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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, May 30, 2020
DE PALMA & LEHMAN TALK 'SNAKES' IN LA REPUBBLICA
"A STORY OF FEMALE REVENGE, BUT TO HAVE A REDEMPTION, YOU MUST FIRST PUT ON THE VICTIM'S CLOTHES"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/depalmalarepubblica.jpg

Thanks to Fabio for sending along this Brian De Palma interview from last Sunday's Robinson, a weekly cultural supplement included in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper. The interview by Silvia Bizio forcuses on Are Snakes Necessary?, and while the bulk of it is mainly with De Palma, the intro includes a couple of quotes from De Palma's co-author, Susan Lehman, who says, "Writing is a very lonely activity, but doing it with Brian was fun." Lehman adds, "Brian outlined the main themes, obviously with a visual image. And then we went back to fix them with characters, descriptions and humor. It was fun, almost a game. The goal was to make the other laugh."

Here is the bulk of the interview that follows then, with the help of Google translation:

De Palma, who turns 80 in September, speaks from his home in East Hampton. And in isolation with Susan, a dog and a cat: "What do I think of the American response to the virus? They are dealing with it badly and I hope this administration will end in November."

How was the book born?

"It is inspired by political events that were happening when the idea came to us. The scandal of Gary Condit, for example, when the intern with whom he had an adulterous relationship disappears: only later was she found dead in a park in Washington DC. Another episode was that of Senator John Edwards and the filmmaker who worked on his campaign. When I saw them it seemed to me that they were flirting, and in fact in the end he had an affair with her, and a girl was conceived. "

What makes a politician like him so interesting that you want him as the protagonist of this story?

"The fact that politicians are involved in sexual scandals is part of a cliche. The two I mentioned instead are rather unique in their kind. A flirtation with a girl who is filming episodes on the campaign ends with a pregnant girl. Amusing."

Do you believe that we will return to talk about morality in politics?

"It's not like we were sleeping, but in reality we wrote the book before Trump's election. We narrate two unique political situations, which involve the promiscuity of two great political figures. Politics and sex are two naturally compatible elements. And then in the book there is the idea of ​​finding the characters on a set in Paris. Taking advantage of my experience as a film director, I also wanted to bring this element into the story. For some reason, French critics took this very seriously ... "

There is a fun chapter on Arnold Schwarzenegger. Why him?

"Because he had a son with his housekeeper, more or less the same time he had a son with Maria, his wife. Very funny."

And you didn't even want to try to hide the name, you put it out in the open.

"Well, the story was in People magazine. Can't get more out in the open than that..."

How does writing a novel differ from writing a screenplay? Is it similar?

"I like writing scripts, because essentially they are made of dialogue, characters and places, you don't have to write descriptions. Writing descriptions is not my strength, but Susan is very good at that and also with writing the inner emotional life of the character. When you write a screenplay, you don't always consider the depth of a character, because depending on who will interpret it, it will be modeled on that specific actor. So it is much more similar to a draft, unlike a book, which instead is complete in the setting, the moods, the inner life of the characters."

In the final chapters the character of Nick, the photographer, finds himself on the set of "Vertigo". Again, a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock. Why do you see it so often in your works?

"I've been answering this question for 50 years! (Laughs) Okay, it seemed very funny. Vertigo is based on a French novel, and I thought it would be nice to set the climax of the book in a very high place. So I said, why not at the foot of the Eiffel Tower? It was the way to bring the characters from the book together in one big scene. It's fun. People keep comparing my works with those of Hitchcock and, as I've said numerous times, Hitchcock was a great master and pioneer of visual storytelling. I learned from what he did and at the same time I experimented with new ways of telling something visually; I think I am the last practitioner of this form."

Some women in the book are victims, the wife, the lover, the daughter, but in the end there is a redemption, they become protagonists, they are the ones who take the action in hand.

"We decided to write a story of female revenge, but to have a redemption, you must first put on the victim's clothes. And the dramatic positions they are in at the beginning, with treacherous husbands and liars, it seemed to us an effective summary of what happens to women. If you want to write a story of women's revenge, your bow will start from the opposite situation. You will start with some kind of abuse."


At the end of the interview, Bizio asks De Palma if he'd like a film based on Are Snakes Necessary? "It would be a lot of work," De Palma responds. "Many locations, it would be one of those $200 million films! Or a ten-part streaming series, I wouldn't know. Like many authors, I wouldn't want to be involved in the film adaptation, even if I'm a film director."

