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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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« March 2024 »
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Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


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No Harm In Charm

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and the Infield
Fly Rule

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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

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Kubrick on the
Guillotine

FilmLand Empire

Astigmia Cinema

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A Lonely Place

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italkyoubored

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EatSleepLiveFilm

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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.
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Are Snakes Necessary?
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Saturday, February 24, 2024
CERTIFY THIS
THAT TIME DE PALMA UPENDED THE "TOMATOES" WAY OF THINKING
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/dominoflashtomato2.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 1:28 PM CST
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Friday, September 1, 2023
MUBI ADDS DE PALMA'S 'DOMINO' FOR SEPTEMBER
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/mubidominosept2023a.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
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Saturday, July 1, 2023
REVISITING EDELSTEIN'S REVIEW OF DE PALMA'S 'DOMINO'
"A LATE-CAREER EXPLORATION OF IDEAS THAT HAVE OBSESSED HIM FOR 50-ODD YEARS"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/edelsteindomino.jpg

After yesterday's announcement that the upcoming Arrow Video edition of Carlito's Way will include "De Palma’s Way, a brand new appreciation by film critic David Edelstein," I thought it would be interesting to revisit Edelstein's Vulture review of Domino from 2019:
Underfunded, sketchily written, and heavily cut (maybe one reason the writing seems sketchy), Brian De Palma’s Domino still puts contemporary thrillers to shame. The story is standard-issue right-wing melodrama with some loop the loops: Two Danish cops, Christian (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, fresh from Game of Thrones) and Alex (Carice van Houten, same) hunt a Libyan immigrant named Ezra Tarzi (Eriq Ebouaney) who killed Christian’s partner (who was also Alex’s illicit lover) — not fully realizing that Tarzi is being protected by the CIA, led by Guy Pearce’s Joe Martin. Why does the agency allow Tarzi to hack a bloody path through Europe? Because he can do (and is very talented at doing) what the CIA by law cannot: locating, torturing, and killing ISIS operatives in a quest to kill the sheikh who murdered his humanitarian father.

The script is full of little digs at liberals (the sheikh was released from Guantánamo; Denmark is so fashionably leftist), but De Palma doesn’t seem interested in the politics. For him, Domino is a late-career exploration of ideas that have obsessed him for 50-odd years. One is the hypnotic pull of subjective camera footage. The ISIS terrorists use filmed violence to turn people on, at one point sending a young woman to document her murders on the red carpet of the Netherlands Film Festival (“Ending the lives of infidels is a great thing. Scaring the millions of others who see it live on TV is something even greater!”) and planning a massacre in a bullfight arena that will be shot by a hovering drone.

Most of all, De Palma proves that greatest suspense (and horror) come from helplessness, a sense of impotence. Christian sees his partner bleeding out and the suspect escaping over a slate roof and is torn between his dual duties, but De Palma doesn’t quicken the pace the way most directors would. Instead, time stretches out, gravity pulls harder, and the air seems to thicken, agonizingly. The showstopper climax has the stately, “Bolero”-like rhythm of the first sequence of Femme Fatale, while also recalling the nightmarishly protracted tragedies of The Fury and Blow Out and so many other De Palma films. The heroes have to work out complex spatial-temporal equations at lightning speed — but slowed down by factors of two, then four, then eight, until your heart feels like it will explode.

What has pissed off early audiences (and many critics) about Domino is that the payoffs fall short of the buildups. A swift kick in the groin is unintentionally comic. A major character dispatched too abruptly makes De Palma seem glib. I’d like to see his full cut someday. Meanwhile, you should ignore the terrible reviews. I’d like to think the crates of tomatoes that are a running motif and figure in the plot are a tacit acknowledgment that the Tomatometer doesn’t always tell the truth.


