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Exclusive Passion
Interviews:
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De Palma interviewed
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De Palma discusses
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Enthusiasms...
Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Of Suspense
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Fly Rule
The Filmmaker Who
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Greetings & Hi, Mom!
Scarface: Make Way
For The Bad Guy
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Official Web Site
Welcome to the
Offices of Death Records
Geekweek's Mike Le has posted his list of the "20 Greatest Extended Takes In Movie History." The list, which tops off with the famous nightclub entrance in Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas, includes two scenes from Brian De Palma films. The opening scene that follows Bruce Willis in Bonfire Of The Vanities is number 16, while the shot that follows Carlito on the run through Grand Central Station in Carlito's Way is number 7. (Thanks to John!)
Gurinder Chadha's It's A Wonderful Afterlife premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival, and Dark Horizons' Paul Fischer wrote yesterday that the screwball comedy, which has been described more than once as My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Shaun Of The Dead, has references to Frank Capra, as well as to Brian De Palma's Carrie. Now today, ScreenCrave's Brendan Walsh offers more details about the Carrie reference:Screen Daily's David D'Arcy's review of Wonderful Afterlife provides yet more details:
The script salutes everyone from Capra to Ealing classics, Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud, and the whole zombie-spoof genre. Chadha’s directing approach is warmhearted chaos. Characters collide with each other as food flies through the story, culminating in - what else? – a wedding, where the spirits settle scores in a spoof of Carrie with paroxysms of anything edible.
A couple of reports in recent weeks suggest that Bollywood filmmakers are looking to collaborate with Brian De Palma and other Hollywood directors. According to India Times, Bollywood producer Firoz Nadiadwala recently met with De Palma, and also Tony Scott, in the U.S. about making Indo-American projects. The meetings are said to have been set up by Slumdog Millionaire actor Anil Kapoor, who has been in the U.S. shooting his role in the current season of FOX-TV's 24. According to Mid-Day, Kapoor (who is also a producer, writer, and sometimes director) is quoted as saying he has met with De Palma, as well as Christopher Nolan and Ben Stiller. Kapoor is also quoted as saying that he and Stiller discussed making two films together, "one in English and one in Hindi." The India Times report above about Nadiadwala is given added weight by a report from last October in Variety (relayed here by Monsters and Critics) that Scott is working on an as-yet-untitled film about Chippendales creator Somen “Steve” Banerjee. That project will be coproduced by Nadiadwala and financed "from a private equity fund raised out of India" by Permut Presentations.
A Variety article by Peter DeBruge, posted a couple of days ago, looks at the evolution of documentary techniques, highlighting recent films such as Redacted, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Bruno, and In The Loop, all films that, according to the article, have evolved the docu-form in the wake of the Blair Witch Project. Below is an excerpt led by thoughts from David Bordwell:Nearly 40 years later, Brian De Palma advanced the hybrid form with his 2007 Iraq War thriller Redacted, weaving jihadi websites and Al Jazeera-style footage into a tapestry of "found footage" not unlike the elaborate collage of District 9. By comparison, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker seems downright conservative, even though it marks a radical departure from the director's more classically constructed earlier work. To achieve the immersive effect she wanted, Bigelow turned to cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, whose background in documentaries had served him well with such verite-inclined directors as Ken Loach (Ladybird Ladybird) and Paul Greengrass (United 93).
"The reason she got in touch with me was because of United 93. She wanted that sense of immediacy and urgency," explains the d.p., who coached Bigelow in Greengrass' strategy of shooting long, continuous takes and letting the action move from one camera to the next. While the actors played close to the script, the camera crew was encouraged to improvise and avoid ever repeating the same take. "If in the end, the shot is out of focus, that's the equivalent of a beautifully framed shot because it betrays the emotion in it," Ackroyd says.
Last week's episode of ABC's Modern Family (on Wednesday nights) hilariously brought Brian De Palma into prime time sitcom. In the episode, titled "Up All Night," a gay couple are fighting over the best way to get their daughter, Lily, to learn to sleep. Mitchell is trying to "Ferberize" the baby by allowing her to cry herself to sleep, but Cameron cannot stand to hear her endless cries in the middle of the night. Mitchell confronts Cameron, who is holding Lily in his lap in front of the TV. Cameron gives Mitchell an excuse for why he is holding Lily in the middle of the night, and the following exchange ensues:Cameron: Brian De Palma’s controversial masterpiece Scarface.
Mitchell: For the baby?!?
Cameron: She happens to like it. I don’t know if it’s the colors, or the sounds… Oh here comes the nightclub massacre, she loves it. Watch her little eyelids, it’s so cute, they get so heavy.
The Art Of The Title has been looking at single-take opening shots, and part 3, posted December 21st, looks specifically at steadicam long takes, including three in which the great Larry McConkey was the camera operator: Martin Scorsese's After Hours, Brian De Palma's The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and De Palma's Snake Eyes. The takes at Art Of The Title are supplemented with commentaries and entries from Afton Grant's SteadiShots, including the following from McConkey himself, discussing the opening shot from Bonfire Of The Vanities:Each take was a full 500' and the shot was over when the end of the film flapped through the gate.
I wanted a device to let Bruce pass by me a little too close to the camera for focus in the elevator, and he came up with the idea of scooping up some Salmon Mousse, and twirling a little drunkenly past me. This also delayed the action enough for the rest of the crew (same group as before except for Larry H. and the boom woman with a wireless boom mike who rode with me) to exit the elevator next to us. They were timing their elevator to synchronize with ours on the way up to maintain a good RF link to the mixer. If the elevators rose side by side it worked fine, otherwise complete dropout. After exiting, I wanted to get back in front of Bruce so he came up with the Mousse Toss onto the wall thereby backing away from the camera enough to allow me to make a clean exit. There were many other devices like this throughout that I came up with to make the shot flow... I figure the more work everyone else does, and the less work I have to do, the better it will look...
(Thanks to Rado!)
