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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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De Palma interviewed
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The Filmmaker Who
Came In From The Cold

Jim Emerson on
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Scarface: Make Way
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italkyoubored

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De Palma a la Mod
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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
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Becoming Visionary
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Carlito's Way
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Columbo - Shooting Script
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Cop-Out
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Film Series
Fire
Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Fury, The
Genius of Love
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Get To Know Your Rabbit
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Happy Valley
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Hi, Mom!
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Inspired by De Palma
Iraq, etc.
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Laurent Bouzereau
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Mod
Montreal World Film Fest
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Murder a la Mod
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Sisters
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Sunday, June 26, 2016
METROGRAPH EXTENDS DE PALMA SERIES
AND OTHER RETROS IN BUFFALO, AUSTIN, MORE - VANCOUVER IN JULY
Thanks to the news page at the Swan Archives for noting that The Metrograph in New York City has extended its Brian De Palma series through June 30th, adding new screenings of Passion and Mission: Impossible (both tonight), as well as Femme Fatale (Monday), Raising Cain (Tuesday), the Bonfire Of The Vanities (Wednesday), Blow Out (Thursday), and Dressed To Kill (Thursday).

Meanwhile, The North Park Theatre in Buffalo, New York, began a Brian De Palma week on Friday, screening the De Palma documentary all week long, as well as Phantom Of The Paradise (tonight and tomorrow), and Scarface (Wednesday and Thursday). The Untouchables already kicked off the week on Friday and Saturday (sorry for the late notice, and thanks again to the Swan Archives).

Also keep an eye on Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in Austin and around the country, as they are currently screening several De Palma films in select theaters.

And thanks to Hugh for letting us know that the Vancouver International Film Festival will feature a Brian De Palma series in July, consisting of thirteen De Palma features: Sisters, Phantom Of The Paradise, Obsession, Carrie, Dressed To Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, Body Double, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, Mission: Impossible, Femme Fatale, and Passion.


Posted by Geoff at 3:38 PM CDT
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Friday, June 24, 2016
TWEET - PSA FROM BRET EASTON ELLIS

Posted by Geoff at 7:30 AM CDT
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Wednesday, June 22, 2016
FILM STAGE'S 'SUMMER OF DE PALMA'
ONGOING ESSAYS SPAN DE PALMA'S CAREER, FEATURE-BY-FEATURE


Make sure you check out The Film Stage's "The Summer of De Palma". The site has been posting insightful essays covering De Palma's features, and will continue to post throughout the next few weeks. Here's an excerpt from Eric Barroso's essay on Murder à la Mod:
One would assume De Palma reins in these aesthetic statements of intent for the bulk of a film concerned with plot, but it’s too giddily drunk on what opportunities genre filmmaking allows for experimentation. What sets Murder apart from say, Scorsese’s debut, Who’s That Knocking At My Door?, is an assurance that comes with De Palma’s handling of both camera and genre, demonstrating how intensely familiar he is with the archetypes at work and how easily, even at this nascent stage, he can pervert them. Much is taken from Psycho, including a subplot involving a stolen envelope of money — but, most interestingly, manipulation of voiceover to both elucidate and obscure character motivations revolving around the film’s central murder. Nonlinear narrative and vantage points are tampered with (although the transitions between these are the movie’s clunkiest moments), providing a ground zero for a significant facet of Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre.

Changes in film speed and stock are also among Murder à la Mod’s pleasures, indeed pointing to the influence both silent comedies and, more immediately, the French New Wave had on De Palma’s sensibilities; however, late-60s Truffaut, rather than Godard, strikes one as the greater figure looming over the film, with its attention to the rules of suspense. But aforementioned perversions of the precedents set by Hitchcock and others are what make De Palma’s cinema worthwhile. A noteworthy moment: as the camera is stealthily following Karen to the shower, a detour is taken around a corner to reveal an unidentified hand holding out an ominous clock for the audience to see. This digression exposes a key aspect of the way De Palma films thrillers: the camera (and, therefore, audience) is just as complicit in the gory violence enacted upon victims.

Otto is revealed to be the closest thing to an audience surrogate in the film’s climax — which takes place in a projection booth, naturally. He becomes an accidental murderer, through a mishap between a real and trick ice pick — a perfect metaphor for Brian De Palma’s prevailing style if ever there was one — and is genuinely bewildered by what he has done. He then happens upon Karen’s “photobiography,” which contains an image of her corpse, and hauntingly remarks, “A picture. He killed her and he put her in the picture.” In that indelible final moment, the induction of Brian De Palma as a significant cinematic voice is undeniable.


