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Recent Headlines
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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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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.
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Saturday, October 19, 2019
UPDATE - DE PALMA NOIR ADAPTATION - 'PALMETTO'
VOLKER SCHLSNDORFF'S 1998 FILM WAS BASED ON JAMES HADLEY CHASE NOVEL 'JUST ANOTHER SUCKER'
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/justanothersucker2.jpg

It turns out that the classic noir Brian De Palma mentioned in a brief interview last week is Palmetto. De Palma had told Alex Helisek of Breezeway Productions that he is interested in doing an adaptation of Palmetto, a 1998 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff which was based on the James Hadley Chase novel Just Another Sucker. That screenplay was written by E. Max Frye (Something Wild). Schlöndorff, a pioneer figure of the New German Cinema (which happened from 1962 to 1982), is best known for his ambitious 1979 film adaptation of Günter Grass' The Tin Drum. About five years later, Schlöndorff made films in Hollywood before returning to Germany in the mid-'90s, then back to Hollywood to make Palmetto. "My friend (filmmaker) Bertrand Tavernier asked me why I didn't ever make the kind of movies I like to watch myself, a real 'movie' movie," Schlöndorff is quoted in the studio press notes for Palmetto (via Peter Rainer's review in the Phoenix New Times). "I decided it was time to take a break from the heavier subject matter and have a little fun."

Indeed, watching Palmetto, it is easy to see there is much there for De Palma to play with: a straight arrow reporter whose moral compass is compromised after being framed, staged kidnappings, ransom notes, drop offs, bodies in trunks, recordings of conversations, erotic frisking for wires, femme fatales, plenty of sex, and wigs galore. The film even opens with Woody Harrelson's somewhat Carlito-like stance toward a judge after his conviction is overturned.

Definitely could be fun for De Palma. For a bit more context regarding Schlöndorff's film version, which was not so well-reviewed upon initial release, here's Peter Rainer's review from 1998:

Palmetto is a film noir set in a torpid seaside Florida town. It's based on the James Hadley Chase novel Just Another Sucker, and when we first see Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson), he fits that moniker exactly. He looks dazed and confused--a sucker incarnate. Suckers are, of course, integral to noir--they provide the blood supply for the genre's predatory vamps. It's been said that a thriller is only as good as its chief villain, and, in the same way, most noirs are only as good as their suckers.

Palmetto has a good sucker but not much else. Harrelson is everything one could hope for, but he's surrounded by a cast, including Elisabeth Shue, Michael Rapaport, Chloe Sevigny and an underused Gina Gershon, which appears to have seen too many noirs--bad noirs. Their elaborate machinations are so transparently base that they might as well be camping it up for the cameras. The trick to getting noir right is to play it absolutely straight; the looniness and the greed may appear absurd to us, but they have to be deathly serious to their practitioners. Palmetto isn't a takeoff on noir, and yet it has that unintended effect. It appears to be winking at the audience when, instead, it should be trying to stare it down.

Part of the phoniness of Palmetto can be traced to its director, Volker Schlsndorff (The Tin Drum), being a German director adapting a novel by a British pulp novelist who wrote about America without ever spending any time in it. (Chase was the pseudonym for Rene Raymond.) There's an uncomfortably twice-removed quality about the movie. Screenwriter E. Max Frye (Something Wild) sets out all the proper pulp/noir place settings, but Schlsndorff doesn't really provide a meal.

The film's press notes carry an interesting quote from the director: "My friend (filmmaker) Bertrand Tavernier asked me why I didn't ever make the kind of movies I like to watch myself, a real 'movie' movie. I decided it was time to take a break from the heavier subject matter and have a little fun." But it's one thing to be a fan of noir, quite another to render it effectively. Palmetto is a fan's movie, and it has the kind of gaga unreality that a giddy cineast might bring to it.

Harrelson has always had a look of sozzled lewdness that makes him perfect for roles ranging from Larry Flynt to the deranged vet in Wag the Dog. But Harrelson's lewdness doesn't have many levels. What you see is often what you get. In Palmetto, he brings some softness into his usual slouch. Being a victim becomes him. His Harry Barber is a journalist released after two years in prison; it's been discovered he was framed for trying to expose civic corruption. Angry, aimless, he drifts into a kidnap-for-ransom scheme engineered by Rhea Malroux (Shue), a curvy bundle apparently married to a wheezing millionaire (Rolf Hoppe) with a trampy daughter (Sevigny). Harry becomes the bad guy he was mistakenly believed to be, and he can't quite live up to the billing. When the police, attempting to track down the kidnapers, put Harry on the job as their press liaison, he finds himself double-whammied. Once a sucker, always a sucker.

