BUT THERE'S ENOUGH POETRY FOR TEN MOVIES" - DAVID EDELSTEIN ON 'DE PALMA'
In an article titled "13 Films to See at the New York Film Festival", posted yesterday at Vulture, David Edelstein recommends the De Palma documentary directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, which screens at the fest this Wednesday."Noah Baumbach’s documentary of the director is worth seeing for the sheer number of jaw-dropping images it shows from Brian De Palma’s films," writes Edelstein, "starting with Greetings, and moving on to Hi, Mom!, Sisters, Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito’s Way, etc. Say what you will about De Palma’s style being 'derivative' (it’s a lot more complicated than that, but say what you will), no one since Orson Welles moved a camera the way he did, creating a spatial-temporal excitement nearly unequalled in the last half century. Alas, the film is a bit of a forced march, one movie after another with De Palma talking lucidly but rarely with any depth about the controversies his films raised. It’s a prosaic work about a cinematic poet — but there’s enough poetry for ten movies. And it’s worth pointing out that De Palma was persona non grata under previous NYFF administrations, probably because he was championed so fervently by auteurist bugaboo Pauline Kael. It took festival darling Baumbach to get a movie into the NYFF celebrating all the great movies the NYFF passed over."
TOUMARKINE: 'DE PALMA' A REMINDER OF STUDIO MENTALITY & EGO SYSTEMS THAT KEEP HOLLYWOOD ROLLING
Meanwhile, Film Journal International's Doris Toumarkine also posted an anticipatory piece about the fest yesterday:
"NYFF documentaries this year are tantalizing, especially a good many focusing on show-biz subjects. Housed mainly in the “Spotlight on Documentaries” sector but scattered beyond are several new and intimate in-depth close-ups of film personalities. Among these winners, and for unexpected reasons, are Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words, HBO’s Nora Ephron bio-doc Everything Is Copy, and filmmakers Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma, a talky, humorless sit-down with their pal Brian De Palma intercut with clips from his films and some he admires (the better part of this doc).As much as the Bergman and Ephron docs will be a joy to their admirers, the barreling look/listen blast of De Palma provides ammo to his detractors. Unexpectedly, the Bergman work—a trove of home movies (she loved cameras, hers and those of others), clips, and material from her letters and diaries (read by current Swedish-born star Alicia Vikander)—becomes an intimate exposé of what it really takes to be a great, enduring star. The De Palma close-up impresses as a reminder of the studio mentality and ego systems that keep Hollywood factories and their determined filmmakers rolling.
On the other hand, HBO’s portrait of the late writer/director/reporter Ephron is a celebration, not just of its beloved and no-nonsense subject, but of the talent, taste and intelligence that can sometimes bless mainstream product.
Updated: Monday, September 28, 2015 10:35 PM CDT
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