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De Palma a la Mod

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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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« April 2016 »
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Interviews...

De Palma interviewed
in Paris 2002

De Palma discusses
The Black Dahlia 2006


Enthusiasms...

De Palma Community

The Virtuoso
of the 7th Art

The De Palma Touch

The Swan Archives

Carrie...A Fan's Site

Phantompalooza

No Harm In Charm

Paul Schrader

Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Of Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock Films

Snake Eyes
a la Mod

Mission To Mars
a la Mod

Sergio Leone
and the Infield
Fly Rule

Movie Mags

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

The House Next Door

Kubrick on the
Guillotine

FilmLand Empire

Astigmia Cinema

LOLA

Cultural Weekly

A Lonely Place

The Film Doctor

italkyoubored

Icebox Movies

Medfly Quarantine

Not Just Movies

Hope Lies at
24 Frames Per Second

Motion Pictures Comics

Diary of a
Country Cinephile

So Why This Movie?

Obsessive Movie Nerd

Nothing Is Written

Ferdy on Films

Cashiers De Cinema

This Recording

Mike's Movie Guide

Every '70s Movie

Dangerous Minds

EatSleepLiveFilm

No Time For
Love, Dr. Jones!

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.
All topics  «
Ambrose Chapel
Are Snakes Necessary?
BAMcinématek
Bart De Palma
Beaune Thriller Fest
Becoming Visionary
Betty Buckley
Bill Pankow
Black Dahlia
Blow Out
Blue Afternoon
Body Double
Bonfire Of The Vanities
Books
Boston Stranglers
Bruce Springsteen
Cannes
Capone Rising
Carlito's Way
Carrie
Casualties Of War
Catch And Kill
Cinema Studies
Clarksville 1861
Columbia University
Columbo - Shooting Script
Congo
Conversation, The
Cop-Out
Cruising
Daft Punk
Dancing In The Dark
David Koepp
De Niro
De Palma & Donaggio
De Palma (doc)
De Palma Blog-A-Thon
De Palma Discussion
Demolished Man
Dick Vorisek
Dionysus In '69
Domino
Dressed To Kill
Edward R. Pressman
Eric Schwab
Fatal Attraction
Femme Fatale
Film Series
Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
George Litto
Get To Know Your Rabbit
Ghost & The Darkness
Greetings
Happy Valley
Havana Film Fest
Heat
Hi, Mom!
Hitchcock
Home Movies
Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
Jack Fisk
Jared Martin
Jerry Greenberg
Keith Gordon
Key Man, The
Laurent Bouzereau
Lights Out
Lithgow
Magic Hour
Magnificent Seven
Mission To Mars
Mission: Impossible
Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
Morricone
Mr. Hughes
Murder a la Mod
Nancy Allen
Nazi Gold
Newton 1861
Noah Baumbach
NYFF
Obsession
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Palmetto
Paranormal Activity 2
Parker
Parties & Premieres
Passion
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Peet Gelderblom
Phantom Of The Paradise
Pimento
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Prince Of The City
Print The Legend
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Raising Cain
Red Shoes, The
Redacted
Responsive Eye
Retribution
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Rotwang muß weg!
Sakamoto
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Sensuous Woman, The
Sisters
Snake Eyes
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The Tale
To Bridge This Gap
Toronto Film Fest
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Truth And Other Lies
TV Appearances
Untitled Ashton Kutcher
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Saturday, April 23, 2016
'DE PALMA' AT IMAGINE FEST IN AMSTERDAM
ONLY DOC INCLUDED AT THIS YEAR'S GENRE-THEMED FEST, FINAL SCREENING TOMORROW
The Imagine Film Festival, which focuses on horror and sci-fi genre films with an increased interest in thrillers of late, has included screenings of De Palma this year. The third and final screening happens tomorrow, April 24th, the last day of the festival, which began April 14th. The fest's page for the film includes a quote of something Brian De Palma says to Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow at one point: "You start with character and work your way outwards, while I start with construction and work my way in."

Ravage Webzine's Ulrik van Tongeren calls the documentary "the best film of the festival," adding that "De Palma is surprisingly frank and honest about his work. Moreover, the film is packed with revealing anecdotes." Van Tongeren particularly enjoyed the details De Palma provides about the filmmaking process, including extensive discussion of Alfred Hitchcock. He also appreciated the way De Palma articulates the modern way action scenes are put together in most films today, which merely produce "predictable clichés." Van Tongeren concludes that "this unique masterclass should be studied carefully by any film student."

