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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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De Palma discusses
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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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Monday, February 13, 2017
TWEET - 'UNTOUCHABLES' A 'SWEET SERENADE'

Posted by Geoff at 8:10 AM CST
Updated: Monday, February 13, 2017 8:11 AM CST
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Thursday, January 26, 2017
TWEET - EDWARD HOPPER / 'THE UNTOUCHABLES'

Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CST
Updated: Friday, January 27, 2017 12:10 AM CST
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Thursday, January 19, 2017
PASTE SUGGESTS 'THE UNTOUCHABLES'
"CHEERFUL CONTENT" TO HELP "FEEL BETTER THIS WEEKEND"
Paste today posted its "Official List of Cheerful Content," which consists of staff "suggestions for how to feel better this weekend." Staff writer Jason Rhode explains, "Paste friend Sean Doyle had a suggestion: during this highly fraught week, while Paste will certainly be publishing plenty of serious features, it might be helpful if we put together a list of light-hearted/cheerful/delightful media or ideas that we turn to in these moments; really, anything that keeps us sane during the next several days. I asked Paste staffers to compile a staggering list of heart-dazzling brilliance, so all may taste the rainbow. In this winter of discontent, we bring you the winners of this content."

Rhode himself begins the list with his choice of Brian De Palma's The Untouchables:

When I consider media which brings me good cheer, one movie immediately comes to mind. In any moment, for any reason, for any question, there is a single answer, and that is Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables. You know that movie you love? Well, all the movies you love secretly adore this flick, and have been writing fan letters to this piece of pure American kino. Oh, the greybeards and Philip Roth will say that this is not a cheerful movie. You know what makes me cheerful? Knowing when they go to sleep and wake up they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Untouchables is one of most encouraging movies ever made. I’ll spare you a recitation of the plot, since we have all watched at least five minutes of TBS in our lives and thereby absorbed DePalma by means of osmosis. What can account for the cultural cachet of this epic tale of brotherhood and bloodspill?

You know all of those empires which have fallen? Looks like they weren’t Untouchable. There are Oscar-winning movies that cover tweens learning violin, kids discovering that dinosaurs were just like us, and how the yam farmer is the noblest of God’s creatures … but they don’t have Kevin Costner pushing a Prohibition baddie off a roof and into a car. Does your beloved Jennifer Lawrence vehicle feature Sean Connery chasing an assassin out of his house in his suit-vest, only to be shot himself? No? Oh, how disappointing that must be for you.

Does your movie happen to be the most heartwarming bro-picture of all time? In the other movies, does an accountant discover in the moment of trial that he can go full truffle-shuffle and wreck shop on Capone’s illegal hooch empire with a gun in his hand, and an even bigger gun in his chest—his heart? Yes, the heart is a gun. The Untouchables teaches this lesson, and so many more. DeNiro’s Capone isn’t even acting; it’s as if the memes from all his Scorsese movies (“To-day! To-day! To-day!”) plugged into an feedbacking amp the size of the world. This movie does not chew the scenery, it devours the backdrop for the fuel to rise above the concept of scenery. That’s the Chicago Way.


Posted by Geoff at 11:50 PM CST
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Sunday, June 5, 2016
'THE UNTOUCHABLES' IN 70MM
AT MUSIC BOX IN CHICAGO JUNE 22, AT SOMMERVILLE IN BOSTON JUNE 13


In case you missed this before, Brian De Palma's The Untouchables will screen in 70mm at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago on Wednesday, June 22nd, at 7:30pm. The Music Box had built a 40-foot screen in anticipation of the 70mm release of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight this past December, and have subsequently been screening a series of films in that format. The screening is also part of the Music Box's De Palma retrospective, which runs that entire week (June 17-23).

A 70mm print of The Untouchables will also screen at the Somerville Theatre in Boston on Monday, June 13th (7:30pm). This will kick off a four-day series called "The World Is Yours: Brian De Palma on Film," which is presented by the Independent Film Festival Boston in partnership with A24, and ends with a free screening of the De Palma documentary.


