When I was first offered the role, [my character had] three scenes. There were two where Craig Wasson’s character tries to talk me into going back with him, because my character had broken up with him. And then, in the last scene, he finds me in bed with another guy. So I was quite excited, right? I went in an auditioned for this role, and I got the part. I was thrilled that I was going to be working with Brian De Palma. But then the night before I was scheduled to work, somebody called me and said, “Listen, they cut the two acting scenes. You only have the scene where you’re in bed with the guy.” That’s it. No dialogue. I said, “Really? You’re cutting all of the dialogue?” And he says, “Yeah, but they’re going to shoot it all day, and they really want to make a big deal out of it. You’re going to be on screen on a long time. They really want you for the role.” And I thought, “Well, it’s Brian De Palma. I should do it, because it will lead to other things. They always work with the same people, so I’m going to do it.”

So, I show up on the set, and I shoot my scene, and in fact, I did do that scene all day. We did it for six or seven hours. I mean, all day. And I became friendly with Brian, and I had a party at my house the following week, and he came. I even started dating his first AD for a short time. I felt all cozy with these guys. And then, years later, I still hadn’t gotten a call. Even years later, when I’d been working, and people knew my work a little bit, [I was] still trying to get a job with Brian.

Then I’m sitting in the Century City mall, which doesn’t exist anymore—this is maybe 10 or 15 years ago—with my friend Shanti. [We] were sitting there having lunch, and somebody walks up, and he says, “Hey, Barbara.” And I look up, and it’s Brian De Palma. And I look at him, and I say, “Brian!” And he goes, “How are you? What are you doing?” I was kind of amazed that he remembered me and that he came up and talked to me, because he could have been having lunch and decided he was going to pay his bill and leave. Well, he came over, and noticed me, and said hello. So, I thought, “I’m going to use this opportunity to tell him my little story about, you know, I got the part, then I lost the scene, but I did it because I want to work with you again, and maybe you’ll use me again,” and he’s like, “Oh, yes! I will, Barbara. You’re right. I’m going to call you. Yes. You’re on my mind. I’m going to think about you. I am definitely going to use you in something else.”

Well, I am still waiting for that call from Brian De Palma. I haven’t given up, but I’m still waiting. But all in all, I will say that even if that was the only time I ever got to work with him, I’m glad that I did, because it was an honor to work with one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. To be on on set with him and have him direct me. So, in whatever small capacity of a role that I had, I’m really happy that I did it. And Brian? Are you listening? Are you reading this? [Laughs.]

DISC ONE:

-Theatrical Version Of The Film
-NEW Interviews With Actors John Lithgow, Steven Bauer, Gregg Henry, Tom Bower, Mel Harris And Editor Paul Hirsch
-Original Theatrical Trailer

DISC TWO:

-Director's Cut Of The Film Featuring Scenes Reordered As Originally Intended
-NEW Changing Cain: Brian De Palma's Cult Classic Restored Featurette
-NEW Raising Cain Re-Cut – A Video Essay By Peet Gelderblom

"So, again, the Vertigo-ish aspects of Obsession are all but inescapable for those familiar with the earlier masterpiece, but like his later, overtly Psycho-influenced thriller Dressed to Kill (1980), De Palma adds problematic layers undreamt of by The Master. Indeed, the swirling camera around Courtland and his 're-found' lost love in a deliriously-lit airport lobby may be an almost exact copy of the most famous shot from Vertigo; however, the further provocative elements offered by De Palma’s Obsession make the act of 'viewing' the scene even more disturbing than Hitchcock himself intended."

Robert Hornak on Casualties Of War

"The contrast between the two [Sean Penn's Merserve and Michael J. Fox' Eriksson] has the effect of infusing everything with a certain cartoony two-dimensionality. But it works, insofar as this true story is beaten out into a morality tale about America – who it wants to be, coming face to face with who it might really be."

[Note: Contrast the above quote with the one from the other day about Blow Out, by Taylor Burns at Little White Lies: "Blow Out’s genius is to present the difference between what a country believes itself to be, and what it actually is. No matter the country. No matter who’s in charge."]