Posted by Geoff at 10:47 AM CDT
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Tuesday, June 21, 2016
JESSICA HARPER - 'PHANTOM' AT THE MAJESTIC
BILL FENTUM REPORTS FROM THIS PAST FRIDAY NIGHT'S SCREENING IN DALLAS
Our old friend Bill Fentum was at The Majestic Theatre in Dallas this past Friday night (June 17), where Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise screened as part of this year's Oak Cliff Film Festival, with one of the film's stars, Jessica Harper, in attendance. The screening was a homecoming for Phantom, as parts of it were filmed at The Majestic, but it had never played there until last week. Here is Fentum's report, followed by a short YouTube video from Harper's Q&A, and then a link to a separate interview with Harper prior to the screening:
Jessica Harper remarked on how strange it felt to return to the place where much of Phantom was filmed, and the fun of watching the movie with so many fans in attendance, applauding for each song as well as the cast and De Palma in the end credits. The crowd included a guy from Memphis dressed as the Phantom with mask/helmet and cape [see YouTube video below], and several people who had traveled from Winnipeg for the occasion. They clearly enjoyed taking photos around the building (much of it looking the same today, despite renovations through the years), and Harper was invited during the Q&A to come to a Phantom screening event in Winnipeg this October 28, with the Juicy Fruits/Beach Bums/Undead trio—Archie Hahn, Jeffrey Comanor and Peter Elbling (Harold Oblong)—all scheduled to be there.

Asked to share memories of the production, she talked about the energy that people like Hahn, Comanor, Elbling and George Memmoli brought to the set each day. Most touching, she talked the gentle support she received from William Finley throughout the shoot, making her debut film much easier than it might have been. She laughed about her "chicken dance" at the end of the "Special to Me" number ("my personal contribution to the choreography"), and recalled some conflict with costume designer Rosanna Norton, who didn't always welcome accessories Harper would add to her wardrobe, like the fedora she throws onto the stage in her "Special to Me" audition.

A couple of other memories: Steven Spielberg visiting the set in New York after the crew left Dallas, and besides Linda Ronstadt, her competition for the role of Phoenix including a then active singer named Lynn Carey, daughter of actor Macdonald Carey. Finally, asked about being directed by De Palma and other auteurs in her career (e.g., Dario Argento on Suspiria, Spielberg on Minority Report and Woody Allen on Love and Death and Stardust Memories), she noted that it always leads to a better experience than films where the director lacks a strong personal connection to the material, and isn't sure of what he wants.




Zach Gayne at Screen Anarchy interviews Jessica Harper
Everybody has their own favorite song. I think a lot of people like "Old Souls," and not that I don't, but "Special to Me" is one of my favorite song-scenes in the film. I love the choreography of the dance. There's something just so enchanting about the whole thing. Do you remember how that came to be? The process of choreographing and all of that?

I kind of made it up.

Really?

Oh, yeah. There was that kind of configuration of the stage where the piece of stage going out into the audience, a strip of stage so I had to move. I had to get from A to B to C and back again so I had to figure out something, some kind of thing I could do that would get me where I needed to go doing some kind of dancey thing that would accommodate the necessity. The famous chicken dance.

I think I just came up with it and I just started messing around on stage and made it work. I had this fedora. I think the costume designer really wanted to kill me because I kept saying, "I think I should wear this," or "I think I should wear this." I really misbehaved with the costume designer including, I brought this fedora in. It was something I wore in real life. I went around with this little fedora at that time. I thought, “This will be a great prop. I'm going to take this hat and I'm going to throw it out.” I like to take credit for that scene in terms of the choreography and the hat.

Well, it's very good work.

Thank you.

I just love it. Even the moments of calm, I guess the chorus, where you're just sort of staring into the camera, it's so hypnotizing. Do you have a favorite song or a favorite scene?

I love that scene. I also love "Old Souls" too. I think it's a beautiful song.

Indeed! (Guillermo del Toro and his wife danced to it at their wedding.)

I was so lucky I got to sing these gorgeous songs, but that was called for, of course. I really liked "Old Soul" and "Special to Me."

Do you recall one scene as being really fun to shoot?

