It was Donaggio’s feeling that Carrie was a film concerned more with the tragedy and drama of Carrie’s existence than horror, and this sentiment is reflected in the romantic Italiana of his locker room music. Instead of commenting on Carrie’s violent trajectory in his opening theme, which many other horror composers would feel obliged to do to immediately establish an atmosphere of dread, Donaggio’s unassuming theme instead implores us to feel empathy for the lonely Carrie. The opening theme, which really is Carrie’s theme, returns throughout the film in fragments and in variation, and is heard predominantly in moments where compassion is being shown towards Carrie. In one of the film’s most tender moments, for example, Carrie’s gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) takes Carrie aside and gives her a pep talk in a bid to help build her self-esteem. In this scene, the theme is stripped down and orchestrated using instruments with a warmer tone. Carrie’s flute melody is heard once again, but instead of strings and piano being in support, the accompaniment is performed by acoustic guitar and a resonant Rhodes keyboard. Such tender orchestration allows for Miss Collins' kindness and the intimacy of the moment to be greater realized.

As well as scoring that reflects Carrie’s innocence, Donaggio’s score also highlights Carrie’s violent tendencies and supernatural abilities. In an obvious homage to Bernard Herrmann and his score for Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), Donaggio uses “stabby” string stingers whenever Carrie feels threatened and utilizes her telekinetic abilities. When she knocks the school principal’s ashtray of his desk; forces an annoying boy off his bike; throws her Mother on to the bed, a high-register string motif is heard that resembles Herrmann’s string writing in the infamous shower murder scene in Psycho. Elsewhere, the strings are used for atmospheric effect, their dissonant, sustained harmonies creating a disturbed ambience, particularly in scenes within Carrie’s home where her puritanical mother, Mrs. White (Piper Laurie), seeks to control and punish Carrie. The destructive nature of Mrs. White’s religious fundamentalism is also commented upon in Donaggio’s score. When Carrie is locked in a closet and ordered to pray for her sins after Mrs. White learns that Carrie has menstruated for the first time (the beginning of the end, in Mrs. White’s view), a church organ erupts on the soundtrack accompanied by unsettling low register, tremolo strings, implying a direct connection between Mrs. White’s fanaticism and Carrie’s telekinesis.

In the film’s climactic prom scene, Donaggio’s romantic music and dark scoring play off each other to indicate the fragmentation and eventual coalescence of the two aspects of Carrie’s psyche. Sentimental love ballads are heard (sung by Amy Irving, who plays “Sue” in the film) [ala-mod editor's note: the songs are actually sung by Katie Irving, not Amy Irving] that underscore the burgeoning love affair between Carrie and her date Tommy (William Katt). One of the songs is a version of the film’s main theme, entitled “Born to Have It All” on the film’s soundtrack release, with lyrics given to Carrie’s flute melody that convey both the romantic longing Carrie is experiencing as well as the horror that is about to take place:
You were born to touch
To want too much
Let the bodies fall
You were born to have it all

Whilst Carrie and Tommy bond, several of Carrie’s classmates are conspiring to rig the vote for prom queen and king at the school dance in order to exact a horrible prank upon her. We hear atonal disjointed strings as Norma (P.J. Soles) goes from table to table collecting votes from the prom-goers. The camera tracks her movement around the auditorium until she arrives at the stage, where Chris (Nancy Allen) and Billy (John Travolta) are waiting underneath to pull the string on a bucket of blood hanging above the stage that is intended for Carrie. As the camera moves up to reveal the bucket, we hear a fragment of Carrie’s flute melody on a sparkling glockenspiel, as if the melody was suddenly electrified, and it is cut off abruptly on a dissonant chord. It’s a warning of what is to come, that the last vestiges of Carrie’s innocence are slowly being eroded. And as Carrie and her date Tommy walk to the stage when they are announced as prom queen and king, the same interchanging of Carrie’s theme and the menacing strings occurs on the soundtrack before all hell breaks loose and Carrie can no longer remain the cowering girl she once was.

Two film series are presnted at the museum in association with the del Toro exhibit: The Films of Guillermo del Toro, and Nightmare on Dundas Street Movie Nights, the latter of which includes a Friday the 13th of October screening of De Palma's Carrie.

Here is the website description of the del Toro exhibit:

From the fantastic to the frightful, don’t miss this rare glimpse into the world of renowned filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and his cabinet of curiosities. Taking inspiration from del Toro’s extraordinary imagination, At Home with Monsters reveals his creative process through his personal collection of art, artefacts, books, props, and ephemera, all culled from Bleak House, del Toro’s creative haven located in Los Angeles.