Of course, we've been back and forth here a million times about the idea that there was ever a longer cut of Domino out there - there were so many money and production issues with the actual filming of Domino that it seems to be the case that many scenes people think are "missing" were simply never filmed. Meanwhile, in June of 2019, the screenwriter Petter Skavlan was interviewed for an Italian website, and said, "Before Brian got on board, the script was a darker and more intricate story. Some of my dominoes have been removed, creating a simpler and more linear plot that best suited his vision of the film." Near the end of the interview, Skavlan added, "Working with a legendary director like Brian De Palma was an incredibly interesting privilege. Although I felt the need to adapt my existing script to his vision of the film, he always made sure that the heart and soul of the story remained intact. He is very sharp and analytical, and a true gentleman in the creative process."

Posted by Geoff at 6:53 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, July 1, 2023 6:54 PM CDT
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Wednesday, May 18, 2022
BILL PANKOW TALKS ABOUT CLIMAX OF 'DOMINO'
"I HAD PUT IN THIS SORT OF ACTION TEMP SCORE - WHEN BRIAN SAW IT, WE PUT IN BOLERO"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/dominoballet3piece.jpg

Yesterday saw the Blu-ray release of Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale, from Scream Factory. Each of the two new interviews included in this new edition mentions De Palma's Domino. Gregg Henry mentions that he was offered an unspecified part in Domino, but the timing never worked out with his schedule. Meanwhile, editor Bill Pankow brings up his own work on Domino to illustrate how De Palma's music choices serve to highlight his films' visual focus:
That film didn’t turn out as well as Brian probably would have liked, but that’s another one where there’s a big scene at the end in the bullfighting arena, and the terrorists are there, and I had put in this sort of action temp score. And then when Brian saw it, we put in Bolero. And it’s interesting because he really wants the visuals to command the audience’s attention. And he wants to pick and choose the places where the music leads you in a certain direction, or makes you… or emphasizes what he thinks you might want to feel for the character at that time. And so the Bolero was just something that could keep the audience involved, but really the visuals are what are so engaging. That was true in that scene, and obviously true in the opening scene of Femme Fatale, as well.

Posted by Geoff at 11:25 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, May 19, 2022 7:28 AM CDT
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Friday, March 5, 2021
'ENOUGH TRACES OF DE PALMA'S SNAZZY, BAROQUE STYLE'
'DOMINO' IS ONE OF NY TIMES' DON'T-MISS-BEFORE-IT-LEAVES-NETFLIX-AT-THE-END-OF-MARCH
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/netflixresumedomino.jpg

Raising Cain, Domino, Scarface... when a De Palma film is on Netflix, it seems I'm perpetually watching it. I have about a dozen emails from Netflix asking me, "Are you enjoying Raising Cain?" That film finally left Netflix earlier this year, and now, at the end of this month (March 27, to be precise), Domino will be leaving as well. Jason Bailey at The New York Times' "What to Watch" column posted 13 titles "not to miss in March" before they leave Netflix. Domino is one of the 13:
Production issues plagued this, Brian De Palma’s most recent feature, and the filmmaker all but disowned the final result. So it’s difficult to give the picture a full-throated endorsement. But out of its messy making and compromised completion, one can still find enough traces of De Palma’s snazzy, baroque style — inventive camerawork, creative compositions, ingenious set pieces and cheerful indifference to plot — to warrant at least a curiosity peek. It’s far from top-tier DePalma, but at least it has some personality, which is more than you can say for most thrillers these days.

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Saturday, March 6, 2021 8:36 AM CST
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Saturday, September 26, 2020
EXHILARATING PIECE ON 'DOMINO' BY COLLIN BRINKMANN
MOVED DEEPLY BY DE PALMA'S LATEST, CONSIDERS AS POST-CINEMA, A STEP BEYOND, PERHAPS...?
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/dominoregrets45.jpg

Over at The 15:17 to Cinema, Collin Brinkmann has posted the most exhilarating piece we're likely to read about Brian De Palma's Domino, discussing the film as an artist's late-period work that is something close to the end of cinema as we know it:
This stranded film may indeed exist on an island within De Palma’s body of work, but if so it is an island of profound importance for the De Palma project, possibly a projection of where De Palma is heading with his art. The accidental nature of the lack of shooting days, or De Palma’s inability to oversee the final mixing and whatnot, can hardly wipe away what seems to me like a reasonably close facsimile of what De Palma originally intended to create, a film that was perhaps intended as a new step forward in his work—a step, perhaps, that goes beyond anything he’s ever done. Beyond in what direction? I have no idea. It is perhaps not beyond but deeper within his own artistic persona, so deep that it can only manifest itself on the surface in Domino’s austere images seemingly stripped of the usual ornamentation one is used to in De Palma. Next to something like Passion, Domino appears almost as post-cinema; compared to De Palma’s recent work it is disarmingly straight-forward, no narrative tricks à la Passion or Femme Fatale, no mystery between dream and reality or anything like that. It is instead bluntly barreling ahead and, I’d say, reaching for a new and deeper understanding of reality and the film image that captures it.