If the filmmakers had concentrated on this comedy of suckerdom, they might have come up with something piquant. (Harrelson certainly was up for it.) But Harry is surrounded by scenery-chewers. Shue is the worst offender, but Rapaport, playing Rhea's husband's bodyguard, is a close second. He's not playing a bad guy; he's an actor playing a bad guy.

Shue impressed a lot of people in Leaving Las Vegas because she brought a sensual bleariness to her patrician cool; she was a clean-cut slut with a heart of fool's gold. She hasn't been nearly as effective since. As the brainy scientist in The Saint, this Radcliffe graduate actually seemed rather dim; in Deconstructing Harry, she was part of the female foliage with which Woody Allen adorned himself. In Palmetto, spilling out of an assortment of clingy dresses, Shue is so unconvincing in her wiles that you can't imagine even a stupe like Harry getting stung.

Palmetto might not have been appreciably better even if it were more skillful. At this point in film history, it's not enough anymore just to go through the same old noir paces. Something new must be added to the mix. That's what John Dahl attempted to do with Red Rock West and, to a lesser extent, The Last Seduction. It's what Curtis Hanson does so successfully in L.A. Confidential--he dramatizes his own ambivalence about the pulp conventions he expertly executes. If Schlsndorff has any feelings about noir, you'd never know them from Palmetto. He's just happy to be orchestrating the nastiness. But we've heard this score before.


Posted by Geoff at 9:43 PM CDT
Updated: Sunday, October 20, 2019 2:55 AM CDT
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Friday, October 18, 2019
DE PALMA - HIFF - ON SHOOTING DIGITALLY, ACTORS, ETC
"THE KEY THING IS TO GET A CAMERAMAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO LIGHT IT"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/johnrocapic.jpg

A few days ago, Piper De Palma wrote on her Instagram page, "It was such a pleasure presenting the lifetime achievement award to my dad at the Hamptons International Film Festival (and of course meeting Alec Baldwin)✨I’m so proud!!" John Roca took the picture above showing Piper in between Brian De Palma and Baldwin.

The conversation event that took place at the festival last weekend opened with a montage of scenes from De Palma's films, scored to Ennio Morricone's music from Casualties Of War, which Baldwin mentioned during the conversation. The East Hampton Star's Mark Segal wrote an article about the event:

During their conversation, Mr. Baldwin noted the many stars Mr. De Palma worked with at the apex of their careers, among them Al Pacino, Kevin Costner, and John Travolta, who starred in the 1981 film “Blow Out,” which was shown Saturday at the East Hampton Cinema.

“I wrote ‘Blow Out’ after ‘Dressed to Kill,’ which was a big hit, so suddenly I was a genius,” said the director. After Mr. Travolta signed on to the project, the budget went from $6 million to $16 million, “and everything got bigger.”

Mr. De Palma said that making a $5 million movie is more or less the same for him as making a $100 million film. “Obviously there are more people around,” he said. He added that to do the elaborate set pieces for which he is known, he needed the top technicians, and they are in Hollywood. “They always said about Orson Welles that he lost the ability to use all those great technicians, and it showed in his work. I think that’s true.”

While Mr. De Palma has written many of his own films, he stressed the value of also working “in other people’s ballparks. That’s why I’m attracted to really great writers. It enlarges you because you have to tell their story with the techniques you’ve developed yourself.”

Of “Carlito’s Way,” which was written by David Koepp, he said “I was watching it at the Berlin Film Festival and I said to myself that I can’t make a better picture than this. And it wasn’t a big success. It killed me. I decided I was going to go out and make a success.”

Soon after, he heard from his agent, Mike Ovitz, that Sydney Pollock, who was working on “Mission Impossible,” wanted out of the project. “So Mike asked me if I would be interested. And I said, ‘Tom Cruise! ‘Mission Impossible’? You bet!’ It was the biggest hit of my career.”

Though often cited for his stylistic ingenuity, Mr. De Palma stressed the importance of actors. “You’ve got to get great actors to make these stories work, because if the actors aren’t good, you aren’t good.”