This unique exhibition explores the creative mind behind one of the most inventive filmmakers of our generation revealing his influences, from the Medieval era to contemporary culture, and his particular obsession with horror, fantasy and the rich heritage of the Victorian era.

“To find beauty in the profane. To elevate the banal. To be moved by genre. These things are vital for my storytelling,” says Guillermo del Toro. “This exhibition presents a small fraction of the things that have moved me, inspired me, and consoled me as I transit through life. It’s a devotional sampling of the enormous love that is required to create, maintain, and love monsters in our lives.”

Rather than a traditional chronology or filmography, At Home with Monsters is organized thematically, beginning with visions of childhood and innocence and the Victorian era that so deeply inspires del Toro; continuing through explorations of death and the afterlife, magic, occultism, alchemy, Frankenstein and horror, monsters; and concluding with a celebration of comics, movies and popular culture.

“Guillermo del Toro believes that we need monsters,” says Jim Shedden, co-curator and the AGO’s Manager of Publishing. “To him, the imperfections of monsters are found in all of us, whether we see them or not. At the same time, despite his empathy for the tragic monster, del Toro is fascinated with truly terrifying and invulnerable monsters. By witnessing his incredible creative process, we can make unexpected connections among different genres and narratives, high art and pop culture, and blur boundaries between fantasy and reality.”

Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Insight Editions. The 144-page volume is edited by Britt Salvesen, Jim Shedden, and Matthew Welch, with contributions by Guillermo del Toro, Keith McDonald, Roger Clark, and Paul Koudounaris.

Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Two types of tickets are available for the event:

$35 for Unreserved Orchestra Seating with Commemorative Poster, Q&A and After-Party Attendance.

$100 for VIP Reserved Seating with Private Pre-Party, Dressed to Kill Blu-Ray DVD + Photo Opp with Nancy Allen and Cast, Commemorative Poster, Q&A and After-Party Attendance.

A news item from the other day, clipped from an unnamed Italian newspaper, has been making the rounds (see tweet below from journalist Mimmo Melis). The item mentions that Domino will be at Cannes next year-- this follows a news item from Almeria a couple of months ago suggesting the film would premiere at next year's Berlin Film Festival. Obviously, with the movie still filming, it is much too early to say for sure one way or the other. Here's a full translation of the brief news item:

Domino films

The set of Domino, the new film by Brian De Palma, moved yesterday between Mari Pintau and Terra Mala. Armored scenes and roads closed to traffic: it was only the crew that spun the scenes of a pursuit. It is impossible to see the protagonists Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Carice van Houten.

The film, which will be presented in Cannes in 2018, is a thriller set in several European cities. The only Italian stop is Sardinia. The set on the coast was guarded by the Municipal Police, who escorted car crews from Mari Pintau to Terra Mala. To see the beauty of the beaches Quartu immortalized in the film, it will be necessary to wait for the release in theaters.

The Torino Fest site adds, "From his early works in the sixties to the masterpieces that made him one of the key directors of contemporary cinema, Emanuela Martini (curator of the retrospective and the director of the Turin Film Festival) will lead us to a rediscovery of the author that has had a fundamental influence on Cinema history." The 35th Torino Film Festival, which is held in Turin, Italy, will run November 24th through December 2nd.

Spielberg (from film clip): A movie came into town called Lawrence Of Arabia, and everybody was talking about it. And when the film was over, I wanted to not be a director anymore, because the bar was too high.

Sam Kim: That was great!

Susan Lacy: Yeah. The minute he told me that story, I knew that I was going to open with that.

SK: Of course.

SL: But I didn’t tell him that. And so when he saw the film for the first time, I think he said something like, “Pretty bold of you, to open a film about a filmmaker with somebody else’s movie!” I said, yeah, and he said, “I love it!” It’s about inspiration, it’s about what he aspired to.

SK: And about what you see when you’re an adolescent, you know, which affects us all. One of the great parts of this film of yours are these—a lot of these 8mm films that he made as a kid…

SL: They’re amazing, aren’t they?

SK: They’re totally amazing! Did he have them all?

SL: Yeah. He keeps a pretty good archive.

SK: I’ll bet!

SL: But, he’s very protective of them.

SK: Right.

SL: All that footage you see in the film of him hanging out with Paul Schrader and De Palma and…

SK: Never seen any of that, either.

SL: Even his own staff hasn’t seen most of it.

SK: That was his…?

SL: All of it was shot by him.

[Film Clip, possibly Spielberg’s voice] This is Martin Scorsese, director of Mean Streets.

[Spielberg’s voice again, but this time closer to the microphone]: This is Brian De Palma, wild as ever!