Garry Marshall
Joe Mantello

And on November 9th, Phantom will screen at Triskel Christchurch as part of the Cork Film Festival.

And of course, don't forget the anniversary screenings coming up in Winnipeg at the Met on November 1st-- as tickets sold quickly for the evening screening, an afternoon screening has been added at 1pm.

(Thanks to Chris, and to the Swan Archives!)

Clouds Of Sils Maria was co-produced by Sylvie Barthet, who was also a producer on De Palma's most recent film, Passion.

In his Toronto Film Festival review of Clouds Of Sils Maria last month, Twitch's Kurt Halfyard noted that the film's story includes a play that "bears remarkable similarity to Alain Corneau's final film, Love Crime (which was recently remade by Brian De Palma as Passion.)" According to Huffington Post's Erin Whitney, in an NYFF press conference, Assayas described the film's fictional play as a "condensed, brutalized version" of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Whitney writes that the play within the film "follows a fatal attraction between an older woman and her manipulative young assistant. As the film progresses, the lines blur between Maria's relationship to the play 20 years ago and the dynamics between Maria and Valentine, Maria and Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz), the actress playing the younger role, and Maria and her past self."

Back in the mid-1990s, Binoche was offered a role in De Palma's Mission: Impossible, but she did not like the script, and turned it down. Around 2003-2004, she committed to star opposite Colin Firth in an adaptation of Gardner McKay's Toyer that De Palma had hoped to make (with Pino Donaggio tapped to compose the film's score), but the timing never quite worked out to get the project off the ground.

Stack then says, "I’m guessing you brought the Douglas Sirk." Murphy replies, "I did! If you watch this season as compared to last season, the camera barely moves this season. It’s a much more still cinematic exploration, which means our brilliant director of photography, Michael Goi, had a lot longer time to light. Everything had to be much more spot on because you don’t move the camera. But I really wanted it to be wider frames, bigger frames, stiller frames. And I really put much more of an emphasis this season on the production design and the costumes than ever before because it has that sort of Douglas Sirk ‘50s thing to it."

In my earlier post, I also mentioned that the music reminded me of Bernard Herrmann. Murphy mentions a different composer as he responds to Stack's question about how this episode seemed to use less jump cuts and a slower pace overall. "Yeah," Murphy tells Stack, "we’re using some George Antheil music who was a big composer from back then and whose music was used in a lot of ‘50s and ‘60s horror movies. I like paying homage to the early ‘50s and horror movies and back then they didn’t have Steadicam and they didn’t have jump cuts. So we don’t do as much as that. I felt like I wanted it to be in a more eerie world as opposed to a more startling abrupt world."

Later in the article, Murphy talks about how he ended up directing the episode, and the immense work Sarah Paulson put in to portray the twin sisters. A lot of great discussion in there, definitely worth checking out.

Related Posts:
American Horror Story: Freak Show Tips Hat to De Palma
Murphy Says AHS Season Under the Influence of De Palma
Carrie Cues & Echoes of Sisters as American Horror Story Begins Its Second Season

"I love Thief for being Michael Mann’s incredible feature film debut as well as a blueprint of sorts for a number of films that came after it. It’s the first of my three favorites from him, rounded out by his next two films, the often panned but visually amazing The Keep (again with a great Tangerine Dream score) and Manhunter."

(Thanks to John!)