Posted by Geoff at 8:42 PM CDT
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Thursday, April 14, 2016
TWEET: VIOLENT FEMMES DRUMMER
"ALMOST MADE IT INTO THE UNTOUCHABLES"

Posted by Geoff at 11:27 AM CDT
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Sunday, February 21, 2016
MORRICONE: DE PALMA MADE RIGHT CHOICE
IN DECIDING WHICH PIECE OF MUSIC TO USE FOR 'UNTOUCHABLES' COURTROOM CLIMAX


Ennio Morricone recently discussed a handful of his film scores with Entertainment Weekly's Madison Vain, and included a story about The Untouchables:
For the unforgettable final scene of Brian De Palma’s gangster epic, in which Prohibition agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) brings Al Capone (Robert De Niro) to justice, Morricone presented nine possible options. As he remembers it, he hoped De Palma would choose any of them except the seventh—which, of course, is exactly the one the director wanted. “In the end, he was absolutely right,” the composer says. Celebratory music is a rare mode for Morricone, who favors more hypnotic, moody creations. “But De Palma chose the piece that was most like [the ending]—it showed the triumph of the police over the bad guys.”

Posted by Geoff at 11:54 PM CST
Updated: Sunday, February 21, 2016 11:58 PM CST
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Monday, April 13, 2015
'UNTOUCHABLES' TUESDAY IN CHICAGO
CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION EVENT HOSTED BY PETER SOBCZYNSKI
Brian De Palma's The Untouchables will screen twice on Tuesday, April 14-- at 1pm and 7pm at the Elk Grove Theatre (sometimes referred to as the Elk Grove Cinema). This is a Chicago Film Critics Association special event, and will be hosted by Peter Sobczynski, who will also lead a post-film discussion. De Palma is Sobczynski's favorite director, so it should be lively.

Posted by Geoff at 11:32 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, April 13, 2015 11:36 PM CDT
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Monday, March 9, 2015
VIDEO: 'THE 20 GREATEST SLOW-MO SCENES'
ONE MAN'S OPINION, SURE, BUT EDITED QUITE NICELY; INCLUDES 'UNTOUCHABLES'

The video above, called "The 20 Greatest Slow-Mo Scenes," was posted to Vimeo four days ago by Invenire Films, with the description, "The 20 greatest, or most powerful, uses of slow-motion in film, based solely on my personal opinion." Off the top of my head, I can think of some obvious things that probably should have been included, such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, and The Godfather, as well as so much more De Palma. But this video is so well-edited, and apparently personal to its maker, it's hard to complain.

Posted by Geoff at 8:09 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, March 9, 2015 8:12 PM CDT
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Monday, February 23, 2015
'UNTOUCHABLES' MONDAY NIGHT IN PASADENA
AND PRODUCTION DESIGNER WHO GOT HIS START AS A PA ON 'UNTOUCHABLES' SET
Thanks to Matthew for letting us know about Monday night's 7:30 screening (February 23) of Brian De Palma's The Untouchables at the ArcLight in Pasadena, California. The screening is part of the ArcLight's Road to Gold Academy Awards series.

A few weeks ago, Daily Herald columnists Jamie Sotonoff and Dann Gire wrote about Dan Clancy, a production designer who got his start as a production assistant on Brian De Palma's The Untouchables. The column began:
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The moment he stepped into the 1920s Chicago, Dan Clancy knew he'd found his life's calling.

"My dad told me that a movie filming in Chicago was looking for production assistants," the Park Ridge resident told us. "I got lucky enough to get on the movie 'The Untouchables.'

"It was amazing to meet Sean Connery, to meet Brian De Palma. That was pretty cool. On a street off Ogden Avenue on the West Side, they transformed the entire neighborhood into the 1920s and it was just mind-boggling! I saw that and said, 'I want to do this for the rest of my life.'"

That was 1986.

Today, Clancy works as a production designer after moving up through the ranks as a production assistant, set dresser, leadman and set decorator.

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KEVIN COSTNER IN CHICAGO

Meanwhile, Kevin Costner was on the promotion trail last month for Black Or White. The Chicago Tribune's Luis Gomez asked Costner if Chicagoans had showed any resistance to them while filming a movie that included Al Capone as a character.