"The freak who killed Beef is up on the roof.” I just remember finding that really hard to say. The freak who killed Beef is up on the roof.

That is a bit of a tongue twister.

That's something you can say three times fast.... Doing "Special to Me" could not have been more fun. Oh! You know what was fun - except it was really hair-raising? The first day of shooting we did all that stuff that was at the beginning where I come in and audition and there's this scene that's kind of hilarious where, first of all, I'm going up this staircase and Finley comes up and we meet and there's a spark.

And then there's the scene, which was also the first day of shooting on the first movie I'd ever done. (DePalma) said, "Hit your mark!" I didn't know! “Who's my Marc and why do I have to hit him?” I didn’t know what they were saying.

There's another scene where I was like in tears all the time. When I say it was fun I would say in addition it was also completely terrifying, because I didn't know anything. I had to run into the casting room, where George Memmoli is standing wearing a velour shirt and huge turquoise trunks, like underpants.

I had to go in there and then the door closed and there's a certain amount of commotion and I come screaming, tearing out of the room again, saying, you know, indignant things because he's obviously jumping on top of every actress who goes into the so-called casting chamber. “I came here to sing!” I can't remember what I said, but some indignant, full of myself remark.

That was just funny because George is so funny and it was just, you know. And again, just so fun because I was getting the hang of what you were supposed to do on a movie set, which up to that point I had absolutely no idea about.


Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, June 22, 2016 12:37 AM CDT
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Monday, June 20, 2016
NEW POSTER FOR 'DE PALMA'
AND DE PALMA WAKES UP WITH NEW IDEA FOR SCRIPT SET AT EIFFEL TOWER (IN THIS WEEK'S NEW YORKER)
This new, second De Palma poster popped up today from A24. Meanwhile, in this week's issue of The New Yorker, Tad Friend sits in on a Thursday night dinner with Brian De Palma, Noah Baumbach, and Jake Paltrow:
Brian De Palma tucked his napkin under his chin and said, “I woke up in the middle of the night with this idea for a script. In the last big scene, my lead character is photographing a movie set at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Meanwhile, my other story line is winding up on top of the tower.” Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow leaned in over their kale salads at Gotham Bar and Grill. De Palma, bearded and bulky at seventy-five, wore a safari jacket, as befits a Hollywood director; his clean-shaven, slimmer, much younger friends from the indie world bracketed him in navy suits. De Palma went on, “So I asked myself, ‘What movie could be shooting at the foot of the Eiffel Tower?’ And I said, ‘Vertigo’!”

Everyone grinned; the Hitchcock classic had left a heavy impress on such De Palma films as “Body Double” and “Dressed to Kill.” He went on, “ ‘Vertigo’ was originally a French novel, so I have to read it and figure out how, in the French version, did they kill the wife?”

On Thursday nights, the three directors, often joined by Wes Anderson, meet for dinner here or at Bar Pitti. One week in 2010, Baumbach and Paltrow filmed De Palma to preserve his stories for posterity. Over the years, they shaped their home movies into a documentary, “De Palma,” which just opened. Then they all went back to meeting simply to talk shop.

De Palma mentioned two enduring sources of chagrin: getting shot in the leg by the cops for hot-wiring a motor scooter when he was twenty, and casting the bronzed, wooden Cliff Robertson in “Obsession” in order to get the film made. (“That ridiculous tan!”) Then Paltrow threw out an idea: “How about a surveyor? Someone buries treasure as he’s watching through his lenses. That could be a De Palma.” De Palma chuckled noncommittally. Baumbach said, “Sometimes we come up with our concept of a De Palma movie and see if De Palma likes it.”

“We’re batting in the low .120s,” Paltrow said.

But De Palma said that their selection of clips from his movies for the documentary—cat-footed tracking shots, women being slashed to bits, cascades of blood—proved that they understood his predilections. “Watching it was like when you die and everything . . .” he revolved his hand, film-reel style, to indicate his life flashing before his eyes.


(Read the rest at The New Yorker)

Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 12:05 AM CDT
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Sunday, June 19, 2016
SUNDAY VIDEOS - #4 #5 AND #6 OF 6
INCLUDING "BRIAN DE PALMA IN 6 MINUTES" FROM ROMAIN DESBIENS (NSFW)

The A.V. Club has an exclusive clip from De Palma.

BBC News interviews Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow.