Mr. Baldwin said, “None of your peers — Steven, Marty, George — has anything on you when you shoot these things you shoot,” referring to his elaborate set pieces, dramatic camera angles and compositions, panning and tracking shots, and precisely choreographed long takes.

“Needless to say, Marty and Steven are very skilled at those kind of sequences,” said Mr. De Palma. “I think the difference is that Steven always used the same composer, John Williams. And Marty uses rock and roll basically. I used a variety of the best composers who were writing during my era, and that may be why my sequences stand out. Ennio Morricone’s score for ‘Casualties of War’ will tear your heart out.”

Mr. De Palma has also worked with many of the top cinematographers. Asked if he preferred shooting and cutting film to working digitally, he said, “I’m a science brat. I love the new technology. When I shoot digitally, the key thing is to get a cameraman who knows how to light it. It doesn’t have to look like that brown crap you see all the time.”

As much as he is recognized for his psychological thrillers, Mr. De Palma is also known, and sometimes criticized, for his depiction of violence. He discussed his battles with the old motion picture ratings board, which started with the masturbation scene in the shower in “Dressed to Kill.”

Scarface” was X-rated at first. He made a few cuts, sent it back, and it was returned with an X. He made several subsequent cuts of violent material without appeasing the board. “I finally said, ‘What?’ They said, ‘It’s the clown getting shot!’ The clown getting shot? It was too much.” Over the objections of the studio head, he resubmitted the original cut to the full board, and it was eventually approved.

Of the scene in “Scarface” where Mr. Pacino appears with his gun and says, “Say hello to my little friend,” Mr. De Palma explained why so many people are shot in it. “When we went on the set to film that sequence, the set burned down. Then, when Al was using that gun, he grabbed it by the barrel, and it was so hot he burned himself severely.”

“The set burned, then Al burned?” interjected Mr. Baldwin.

“He went to the hospital for two weeks. So here I had a set, no Al, but I had a lot of Colombians. So we spent those two weeks shooting Colombians.” Of Mr. Pacino, he said, “Al can hold the screen with that incredible face and voice; you just sit there riveted. And he’s not only a great actor, he moves so gracefully.”

He cited Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” as two recent films he admires. “We’ve got some good directors working,” he said, moments before his daughter, Piper De Palma, came onstage to give him the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.


Posted by Geoff at 7:40 AM CDT
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Wednesday, October 16, 2019
KIM NEWMAN ON 'DOMINO'
"FLASHES OF GENIUS MAKE IT A MORE INTERESTING WATCH THAN THE PROFESSIONAL PLOD OF MOST..."
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/armsraised3small.jpg

In the October issue of EMPIRE, Kim Newman begins his monthly video dungeon column with a brief review of Domino:
Early in Domino, Copenhagen cop Nikolaj Coster-Waldau bungles a routine call-out and gets his partner stabbed. As he’s dangling from a gutter à la James Stewart in Vertigo, accompanied by a lush orchestral Pino Donaggio score, this seemingly typical Scandi-noir is revealed as unmistakably the work of itinerant ex-‘movie brat’ Brian De Palma. A found footage sequence combines elements from Redacted (De Palma’s most interesting 21st century work) and Femme Fatale (his flat-out craziest/most fun) as a chic, brainwashed terrorist livestreams a gun attack/suicide bombing on the red carpet of a swanky European film festival. Sadly, thanks to budget cuts and a never-really-there script, Domino proceeds to fall over, but flashes of genius make it a more interesting watch than the professional plod of most direct-to-anything-but-a-cinema thrillers.

Posted by Geoff at 11:59 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, October 17, 2019 12:11 AM CDT
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Tuesday, October 15, 2019
DE PALMA MENTIONS NOIR ADAPTATION TITLED 'PALMETTO'
AS WELL AS "A KIND OF HORROR FILM I'D LIKE TO MAKE"

Alex Helisek of Breezeway Productions posted a brief interview with Brian De Palma on YouTube, conducted outside Saturday, with Susan Lehman waiting in the background, before heading in for De Palma's conversation with Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Asked what kinds of films he is looking to make in the future, De Palma mentions "a kind of horror film I'd like to make" (he is most likely referring to Predator), as well as a movie he calls Palmetto, based on an otherwise unnamed classic noir:
Well, I'm interested in new styles of telling stories. I do have a kind of horror film I'd like to make. And also diferent genres, and an adaptation of an old classic noir picture called Palmetto.