"No, not at all," replied Costner. "They wanted to see Sean Connery and Robert De Niro. Dallas has a little bit of insecurity about what happened there with Kennedy [Costner filmed the 1991 John F. Kennedy assassination film, JFK in Dallas], but Chicago doesn't apologize for nothing. You don't apologize for Capone. We were here filming for two and a half or three months. I hadn't spent time in a big city before that. I also had never lived 15 floors up where you could look across and see your neighbor. I'd never experienced anyone that close to me in my life. You got to know a person without ever talking to them because you got to see the patterns of their life. You could almost turn into a peeping Tom here."


Posted by Geoff at 12:12 AM CST
Updated: Monday, February 23, 2015 12:16 AM CST
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Saturday, January 24, 2015
ARMANI SAYS FAVE DESIGN JOB WAS 'UNTOUCHABLES'
"I WAS ABLE TO FULLY EXPLORE MY LOVE FOR THE ELEGANCE OF THE 1920s & 1930s"


Yesterday, The Financial Times posted a conversation between Giorgio Armani and Jessica Chastain. In JC Chandor's A Most Violent Year, Chastain's character has just seen Paul Schrader's American Gigolo (which was the first film Armani designed costumes for), and she "wants to express her status by wearing fashionable clothing," Armani states. "I used archival garments that were representative of my work at the time." At the start of the conversation, Armani explains, "The process of making a costume depends on the type of film and the relationship I have with the director. But the real work takes place around the character and the physicality of the actors. I think firstly of the character, of what she does, and how she moves. I imagine her in real-life situations but I model the clothes on the actress. It’s exciting work, as the clothes are silent protagonists of the story and have an important place in the narrative."

At the conclusion, Armani looks back at two early highlights in his film career: "I’ve now designed the costumes for 225 films. My favourites were those I created for The Untouchables, [directed] by Brian De Palma, because I was able to fully explore my love for the elegance of the 1920s and 1930s. But my first film collaboration happened by chance, like all really exciting adventures, when a young film-maker named Paul Schrader asked me to dress Richard Gere. Schrader was fascinated by the modernity of my style. The film was American Gigolo and the rest, as they say, is history."

In a separate article posted about a year ago at the London Evening Standard, upon the release of Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street (for which he also designed the costumes), Armani further discussed designing for the two '80s films:

American Gigolo:
"Richard Gere has a different body type to Leo [DiCaprio]. He has an incredible sensuality and wears every look so naturally, so he was a pleasure to dress. It was 1980 but there was a modernity to the plot, which put a handsome, alluring man at the centre of a psychological thriller.

"At that time, I was motivated by the desire to modernise menswear. In most other areas, new technology was moving forward at a fast pace, but in the field of men’s clothing we were still tied to more or less the same clothes as our fathers and grandfathers wore. I wanted to use softer fabrics and rethink the suit, getting rid of most of the linings and fillings. The unstructured result was a truly new look that preserved its precision while becoming more body-conscious and more comfortable."

The Untouchables
"The time of Prohibition, big gangsters and the first police heroes fighting against the Italian-American Mafia fascinates me. It was a courageous, almost epic, period. It holds major appeal, like all great battles between good and evil: a sheriff and his men fighting against the bad guys, like in the Westerns of the last century, but the fact that it was based on real events made it more fascinating.

"In those years, the volumes were generous and a little bit heavy, with big overcoats completed with the ubiquitous Borsalino hat. The real clothing from that period was quite far removed from my vision as a designer; it was precisely those volumes that, starting in the late 1970s, I wanted to lighten up. So for the film we sought a compromise — credible clothing for the period but more in keeping with my aesthetic.

"I am not sure Kevin Costner changed a great deal between this film and when I dressed him for The Bodyguard in 1992. The Untouchables made him an international star, while The Bodyguard confirmed his status as a sex symbol. What might have happened between the two films is an increase in the public’s estimation of him, but his qualities as an actor remained unchanged."


Posted by Geoff at 2:29 PM CST
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