Posted by Geoff at 11:56 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, June 20, 2016 12:14 AM CDT
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SUNDAY VIDEO #3 OF 6 - 1978 DE PALMA & SCORSESE
ON THE DICK CAVETT SHOW, PROMOTING 'THE FURY' & 'THE LAST WALTZ'
The video above was posted to YouTube a few days ago. It consists of two consecutive episodes (minus any commercials) of The Dick Cavett Show from 1978, in which Cavett discusses movies with his guests for both nights, Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese. This is a fascinating time capsule, showing two friends appearing on TV together and discussing their methods, inspirations, ideas, and more. Some highlights include:

-Cavett wonders how someone takes on the job of director, and De Palma notes that in high school, he was the one tasked with getting kids together for skits before football games.

-Asked about Greetings and Hi, Mom!, De Palma says, "There are many things about them which I wish I had more of in my later films. They have a kind of spontaneity and life to them, because they're so rough, they're almost like sketches... I got very interested in developing a kind of a technique, and I went through about six films like that. Now I'm sort of moving back in the other direction, but I got very concerned with construction for many films. And sort of visualizations of stories and things like that. And I sort of got away from all this nutty, insane comedy that I used to do."

-Cavett: Who conceived the idea of a play in which the black cast attacked and raped members of the audience?
De Palma: I did. And I did it because there was a play I saw at the Public Theatre in which a black actor came out and assaulted the audience-- [starts pointing and mimicking] "You know what?!? [Scorsese is dying of inaudible laughter now] You're no good! You're no-- get out of here!!" And I see all these white people in front are going, [mimics sitting back and nodding in strong approval] "Yeah..." I couldn't believe this. [Scorsese continues to laugh, trying to control himself] We're sitting there being assaulted, abused, spit on, and they just said, "That's right! They're right!" You know, "We're no good-- right!" You know... they loved it!
Cavett: So you took the logical extension of that...
De Palma: No, it was, you know, big time of... Buck White, the year of those plays, where they just completely insulted the audience, and they just thought it was terrific.

-There is discussion about the different approaches/attitudes between De Palma and Scorsese regarding the types of films they each do. De Palma mentions that he has to have great (strong) actors, because his character scenes are so short/scarce, as compared to Scorsese, who explores scenes and dialogue with his actors, take after take. At one point, De Palma talks about the early cut he'd seen of New York, New York, saying it was "unbelievable at four and a half hours. Incredible." When asked by Cavett how so, De Palma continues, "Because, what's so fascinating about Marty is he takes all the variations on a theme in a scene and plays them all out. I mean that pick-up scene [to Scorsese], how long was that in the rough cut? [Scorsese says it was almost an hour] It was an hour long. The pick-up scene in the beginning of the movie, it was an hour long. And you can't believe it, it's like a ballet dancer jumping-- you can't believe they're going any higher. You know, he goes up, and up, and up, and up. [Whistles]"


Posted by Geoff at 11:51 PM CDT
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SUNDAY VIDEO #2 OF 6 - CHARLIE ROSE SHOW 6/10/16
"I LIKE DREAM SEQUENCES BECAUSE I DO A LOT OF DREAMING, AND TRY TO MAKE SENSE OF THEM"
The three amigos appeared on the June 10, 2016 episode of Charlie Rose (click the link to watch the video). A full transcript of the episode is available on the video link, as well. Here's the best bit:
19:20 Charlie Rose: Dream sequences.

19:23 Brian De Palma: I like dream sequences because I do a lot of dreaming, and I'm trying to make sense of them.

19:29 Charlie Rose: Do you really?

19:30 Brian De Palma: Yeah.

19:31 Charlie Rose: Well, but do you hire people to interpret your dreams?

19:34 Brian De Palma: No. But I get a lot of ideas from my dreams.

19:37 Charlie Rose: Do you really?

19:38 Brian De Palma: Yeah. If you go-- I don't know if this works for any of you guys, but if you're dealing with a problem and you go to sleep, somehow you work it out in your dream and you wake up and you're, ah-ha, that's it.

19:50 Charlie Rose: Does that happen to you?

19:53 Noah Baumbach: Yeah, versions of it. I don't put it in my movies.

19:58 Brian De Palma: Yeah, plus it's very stylized and you can do really crazy things.