The interviewer also asks De Palma, with the films coming out this year, gearing up to the "Oscar race, as it begins to heat up," if there is anything he's seen that really strikes a chord with him. De Palma answers, "Marriage Story," saying "the acting, the script, really beautifully done."

Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Friday, October 18, 2019 7:55 AM CDT
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Monday, October 14, 2019
AMERICAN PSYCHO & BODY DOUBLE IN BRIGHTON OCT 26
"A MOVIE ABOUT PATRICK BATEMAN & PATRICK BATEMAN'S FAVOURITE MOVIE"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bdthishalloween1.jpg
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bdthishalloween2.jpg


White Wall Cinema will host a "a special Halloween double bill pop up cinema experience" October 26th at Wgner Hall in Brighton: Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho and Brian De Palma's Body Double. "Two movies back to back," reads the event description, "a movie about Patrick Bateman and Patrick Bateman's favourite movie!" Sponsored by It Is Still 1985 ("Brighton's legndary 80s Party"), the event page includes a lovingly-edited trailer scored to Pino Donaggio's Body Double theme, save for a bit of Huey Lewis and The News near the end, and a bite of Frankie Goes To Hollywood to close things out.

Here's more from the event page:

We start the evening with Mary Harron’s 2000 cult classic American Psycho starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, an investment banker who attempts to hide his serial killer impulses as he descends into hedonistic violence, in a deeply satirical look at 1980s New York.

The second movie of the evening, 1984’s Body Double, is cited throughout Bret Easton Ellis’s original American Psycho novel as Patrick Bateman’s favourite film (Bateman mentions that he has seen the film 37 times and rents the tape of it from a video store several times in the story, and also repeats scenes from the film to the reader or to other characters). Directed by Brian DePalma (other works include Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito’s Way) and influenced by Hitchcock classics Rear Window & Vertigo, Body Double follows an out of work actor as he delves into the seedy world of adult entertainment in order to solve a murder he witnesses in the Hollywood hills. A vibrant 80s neo-noir thriller it’s an unashamed celebration and examination of the most superficial of decades. Tickets on sale now.


Posted by Geoff at 1:02 AM CDT
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Sunday, October 13, 2019
WATCH - FISH TANK STUNT FROM MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE
VIDEO TWEETED BY ILM VISUAL EFFECTS ARTIST - GIVES CREDIT TO STUNT COORDINATOR GREG POWELL
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tankstunt2.jpg

Todd Vaziri, a veteren visual effects artist who has worked on David Koepp's Stir Of Echoes and Mission: Impossible III, among many many other films, posted a video on Twitter a couple of days ago that shows a rare behind-the-scenes look at the Tom Cruise fish tank stunt from Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible. Vaziri's tweet gives credit to stunt coordinator Greg Powell.

Posted by Geoff at 11:02 AM CDT
Updated: Sunday, October 13, 2019 11:04 AM CDT
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Saturday, October 12, 2019
PIPER HANDS AWARD TO DE PALMA AT HAMPTONS FEST
AND DE PALMA CHATS WITH ALEC BALDWIN ON STAGE
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/brianpiperalec.jpg

After an early screening today of Brian De Palma's Blow Out at the Hamptons International Film Festival, De Palma took part in an onstage conversation with Alec Baldwin. Toward the end of the event, De Palma was given a lifetime achievement award by the festival, which was presented to him by his daughter, Piper De Palma.

Vulture film critic Alison Willmore tweeted:

Brian De Palma, talking about his MPAA battles, is asked if he thinks there’s anything in his work that couldn’t be made today: “I don’t think so... You can practically do anything on cable”

“My first idea was, we kill them all in the first mission!” De Palma on the dilemma of adapting MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, a show about a group of characters, into MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, a Tom Cruise movie

(This is something that drives me nuts about the first MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE)

In conclusion, De Palma is a fan of MARRIAGE STORY and ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD and very much not a fan of the lighting in most streaming movies, and Alec Baldwin will not be cowed into socks by autumnal weather


The Swan Archives has a brief report from the event, as well:
Today the Hamptons International Film Festival gave Brian De Palma a lifetime achievement award, and celebrated by hosting an onstage event with De Palma and Alec Baldwin entitled "A Conversation with Brian De Palma," which would have been better titled "Alec Baldwin Does Impressions, Tells Anecdotes, and Reveals His Complete and Total Ignorance of Brian De Palma's Early Career Whle Occasionally Permitting De Palma to Get the Odd Word In." The award was presented to De Palma by his daughter, Piper, who aptly described it as "glass and sharp." In the course of the approximately sixty minute conversation, in addition to Baldwin extensively discussing incidents from his own career, the two touched briefly on Mission Impossible, Carlito's Way, Raising Cain, Blow Out, and Dressed to Kill.

