in a production of Carrie: The Musical. Here's how Variety's Matt Fernandez reported it a couple of days ago:
The episode will feature 11 songs and be framed as a documentary about the high school theater production filmed by Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse). Entitled “A Night to Remember,” the episode will air on April 18 at 8 p.m. on the CW.

The Riverdale High Drama Department’s production of “Carrie: The Musical” is described as a “dark-yet-catchy cautionary tale exploring the gritty realities of small-town high school life.” The character of Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) serves as the show-within-the-show’s director, mixing elements from the 1974 King novel with Brian De Palma’s 1976 film adaptation, the 1988 Broadway production, the 2012 Off-Broadway revival and Kimberly Peirce’s 2013 film remake.

Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) leads the cast of the musical as Carrie White in this avant-garde production, while Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) portrays mean-girl antagonist Chris Hargensen and Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) and Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) play golden-couple Sue Snell and Tommy Ross. There will also be special appearances by Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray) as the gym teacher and Alice Cooper (Madchen Amick) as Carrie’s mother.


Previously:
Riverdale Episode 3 is called "Body Double"
SHOWRUNNER ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA EXPLAINS, IT'S "LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A BRIAN DE PALMA MOVIE"

Posted by Geoff at 8:18 AM CST
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Tuesday, January 16, 2018
'HOWLING' SHIRT DESIGN REVERSES 'BODY DOUBLE' ART
AARON CRAWFORD: "I REALIZED HOW RAD IT WOULD BE TO REVERSE THE VOYEURISTIC ROLES"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/howlingdouble.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 1:01 AM CST
Updated: Tuesday, January 16, 2018 1:14 AM CST
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Saturday, January 13, 2018
1969 NY MINI-REVIEW OF 'THE WEDDING PARTY'
"IT IS A MISTAKE FOR FILMMAKERS TO START OUT WITH COMEDY"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/ny1969weddingpartyreviewb.jpg

Jon Sieruga posted the image above on his Twitter feed the other day, indicating that the newspaper ad page came from a publication in New York City from May 1969. At the top of the third column is a review of Brian De Palma's first feature, The Wedding Party. The author of the review is unknown, but here is the text:
Brian de Palma's "THE WEDDING PARTY" has apparently been pulled out from the drawer to exploit the unexpected vogue for "Greetings." "Greetings" wasn't much, heaven knows, but "The Wedding Party" is much, much less. There's not much to say about a broken-legged farce except that it isn't very funny. De Palma is exploiting the youth thing for all its alleged audacity, but I find him more canny than candid. He spends so much time avoiding the obvious mistakes of youth that his films become paralyzed by a discreet negativism. Also, it is a mistake for film-makers to start out with comedy, a discipline that requires not merely genius, but wisdom, coherence, and, yes, maturity.

Posted by Geoff at 7:20 PM CST
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Thursday, January 11, 2018
TWEET - DEL TORO INTRO REMINDS OF 'PHANTOM'
IF YOU'VE SEEN 'THE SHAPE OF WATER' YET, PLEASE COMMENT
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tweetshapeofparadise.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 8:01 AM CST
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Friday, January 5, 2018
FRIDAY TWEET - 'CASUALTIES OF WAR'
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tweetespncow.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 11:59 PM CST
Updated: Saturday, January 6, 2018 12:04 AM CST
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Saturday, December 23, 2017
JERRY GREENBERG HAS DIED AT 81
OSCAR-WINNING EDITOR WORKED ON 5 DE PALMA FEATURES & SPRINGSTEEN VIDEO
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/jgreenberg2016.jpgJerry Greenberg, the Oscar-winning editor (for The French Connection) who collaborated with Brian De Palma on six projects, passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Greenberg worked on five features with De Palma: Dressed To Kill, Scarface, Body Double, Wise Guys, The Untouchables, and the music video for Bruce Springsteen's Dancing In The Dark. In Susan Dworkin's 1984 book Double De Palma, De Palma said of Greenberg, "I can just talk to him on the phone, and he'll know exactly what I want. And can even do it better."

In an interview about a year ago with CineMontage's Michael Goldman, Greenberg said it was only coincidence that he ended up working with De Palma more than any other director:
Greenberg says his success on his two films with Friedkin was in part a result of the fact that his collaborator was a director “of considerable ability when it came to taking a point of view on how a film is to be presented.” He puts the director with whom he has had his longest and closest association into that same category: Brian De Palma. The pair teamed on five films in the 1980s, including Dressed to Kill (1980) and Scarface (1983).

The editor was initially attracted to working with De Palma when the director interviewed him for Dressed to Kill at the behest of De Palma’s longtime editor, Paul Hirsch, ACE, a friend of Greenberg’s, when Hirsch’s schedule precluded him from taking the gig. The reason he wanted to do the film, Greenberg says, was the fact that De Palma had crudely storyboarded the entire movie himself, including minute details.