Sharon Autenrieth on Mission: Impossible

"I need someone who appreciates Brian De Palma’s style to walk me through a shot by shot study of Mission: Impossible so that I can get it."

Max Foizey on Phantom Of The Paradise

"I wholeheartedly agree with that library clerk and I’m sorry that I put off watching Phantom for as long as I did. Even being a fan of De Palma’s films, it was easy to shove Phantom off to the side. On the surface it seems so very unlike the rest of his work. When you think DePalma, you think sensuality, violence, and Hitchcock; you don’t think glam musical. But you should! Phantom of the Paradise is a De Palma film through and through, but with a mean satirical twist. It’s got horror, split screen, and voyeurism. Who else could have made this film? Nobody."

David Strugar on The Untouchables

"For me, many elements of the film have aged, not badly, but oddly. It’s a mystery to me now how Kevin Costner got famous, but his attractive dullness works here to portray the morally upright Elliot Ness. The whole storyline of a police force fighting its own corruption is suddenly timely again, as well as the ethical questions of fighting violence with violence—or of fighting a crime that doesn’t necessarily have to be a crime."

Travolta’s Jack Terry does everything his constitution tells him is the right thing to do, and he is punished for it, slapped back into place for having a blue collar and empty pockets. The information he has is of value to the American people and he pays for it with his life – not literally, like his partner, Sally (Nancy Allen), but with his American life, with the things he needs to know and trust to continue living as a citizen of his country. He ends the film alive but far from well. This is the politics of despair.

The film’s tragic final scene is among the most sorrowful, albeit gorgeous, in all of cinema; the (fictional) Liberty Day parade provides a cruel and ironic backdrop to Terry’s crack-up, Travolta matching the tone of the story by twisting and turning through a Philadelphia seaport awash with red, white and blue. Thousands of everyday patriots have taken to the street while in the shadows a government fixer (John Lithgow) is killing a young woman, disavowing the basic principles on which America was founded. Blow Out’s genius is to present the difference between what a country believes itself to be, and what it actually is. No matter the country. No matter who’s in charge.

Throughout this climactic scene cymbals crash and fireworks bang. They hang in the sky, colourful bursts of unadulterated patriotism for the revellers below to gawp in awe at. These people have been sold the belief that if they work hard for their country, if they defend its constitution and serve its enforcers, they will be rewarded – in this case with a showy parade that literally reminds them of the “Liberty” they are supposed to be so grateful for. What they don’t see is the firework coming down as a damp squib; its light a mere distraction from what’s going on in the dark.

Only God Forgives was already searching for a collage of archetypal or primal scenes, but Refn goes further this time, yielding only very little to the sirens of the genre and instead crystallizing clear and solitary visions that coexist and create a sequence of heterogeneous spaces for Jesse to circulate through. Thus the distant sensation his film owes even more to Carrie than to Mario Bava or Valley of the Dolls: when Jesse appears to float in the air, at the edge of a diving board, she recalls the omnipotent levitation of De Palma's adolescent, which is at the same time the invention of an image, aerial statue or demon of neon.

Brian De Palma loves to make movies that act as funhouse mirror reflections of one another. Carlito’s Way could be interpreted as he and Al Pacino’s tear soaked apology letter, pleading for redemption after the wanton, bloated excess of Scarface. Redacted is a found footage update of Casualties of War, reminding us that combat can often act as a warm blanket for society’s greatest monsters. Obsession and Body Double find De Palma returning to the well of Vertigo, the motion picture that helped his brain fuse its understanding of functional mechanics with a need to tell tales of possessive madness. Nevertheless, none of the pairings quite complement each other like Raising Cain and Dressed to Kill. Building on his tendency toward first-person trash art with reckless abandon, Cain is a dream state rehash of Hithcock’s Psycho, tossed into a cinematic blender with Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom. An in-joke seemingly told only for the hardcore heads and his own amusement, De Palma’s nineteenth feature is a formal marvel that is in dialogue with the thriller dialect its author had perfected over the past twenty years.