Posted by Geoff at 11:48 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, April 23, 2016 11:50 AM CDT
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TWEET - DE PALMA ITINERARY 2003, L.A. TO PARIS

Posted by Geoff at 11:10 AM CDT
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DOUG KRANER HAS DIED
PRODUCTION DESIGNER ON 'RAISING CAIN', ALSO WORKED ON 'THE UNTOUCHABLES'
Doug Kraner, the production designer on Raising Cain, died on April 4 at the age of 65, according to Variety's Maria Cavassuto, who adds that Kraner had been battling cancer and died in West Hollywood, California.

Prior to working on Raising Cain, Kraner was officially listed as a technical advisor on Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, apparently having worked in the art department for that film. His other credits include Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre (set decorator), Mike Nichols' Working Girl (art director), and Phil Joanou's State Of Grace (production designer).

Posted by Geoff at 1:34 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, April 23, 2016 1:38 AM CDT
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Thursday, April 21, 2016
'ALWAYS SHINE' DIRECTOR ON HER INFLUENCES
HI, MOM! / PSYCHO / 3 WOMEN / OPENING NIGHT / IMAGES / MORVERN CALLAR / PERSONA
Sophia Takal's Always Shine (the followup to her 2011 debut, Green) had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last week. "The early reviews have been positive," states Tasha Robinson at The Verge, "and occasionally rapturous. Like Green, Always Shine deals with jealousy and competition between two women. But where Green is a loose mumblecore drama, Always Shine is a nervy thriller that owes as much to Single White Female as it does to deliberate touchstones like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona."

In a review of the film for The Playlist, Kimber Myers writes, "Always Shine has echoes of Brian De Palma, David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman, though it simultaneously maintains a presence all its own. While the work of those filmmakers often focuses on female characters, a woman director brings a unique perspective to its story of friendship, jealousy and obsession, framing it within the larger concerns of feminism. While it does explore current issues, you’re not getting handed a syllabus in Women’s Studies 101. Instead, its energies are focused toward showcasing the environment its characters reside in and how that shapes who they are and their actions. Even though Takal was likely influenced by the aforementioned auteurs, her directorial vision is still distinctly her own. Always Shine is a film with plenty of style, from its title sequence with an '80s font and frenetic pace to its final cut to black."

Going back to Robinson's article at The Verge-- she interviews Takal, at one point asking about her influences:

You’ve cited Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under The Influence, and Lynn Ramsay’s Morvern Callar as major influences on this film. What did these films bring to the table?

All the movies from the 1970s with slow zooms were visual influences. With my director of photography, Mark Schwartzbard, we watched Robert Altman’s 3 Women and Images, and I really wanted to build suspense through slow zooms and a moving camera like he does. Theme-wise, 3 Women was also a big influence, as was Cassavetes’ Opening Night. The idea of the ghost that becomes more and more threatening to Gena Rowlands’ character was something we wanted to incorporate. And with Morvern Callar — Larry showed me that movie, because a lot of the feedback we were getting from traditional financiers, when we were trying to make this movie in a more traditional way, was that the main character wasn’t likable, and it was unclear why she was doing these things. Larry said, "There’s this great movie you need to see, where the protagonist’s motivations aren’t really explained in a way where everything ties up neatly, and with a character who’s flawed." That really opened things up for me.

I don’t know if this is true, but I feel like female directors are better able to understand the complexity of a female character without needing to explain everything, and without needing to make the character "likable." Likability to me is such a frustrating thing. I think there’s more awareness around this now, but in general, male characters can be so flawed, but if a woman is mildly annoying, "She’s not likable!" It mirrors this box of femininity in the real world, too, where you have to be this one narrow, certain way, and if you’re not, you’re intolerable.

Who do you consider the main character? One of the interesting things about the film is that there’s such a balance between Anna and Beth, in terms of perspective and sympathy.

Psycho was also an influence, in that you start off being in one character’s psychology, and then it shifts. Anna is based on me, so I always thought of her as the main character. But I did want to start with Beth and have that shift, so you understand both characters’ point of view. I think you transition into Anna’s headspace around that scene at the bar with the handsome older dude. If we were aping Psycho, that was our shower moment, our transition moment.

Brian De Palma also feels like an influence here, given how much you’re looking at voyeurism and sex and the film industry, and questions of identity and escape. Was he part of the mix?

I’ve loved the films I’ve seen of his, and I’m sure he was an influence for Larry and my DP, but I’m not so familiar with his movies. I saw Body Double and a really good one with Robert De Niro called Hi, Mom! which was also an influence, because it’s not experimental, but it’s just totally wild, and it narratively goes off on these wild diversions, which I did in the scene here with Jane Adams. It’s just a diversion that may have been inspired by the diversions in Hi, Mom! I love that movie.

But I’m not that well-versed in cinema. Zach Clark, my editor, he knows so much about movies, and I’ve had so many collaborators who know so much more about movies than I do that they were able to infuse in choices I might not have thought of. They just have a bigger cinematic vocabulary.