That is just a very small taste-- read the entire thing from top to bottom at The 15:17 to Cinema.

Posted by Geoff at 12:22 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, September 26, 2020 12:23 PM CDT
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Wednesday, September 16, 2020
2017 FLASHBACK - HELENA KAITTANI ON SET OF 'DOMINO'
WITH NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU, IN ANTWERP, BELGIUM
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/helenakaittaniandnikolaj.jpg

Although her stunning beauty is on full display amidst the light and shadows in her early bedroom scene in Brian De Palma's Domino, it's nice that Helena Kaittani managed to snap a selfie with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau at the Antwerp apartment set of the film back in June of 2017. What a treat to see their faces up close and behind the scenes from that day. The pics above and below were posted earlier today on Nara Talent's Instagram page.


Posted by Geoff at 8:40 PM CDT
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Friday, August 14, 2020
FROM THE RAFTERS - 'VERTIGO' & 'DOMINO' SIDE-BY-SIDE
POSTED ON INSTAGRAM YESTERDAY BY CINEMASTERLY
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/vertigodominorafters.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 7:27 AM CDT
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Wednesday, June 10, 2020
JUNE 10, 2020
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/dominojunelamod.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:19 AM CDT
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Wednesday, March 25, 2020
ADAM NAYMAN ON THE PARADOX OF 'DOMINO'
"HAS ENOUGH DIRECTORIAL EXCELLENCE IN ITS DNA TO, IN SOME MOMENTS, LOOK LIKE A MASTERPIECE"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/naymanbetter.jpg

Last week, The Ringer's Adam Nayman posted a social-distancing-related article, "Ten Movies That Are Better Than You’ve Heard."

"The question of what to watch while social distancing is ultimately less important than a lot of other things," Nayman begins. "But it’s also a reality that for a lot of people on self-imposed quarantine, renting or streaming movies will be a safe, significant time-filler—which is why it might be worth taking a bit of a risk in terms of what we’re watching. A case can be made that the time has never been better to rewatch old favorites or catch up with the classics, but what about some movies whose bad reputations previously made them seem like a waste of time? Here are 10 movies that are not only better than you’ve heard, but worth tracking down—and maybe talking or arguing about with your fellow shut-ins now that you’ve got the time to do so."

Nayman tops off his list at the end with De Palma's latest:

Domino

I wrote about Brian De Palma’s hot mess of an anti-terrorism thriller when it (barely) came out last year; if Domino was already DOA the second it hit VOD, it’s only been pushed further into the dirt ever since. The reason I’m recommending it again out of all the underrated movies out there is that it’s exactly the kind of film that benefits being watched when there’s time to process and think about it—to look past its thrifty production, evidence of meddling, and after-the-fact editing and look at what De Palma has to say about surveillance, governmental ethics, and violence as media spectacle circa 2020. The paradox of Domino is that on some level it’s a cheap, opportunistic, and wildly contrived genre movie. But it has enough directorial excellence in its DNA to, in some moments, look like a masterpiece, the same kind of outrageous, red-blooded entertainment De Palma was engineering at the time of Carrie and Scarface. Domino was a magnet for bad buzz and bad reviews, and yet it’ll endure on the strength of its bruised, submerged artistry.


PREVIOUSLY:

Nayman on the Split-Screen Shot in Domino - The Ringer
Nayman - The Wild World of Brian De Palma
Adam Nayman on the "Formally Innovative" Redacted


Posted by Geoff at 7:51 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, March 25, 2020 7:56 PM CDT
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