On Sunday, Roger Friedman at Showbiz 411 reported:
HIFF has had lots of nice parties, and conversations with filmmakers also including a talk with Alfre Woodard, star of “Clemency.” Alfre is certainly on the list for possible Best Actress nominees this year. Alec Baldwin interviewed legendary director Brian DePalma at Guild Hall, and DePalma’s 23 year old daughter Piper– named for actress Piper Laurie, star of DePalma’s “Carrie”– presented him with HIFFs Lifetime Achievement Award. DePalma’s long list of great movies is stunning in clip reel. From “Carrie” to “The Untouchables” to the first “Mission Impossible” movie and all his great quirky films like “Dressed to Kill” and “Body Double,” what a resume!

DePalma certainly had a good time, too. He, Woodward, and Baldwin among others turned up later in the day at Silvercup Studio owner Stuart Match Suna’s glittering annual gathering in East Hampton, where the canapes were good but secondary to the smart talk.


Mark Segal at The East Hampton Star also filed a report Sunday:
Brian De Palma, the recipient of the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award, sat down with Alec Baldwin on Saturday afternoon for an illuminating and often hilarious conversation at Guild Hall that covered many aspects of Mr. De Palma’s work.

Among the director’s recollections were the struggle to get Tom Cruise to approve a script for the first “Mission Impossible,” Al Pacino burning his hand on the barrel of his “little friend” in “Scarface,” the importance of cinematographers and composers, his battles with the movie ratings board, and discovering John Lithgow in a college play.

As usual when he hosts the festival’s Conversations With . . . programs, Mr. Baldwin had a few anecdotes of his own in this program, among them working with Woody Allen and Tim Burton, and getting his prosthetic fingers chopped off in “Miami Blues.”

At the conclusion of the talk, Piper De Palma, the director’s daughter, presented her father with the award. Earlier in the day, his 1981 thriller “Blow Out” was screened for a full house at the East Hampton Cinema.


 


Posted by Geoff at 11:58 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, October 14, 2019 11:21 PM CDT
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SWAN SONG 'PHANTOM' CUT SCREENED AT SLEEPY HOLLOW
VERY RARE PUBLIC SCREENING OF RECONSTRUCTED ORIGINAL VERSION HAPPENED THURSDAY
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/phantomsleepyhollowposter.jpg

Jon DeMon was at the Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival screening of Phantom Of The Paradise Thursday night, and tweeted, that it "was the 1st public presentation of De Palma's unedited 'Swan Song' cut!" And indeed, the version that played Thursday was the reconstructed version that Paul Williams spoke about this past summer when he thanked Ari Kahan of the Swan Archives on stage at Fantasia Fest for finding the lost footage and putting together "this absolutely pristine version of the film." With all of the legal wranglings, we don't expect very many public screenings of this version in the near future, but it was a nice surprise for the 150-plus audience members at the Tarrytown Music Hall Thursday in New York.


Posted by Geoff at 2:26 PM CDT
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Thursday, October 10, 2019
PAUL HIRSCH - 'BRIAN DE PALMA WAS MY MENTOR'
GOT JOB ON 'STAR WARS' AFTER DE PALMA SCREENED FINAL CUT OF 'CARRIE' FOR GEORGE & MARCIA LUCAS
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/hirschbooksmall.jpgNovember 5th is the publication date for Paul Hirsch's book, A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away: My Fifty Years Editing Hollywood Hits―Star Wars, Carrie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mission: Impossible, and More. Promoting the book, in which Hirsch writes about his experiences over 50 years in the film business, he recently spoke with Moviehole's Mike Smith:
MIKE SMITH: What drew you to become a film editor?

PAUL HIRSCH: A number of things. I was fascinated when I first saw a Moviola. I was blown away by a festival of Orson Welles films. I liked working with my hands, and was drawn to the tools. I loved movies.