“He had me down to his office, which was a residential apartment in Manhattan,” Greenberg recalls. “He took me into a small dining room that was, because of the size, completely mirrored to make it appear larger, I guess. On the dining room wall, all around, he had taped three-by-five-inch file cards, storyboarding the whole film. All the drawings were his — simple stick figures most of the time, where he would try to indicate camera movement with little arrows and stuff like that.

“That might seem threatening to another editor,” he continues. “But to me, I thought, ‘Here was a director who knew how his film should be edited.’ I liked that the director knew a little bit about editing, and I felt encouraged. I loved editing that movie. It wasn’t necessarily just the performances or the hooks, the usual things that get you into it. I was doing it completely for the camera work — the way he used the camera, and that was very exciting.”

Still, Greenberg insists the fact that he worked with De Palma five times — more than he worked with any other single director — “was just a coincidence.” Indeed, he emphasizes that he is an editor who never pursued a single collaborative partner on which to hang his hat.

“I don’t think of myself that way in a working sense,” he offers. “I don’t think I generate a lot of confidence in directors in that way. Consequently, although maybe Brian De Palma is an exception, I don’t think I inspire that kind of ‘I’ll just continue working with him’ thing with directors. But then, I never wanted to do that anyway.”

Indeed, Greenberg says he doesn’t view “collaboration” as being just about his relationship with the director. Nor does he express common concerns among editors about being asked to re-cut his work, or even having others re-cut his work. He’s experienced it all over the years — from having wide latitude to having almost no latitude at all. And it’s all fine with him, he says, because, in his view, the nature of a collaborative art like filmmaking involves a work being in a sense passed around and “embellished” by different people repeatedly, a process he says he loves.

“Usually, the task goes from one to the other, so that at every step in passing it, it is embellished and then witnessed by other people, whatever the embellishment was,” he explains. “That is the kind of collaboration filmmaking is. It isn’t a sure thing, but it is a wonderful thing. Being able to pass a responsibility, and different ways of seeing things, from one person to the other, even if it goes on and on — I think that’s terrific. Because, if you have an open mind, what you can do is change what you had done originally, and make it something you could never have thought of on your own. That’s why I’m never threatened by anybody who wants to re-edit my work. I feel like maybe their ideas will spark more ideas in me.”


Greenberg, who also worked on Bonnie And Clyde, Heaven's Gate, and Reds, was nominated for two more Oscars in 1980, for Kramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now.

Posted by Geoff at 2:19 PM CST
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JERRY GREENBERG HAS DIED AT 81
OSCAR-WINNING EDITOR WORKED ON 5 DE PALMA FEATURES & SPRINGSTEEN VIDEO
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/jgreenberg2016.jpgJerry Greenberg, the Oscar-winning editor (for The French Connection) who collaborated with Brian De Palma on six projects, passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Greenberg worked on five features with De Palma: Dressed To Kill, Scarface, Body Double, Wise Guys, The Untouchables, and the music video for Bruce Springsteen's Dancing In The Dark. In Susan Dworkin's 1984 book Double De Palma, De Palma said of Greenberg, "I can just talk to him on the phone, and he'll know exactly what I want. And can even do it better."

In an interview about a year ago with CineMontage's Michael Goldman, Greenberg said it was only coincidence that he ended up working with De Palma more than any other director:
Greenberg says his success on his two films with Friedkin was in part a result of the fact that his collaborator was a director “of considerable ability when it came to taking a point of view on how a film is to be presented.” He puts the director with whom he has had his longest and closest association into that same category: Brian De Palma. The pair teamed on five films in the 1980s, including Dressed to Kill (1980) and Scarface (1983).

The editor was initially attracted to working with De Palma when the director interviewed him for Dressed to Kill at the behest of De Palma’s longtime editor, Paul Hirsch, ACE, a friend of Greenberg’s, when Hirsch’s schedule precluded him from taking the gig. The reason he wanted to do the film, Greenberg says, was the fact that De Palma had crudely storyboarded the entire movie himself, including minute details.

“He had me down to his office, which was a residential apartment in Manhattan,” Greenberg recalls. “He took me into a small dining room that was, because of the size, completely mirrored to make it appear larger, I guess. On the dining room wall, all around, he had taped three-by-five-inch file cards, storyboarding the whole film. All the drawings were his — simple stick figures most of the time, where he would try to indicate camera movement with little arrows and stuff like that.