Posted by Geoff at 11:34 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, April 21, 2016 11:36 PM CDT
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Wednesday, April 20, 2016
TRAILER FOR 'DE PALMA' DOCUMENTARY
RELEASE DATE: JUNE 10

Posted by Geoff at 12:08 AM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 4:53 PM CDT
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Tuesday, April 19, 2016
TWEETS: DE PALMA SPOKE AT CLASS IN NY TODAY





Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
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Monday, April 18, 2016
'THE RADICAL COMEDIES OF BRIAN DE PALMA'
PODCAST LOOKS AT DE PALMA'S COMEDIES FROM 1968-1980
Illusion Travels By Streetcar: A Podcast About Cinema looks at "The Radical Comedies of Brian De Palma" in episode #98. The podcast discussion takes off from the idea that the De Palma of Hi, Mom! would be the perfect choice to direct a version of The Bonfire Of The Vanities, if that latter film had been made in De Palma's early days. From there, the conversation goes off in several interesting directions, and includes rare discussion and pointed references from films such as Get To Know Your Rabbit, Dionysus In '69 (even though it's "not a comedy"), and more. Definitely worth a listen.

Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 12:34 AM CDT
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Sunday, April 17, 2016
EBERTFEST - PACKED CROWD FOR 'BLOW OUT'
NANCY ALLEN IN ATTENDANCE, LEONARD MALTIN Q&A, CHILLING SCREAMS, BEAUTIFUL FILM


Last night (Saturday) at Ebertfest, Nancy Allen presented Brian De Palma's Blow Out to a packed house at the Virginia Theatre (which seats 1463) in Champaign, Illinois. In her introduction, Allen giddily told the crowd the film was about to be projected from a 35mm print. The day before, Allen had graciously sat down with me for an interview for "De Palma a la Mod" (I'll post that later, after I get it all transcribed), and she talked about screening a 35mm print of RoboCop at a recent fundraiser, and how much more alive and gorgeous the film was than when she has seen it screened digitally. So she was really looking forward to the Blow Out.

And what an amazing experience it was, watching Blow Out projected in 35mm on the huge Virginia screen, and with hundreds of other people, many of whom were seeing the film for the first time. As with each film shown at Ebertfest, the audience paid attention to every shot, every line of dialogue, laughed at every joke, even finding humor in places that remind one what it is like to see the film for the first time-- what a joy. There were a few scattered bits of seemingly-derisive laughter during the climactic shots of John Travolta running in slow motion, and a guy behind me also cackled a bit as the fireworks surround Jack as he looks down at, and then holds, Sally-- Matt Zoller Seitz, who was also in attendance, was right on with his "jackass" comment on Twitter (see below for several of his tweets from last night).

Yet these occurances did not appear to diminish the film for most of the audience. For me, who (of course) has seen this film a million times (so to speak), the experience of seeing and hearing Sally run to the edge of the roof and scream out at the top of her lungs, with the enormous American flag behind her, brought everything home in a chilling and emotional way. Right here, the film hit me in the gut with its message of heart and passion-- truth-- hidden within a sea of hackery.

After the film, Allen was joined on stage by Leonard Maltin for a discussion and Q&A with the audience. Maltin marveled at the film as a tribute to analog technology, from tape recorders, to film-development shops, to pay phones (and more). Allen mentioned how everyone seems in a hurry these days, noting the audience's patience in watching the long dialogue scenes in Blow Out. An article about that Q&A, and hopefully a video, will eventually post to RogerEbert.com. My own interview with Nancy will post here sometime this week. Meanwhile, here is a link to an interview she did prior to the screening with the Champaign-Urbana News Gazette. Talking about Roger Ebert, whose review of the film appears in the Ebertfest 2016 program, Allen told the newspaper's Paul Wood, "A lot of critics didn't get Blow Out, but Roger and Pauline Kael did."

The Daily Illini's Shalayne Pulia interviewed Allen right after the Q&A, asking for (among other questions) her advice to young women trying to carve a career in film. "Don’t let anyone tell you ‘No’," replied Allen. "You teach people how to treat you. If I had stopped when people started telling me ‘No,’ I wouldn’t have had a career. If you look at it as an adventure of where you’re supposed to be, if they say ‘No,’ just keep going until you end up where you’re supposed to be. Follow your bliss; the money will follow."







Posted by Geoff at 9:32 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, April 17, 2016 9:56 PM CDT
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Saturday, April 16, 2016
'DE PALMA' DOC COMING JUNE 10 - POSTER BELOW
AND LINK TO MOVIE GEEKS UNITED REVIEW OF FILM
De Palma, the documentary by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, will hit theaters June 10, it was revealed yesterday. Meanwhile, Jamey DuVall at Movie Geeks United reviews the film.

Posted by Geoff at 2:05 AM 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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