Posted by Geoff at 4:35 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, June 19, 2016 4:41 AM CDT
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SUNDAY VIDEO #1 OF 6 - FILM SOCIETY TALKS 6/8/16
WATCH FOR MOMENT DE PALMA SEES RUTANYA ALDA IN THE AUDIENCE AND INTRODUCES HER

Posted by Geoff at 4:04 AM CDT
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Saturday, June 18, 2016
WE'RE BAAACK
AND WE HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL: ALFONSO GOMEZ-REJON ON DE PALMA, HIS "CINEMATIC HERO"


Our host site, Lycos, was down for three days due to some kind of major data transfer that took longer than they expected. We'll get back on track this weekend with the documentary and related roundups, but first, something kind of special: yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter posted a guest column from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (several episodes of American Horror Story, feature film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), titled "Why Brian De Palma Is My Cinematic Hero." Gomez-Rejon's column opens with him fighting with his producers to keep all of his split-diopter shots in an unnamed early film (which may or may not have been his remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown). "I did my best to explain the power and psychological effect of a split diopter," he writes. "The paranoia I was trying to convey in this particular scene. How the entire film was an homage to the movies. How a film had defined a town and fictionalized it’s pain -- how those particular shots were an homage to my hero, Brian De Palma, and Blow Out, specifically. You can’t approach a split diopter shot intellectually; it’s a feeling."

Definitely go to the link above and read the entire column-- here's an excerpt:

Filmmaking has been my obsession since growing up in Laredo, Texas. I woke up thinking about movies. I fell asleep at night watching them. For me, De Palma was the apostle of cinematic technique. Delivering his sermons through the VHS tapes in my video store church. Pointing me in the direction of my own projection light. Bridging the gap between my cinematic fantasies and cinematic reality. This is how I watched Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface and Body Double. De Palma’s camera was a character; he embraced it -- these were works of art that were defining the medium and moving it forward. He was breaking and reinterpreting the form. There was constant strategic and spectacular movement. There was color, sexuality, absurdity. He was literally directing you, telling you where to see. Everything seemed to be at the service of the movie. The images were alive. Iconoclastic works of energy that inspired cinematic curiosity. This first film of his that I watched in the theater was The Untouchables. I was 14 or 15 and went back with my father half a dozen times. I found myself mesmerized by the production design, the lighting, the score -- the great spectacle. Another monolith arose from the ground and I realized that cinema was also a collaborative enterprise.

My first week at NYU in the fall of 1990, while walking in the Village, I saw Brian De Palma walking on the opposite side the street. We were on Sixth Avenue. He turned on to 8th Street towards Fifth Avenue. And I did the natural thing: I followed. There he was, walking like a regular person. Propelling himself forward, one foot in front of the other, like any other mortal. Movies stars always looking smaller in the flesh, but De Palma was even bigger. I felt like a small-time mobster casing a target, or a De Palma steadicam shot. This was my secret, privileged moment.

Here was the man who taught me about storyboarding in a Premiere Magazine article that published his early Macintosh boards for Casualties of War. He opened me up to the actual craft. The engineering. The planning -- skills that would later lead to a tiny career of me boarding my way through college for extra money, working on independent and graduate thesis films.

Once in New York, I practically lived at Bobst Library, going through their video library, discovering films my local video store didn’t carry. Dionysus in '69, Sisters, The Fury, Blow Out and Phantom of the Paradise. And then, of course more Hitchcock -- and then there it was, De Palma’s playful relationship with the past and nod to the masters that shaped him. Studio films with a Hollywood scope that defied and maybe even played the system. He was exploring the past but remaining a trailblazer that energized me in the present. Although I was an intensely shy kid, I found myself in full-on attack mode when a classmate would dismiss one of his films. The Untouchables and Scarface could never be contested. But if someone would dismiss Blow Out, I’d pounce. There was an innate sense that I needed to protect the masters and their extraordinary vision, especially those who I felt were under-appreciated. It was my duty.

A couple of years later, he was shooting Carlito’s Way down the street from my dorm in the West Village. They were working nights and I would just watch from the sidewalk -- as close as a PA would let me get. Pacino. De Palma and Stephen Burum. Fake rain. The biggest set I had ever seen. It was quite literally the realization of my dreams; an extraordinary sensation that overwhelmed me and cemented that I had chosen the right career ... however long and however painful that journey might be. This search for an identity that had always plagued me because of the nature of where I was from, went away. I only needed to be defined by my dreams and hopefully, resilience, not unlike what -- from the outside -- De Palma has shown throughout his career.


Posted by Geoff at 11:15 AM CDT
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