MS: Other film editors I’ve interviewed had mentors they admired. I recently spoke with Arthur Schmidt and he told me that he learned under Dede Allen and Neil Travis. Did you have someone whose work you admired and/or who took you under their wing?

PH: Brian DePalma was my mentor. He encouraged me, empowered me, validated my work and deeply influenced me. I was cutting his films from the age of 23, and so never worked under a professional feature film editor. I learned by doing and studying how films I admired were cut. I was sort of like the art students you see in museums, copying the masters.

MS: How did you come to edit “Hi Mom” for Brian DePalma?

I had cut the trailer for “Greetings,” thanks to my brother. When they got the money to do a sequel, titled “Son of Greetings,” Brian hired me to cut it.

MS: Five or your first six films were with DePalma. He is well known – and often criticized – for his use of split-screen (the prom from “Carrie” being a great example). Was that something you discussed in the editing room or was that his original vision?

PH: Split screen is Brian’s thing. I can’t take credit for it, but I do love and appreciate the tension that can result from juxtaposing images on the screen, even if, or rather, especially if, the screen isn’t actually split. I’m referring to deep focus shots, which have become a lost art, where you have a near object on one side, and a distant one on the other. Brian did that a lot, using split diopters, with tremendous success.

MS: A lot of the young filmmakers in the 70s (DePalma, Spielberg, Scorsese, Lucas) were very close with each other. Is that how you were hired for “Star Wars?”

PH: Yes. Brian screened the final cut of “Carrie” for George and Marcia Lucas on their return from principal photography on”Star Wars” in England. They needed help, and turned to me.

MS: How difficult was it editing a film where you sometimes had to wait months for a finished special effects shot?

PH: We had ways around that. We would cut in place-holders or a piece of leader that we estimated was the right length.

MS: You, along with Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew, received the Academy Award for your work on “Star Wars.” Where do you keep your Oscar?

PH: It’s on a bookshelf in my office.

MS: You’ve done eleven films with DePalma but, surprisingly, not ‘The Untouchables.” Was there a reason you didn’t cut that picture?

PH: I moved to the West Coast after “Blow Out.” I didn’t cut a picture for Brian in the ensuing ten years. We next worked together on “Raising Cain,” when he was living in California.

MS: You also worked a lot with John Hughes. How was he to work with and were there any major differences in the way he and DePalma approached a film?

PH: John was a lot of fun to work with until he wasn’t. He was a brilliant artist, but had mercurial moods. But I had a great time working with him. John was a writer, primarily, and his medium was words, by and large. Brian is a great visualist. His ideas are primarily graphic, both in terms of camera movement, which no one does better, and in terms of visual story-telling, that is to say, how scenes can be constructed in the editing room.

MS: Hal Ashby was a great film editor who went on to become a fine director. Have you ever wanted to direct?

PH: I did want to for a while, and then the fever broke. I like working all the time, and editing afforded me that. To me, directing was like perpetually running for office. I’m more of an introvert, and editing suits me just fine.

MS: Your most recent film was the Tom Cruise version of “The Mummy.” What is the biggest difference between cutting a film now and forty-plus years ago?

PH: There’s a lot more reliance on vfx now, which consumes a lot of time and energy. And when I started out, directors were given much more discretion. The director was the key creative figure in the package, often with final cut. That happens less these days. If a director had a hit back then, the studio would ask, “What do you want to do next?” Today, the projects are developed by the studio, and the director is “cast” the same way you would choose an actor for a role. Producers and studio executives are much more involved in the editing process these days.


Posted by Geoff at 7:08 AM CDT
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Sunday, October 6, 2019
FEMINIST FRIGHT FEST TO ANALYZE 'SISTERS' WEDNESDAY
EMILY TAYLOR CENTER FOR WOMEN & GENDER EQUITY EVENT, 7PM IN LAWRENCE, KANSAS
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/sisterspairssmall.jpg

The Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity will screen Brian De Palma's Sisters at 7pm this Wednesday, October 9th, as part of its weekly Feminist Fright Fest. The screening, which will take place at the Lawrence Public Library (in Lawrence, Kansas), will be "followed by a critical feminist analysis and discussion of the film’s representation of gender, race, class, sexuality, and dis/ability," according to the organization's Instagram post.

Posted by Geoff at 11:07 PM CDT
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