“That might seem threatening to another editor,” he continues. “But to me, I thought, ‘Here was a director who knew how his film should be edited.’ I liked that the director knew a little bit about editing, and I felt encouraged. I loved editing that movie. It wasn’t necessarily just the performances or the hooks, the usual things that get you into it. I was doing it completely for the camera work — the way he used the camera, and that was very exciting.”

Still, Greenberg insists the fact that he worked with De Palma five times — more than he worked with any other single director — “was just a coincidence.” Indeed, he emphasizes that he is an editor who never pursued a single collaborative partner on which to hang his hat.

“I don’t think of myself that way in a working sense,” he offers. “I don’t think I generate a lot of confidence in directors in that way. Consequently, although maybe Brian De Palma is an exception, I don’t think I inspire that kind of ‘I’ll just continue working with him’ thing with directors. But then, I never wanted to do that anyway.”

Indeed, Greenberg says he doesn’t view “collaboration” as being just about his relationship with the director. Nor does he express common concerns among editors about being asked to re-cut his work, or even having others re-cut his work. He’s experienced it all over the years — from having wide latitude to having almost no latitude at all. And it’s all fine with him, he says, because, in his view, the nature of a collaborative art like filmmaking involves a work being in a sense passed around and “embellished” by different people repeatedly, a process he says he loves.

“Usually, the task goes from one to the other, so that at every step in passing it, it is embellished and then witnessed by other people, whatever the embellishment was,” he explains. “That is the kind of collaboration filmmaking is. It isn’t a sure thing, but it is a wonderful thing. Being able to pass a responsibility, and different ways of seeing things, from one person to the other, even if it goes on and on — I think that’s terrific. Because, if you have an open mind, what you can do is change what you had done originally, and make it something you could never have thought of on your own. That’s why I’m never threatened by anybody who wants to re-edit my work. I feel like maybe their ideas will spark more ideas in me.”


Greenberg, who also worked on Bonnie And Clyde, Heaven's Gate, and Reds, was nominated for two more Oscars in 1980, for Kramer vs. Kramer and Apocalypse Now.

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CST
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Friday, December 15, 2017
HOWARD GOTTFRIED HAS DIED
EXEC-PRODUCER ON 'BODY DOUBLE' WAS 94
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/gottfried.jpg

Howard Gottfried, the executive producer on Brian De Palma's Body Double, died of a stroke a week ago today in Los Angeles. He was 94. Here's an excerpt regarding Gottfried from Susan Dworkin's book, Double De Palma, on the making of Body Double:
She had come to Brian's attention during the winter before Body Double started shooting, when Howard Gottfried, the executive producer, went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The X-rated home video marketers had been denied space on the convention floor, but their wares and their stars were available in hotel rooms close by.

Howard threw up his hands. "Can you imagine, I went to Las Vegas with my casting lady to look at porno movies?! Can you imagine, I go in, I say..."--he straightens his jacket which he always wears with jeans and cocks his head like David Niven--"... Uh hello, I am from Columbia Pictures and I would like to talk with you about a major motion picture.... I mean, they look at you like you're some kind of lunatic!"

It is true that Howard Gottfried is not the sort of man you would ordinarily imagine as a sex scout. A voluble New Yorker with a burning concern about social issues, he made his name in the film industry as the partner of Paddy Chayefsky in such literate and relevant films as Hospital and Network and Altered States. Culturally and intellectually, Howard was made a little crazy by the porn connections of Body Double, all the more so because unlike Brian, unlike Steve Burum, the director of photography, and Joe Napolitano, the first assistant director, Howard Gottfried had children. Howard was the one who had to go home to his family in New York and be assaulted by feminist friends at dinner parties who wanted to know if it was true, was Howard really making a pornographic movie?! ... It was lucky for Howard, therefore, that he had a sense of humor. And Brian De Palma's sense of humor meant as much to him as any other element in the movie.

"Why do they say Brian hates women more than other filmmakers?" Howard asked. "Saturday Night Fever treated women like pieces of meat. And look at Flashdance. Sure she had a job, she had ambition, she was liberated. But how does she show us she's liberated? When the ex-wife stops at the table and asks, 'What do you two do?' she answers 'We fuck our brains out.' It's insulting to women because it means to be a serious portrayal. Now, look at this scene in Body Double with Linda Shaw. Is this a serious portrayal? They're both on these water beds and she's massaging her breasts in this television interview and she's screaming, 'I'm coming! I'm coming!' and the interviewer says, 'So while she's coming, we'll break fr this clip.' Now that's funny. That's fun-nee! How can all these women despise a guy who's as funny as that?!"


Posted by Geoff at 10:37 AM CST
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Sunday, December 10, 2017
FANDOR VIDEO LOOKS AT DE PALMA'S USE OF COLOR
CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO GO TO VIDEO
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/fandorcolorindepalma.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 11:50 PM CST
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