Posted by Geoff at 9:26 AM CDT
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Tuesday, May 26, 2020
THE RICHNESS OF CINEMA'S DREAM LANGUAGE - DTK
GUARDIAN CRITIC ERIK MORSE'S "FAVOURITE FILM AGED 12"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bobbifirst.jpg

Today at The Guardian, Erik Morse writes passionately about Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill, as part of The Guardian series, "My favourite film aged 12." "Despite Dressed to Kill’s highly inappropriate content for a suburban child of 12," Morse explains, "I was instantly transfixed by a heavily edited version of the film that screened regularly on late-night TV." Here's an excerpt from Morse's essay:
Much more than the mature plot, however, Dressed to Kill’s kaleidoscopic atmosphere – its watery, soft-focus lens, garish colour palette and flashy, optical tricks such as slow-motion, mirrored surfaces, split screens and dioptres – was a feast for my languorous, pre-teen senses. On several occasions, I would wake up to catch the film at its midpoint or nod off before the ending, allowing the collage of images and music to splice into the edges of my sleep. The tense melodies of Pino Donaggio’s soundtrack and the likeness of an androgyne wielding a straight razor would soon become a Proustian madeleine from which countless reveries of my nocturnal childhood would unfold.

De Palma’s mastery of atmosphere was on no greater display than in the film’s early, museum set-piece – a 10-minute, dialogue-free sequence in which the director’s viewfinder glides around Dickinson’s character and through the Met’s galleries and corridors while she pursues, then is pursued, by a potential suitor. As the scene’s tension and pace builds, the labyrinthine interior assumes the contours of a De Chirico painting, or to my child’s eyes, the floating floorplan of a dream. Multiple viewings would reveal another surprise: a split-second cameo of the murderer embedded in the set dressing.

This scene, followed by another silent, slow-burn sequence that culminates in Miller’s grisly death in an elevator, proved to be an exhilarating initiation into the architecture of suspense. The lead character’s abrupt exit from the screen and the subsequent narrative switcheroo to Blake’s story also demonstrated how film could manipulate red herrings and false leads so that, more than mere plot devices, they appeared to me like celluloid apparitions captured in time. While the role reversals of the “good” doctor and “bad” hooker, and the multiple doubles in the film’s climax, hinted at cinema’s intimate bond to secret identities and masquerade.

These lavish visual and rhetorical sleights of hand fed into the richness of cinema’s dream language.

The film’s pleasures were not only abstract. Within the nests of set-pieces and dream sequences, De Palma’s images also produced a montage of New York City at the beginning of the 1980s, a place and an era that I recognised only from a distance. The elegant uptown and slummy downtown, insular high-rise and turbulent subway car, baroque interior and darkened streetscape. These landmarks helped to plot my own imaginary atlas years before I would move to the city as a university film student and discover its very different, millennial landscape.

To a suburban child with an appetite for suspense, De Palma’s masterpiece of urban atmosphere both terrified and enthralled, and inspired in me a lasting passion for genre cinema.


Posted by Geoff at 11:45 PM CDT
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Monday, May 25, 2020
PARADE LIST - 'CASUALTIES' ONE OF 50 BEST WAR FILMS
AND POCKET-LINT - "WHAT ORDER SHOULD YOU WATCH THE BEST VIETNAM WAR FILMS?"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/casualties15a.jpg

Parade's Neil Pond kicked off this weekend Friday with "50 Must-See War Films for Your Memorial Day Movie Marathon." "Encompassing everything from the awfulness of war to the far reaches of its absurdity," Pond states, "this list of the best war movies serves as our tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our prolonged times of peace." While the list is not numbered, Casualties Of War is the fourteenth film from the top:
Casualties of War (1989)

Best known for his work in the genres of suspense, crime, horror and thrillers (like Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables and Body Double), director Brian de Palma takes a harrowing plunge into the battlefield with this take on a real-life incident about how an American soldier finds himself on the outside of his rogue squad when they kidnap a young Vietnamese woman and rape her. Michael J. Fox (who took time off from TV’s Family Ties to film) and Sean Penn give riveting performances on opposite sides of the situational-ethics line, and the movie marks the first film appearance of John C. Reilly.


Meanwhile, last week, Pocket-lint's Chris Hall attempted to place the best Vietnam films in a chronological viewing order:
The conflict in Vietnam spanned decades of fighting, from the outbreak of the war with France in 1946, through to the political and ideological division of the country into north and south which formed the foundation for the US involvement in Vietnam. That involvement escalated through advisory roles through the early 1960s, until emerging as full conflict around 1965.

For the USA, the era of the Vietnam War is surrounded by socially and culturally significant events in the homeland, the passage of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon through the presidency and a rich depiction in a wide range of movies. There are a vast number of productions that owe their stories Vietnam, from the Rambo series, to Forrest Gump, the characterisation of The Simpson's Principal Skinner - "I was in 'Nam" - to those movies that actually tell the stories of Vietnam itself.

Here we present many of the best films that address Vietnam. We think the best order is chronological, based on the dates of the events depicted. But we're also giving a number of different approaches, which you can jump to in the table below, avoiding spoilers if you want to.

...

The best Vietnam movie viewing order (spoilers)

These are the movies we consider to be essential viewing not only for the stories that they tell, but how they tell those stories. They are ordered to fit the unfolding of events in the Vietnam War, although in some cases we deviate from that timeline when the emphasis of the film is on the return home, for example. Where there's no clear event being portrayed - because it's a fictionalised work - we've placed that movie in its position based on its content and context in the passage of the conflict.


The chronological order of films then goes like this:
  • Good Morning, Vietnam
  • We Were Soldiers
  • Casualties of War
  • Rescue Dawn
  • Tour of Duty
  • Platoon
  • Full Metal Jacket
  • Hamburger Hill
  • Apocalypse Now
  • Tigerland
  • Born on the Fourth of July
  • The Deer Hunter

And here is Hall's description of Casualties Of War:

Casualties of War takes us into 1966, telling a true story reported by Daniel Lang in The New Yorker in 1969. Michael J Fox plays Max Eriksson, a "cherry" in Vietnam who joins a squad to head out to Hill 192. Squad leader Sergeant Meserve, played by a powerful Sean Penn, has other ideas for the mission, kidnapping a Vietnamese girl to take with them for a little "R&R". It's a haunting tale, depicting the breakdown of any sort of moral standards and the conflict between comrades that ensues. The 1989 film from director Brian De Palma pulls at many of the threads we see across Vietnam movies, particularly the dehumanisation of the Vietnamese reflected in the US GIs. Watch out for Dale Dye's appearance, who also stars in Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

Posted by Geoff at 8:05 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, May 25, 2020 8:08 PM CDT
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Saturday, May 23, 2020
NEW 'HOMECOMING' DIRECTOR 'LEANED INTO' DE PALMA
"WE NEED TO MAKE THIS THE BIGGEST, DE PALMA, OVER-THE-TOP KIND OF MEETING WE CAN"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/giant1a.jpg

Brian De Palma continues to be a main influence on the style of Amazon Prime's series Homecoming. In 2018, Sam Esmail, who directed all ten episodes of the first season, told an audience of television critics that the kind of continuous, fluid tracking shot he showed them from the series was inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma. Then, once the series hit in October of that year, it was discovered that the score used direct pieces from classic paranoia films directed by the likes of De Palma, Alan J. Pakula, and John Carpenter.

The second season of Homecoming premiered yesterday, with Esmail keeping no more than an executive producer role. It turns out that the new director, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, who directed all seven episodes of season two, was a big fan of the first season and fought hard to get the job. The Advocate's Daniel Reynolds has the details:

Another exciting addition is Kyle Patrick Alvarez, a gay Latinx director known for films like C.O.G. and The Stanford Prison Experiment; he also holds TV credits with Netflix's 13 Reasons Why. For Alvarez, these were great expectations of steering the second season of Homecoming after its acclaimed debut in 2018. “You want to live up to people's expectations,” said Alvarez, who said his goal was to create a “digestible and fun season that moves quick and surprises you [and] keeps you really engaged throughout.

This is the first time Alvarez has helmed an entire season of television. Since The Stanford Prison Experiment, the director has worked in TV to direct episodes of various shows, but nothing of this scope. He landed the job the old-fashioned way, through lobbying a producer. “I was a massive fan of season 1,” he said. He then “fought really hard” for the position; he pitched creators [Eli] Horowitz and [Micah] Bloomberg with specifics on how he would film the entire season. His pitch worked. “I'm grateful that they certainly took a chance on me,” he said. “I’m not quite sure how I got that lucky.”

One of the challenges for Alvarez was making the show his own following Esmail, who directed the first season with the distinctive visual style of aspect ratio changes, an “inspired move,” said Alvarez. Alvarez said he had an “open-door policy” in his own artistic choices. While he did not “want to rewrite the book on how this show is shot,” he also did not want to establish Homecoming as “that show where the bars change.”

Thus, the bars no longer change in season 2 — although split screens between characters provide their own moments of dramatic tension and revelation that reference the techniques of the first season while also expanding their meaning. “I was trying to stay in the spirit of it while following my own intuitions,” Alvarez said.

Additionally, Homecoming brought in a composer for the music of its second season; the first used classical scores. Alvarez characterized season 2 as more of a “traditional thriller,” with chase and suspense scenes that require customized sound. Thriller titans Alan J. Pakula and Alfred Hitchcock were clear artistic influences in season 1. And while Alvarez also channeled these filmmakers, he additionally “leaned into” the “grandiose style” of Brian de Palma, especially in the split-screen sequences.

There’s also the cast itself. Notably, [Julia] Roberts does not appear in season 2. While Alvarez did “love” her performance, he would have been “wary” of including her character with the way her storyline ended. “It was a relief to say hey we're going to start at a different place with a different person,” said Alvarez. That person is [Janelle] Monáe, who Alvarez was “thrilled” to have on. “PrimeTime,” from her work as a musician, is the most played song in his iTunes library, he admitted.


Alvarez discusses that split-screen scene in more detail with ComicBook.com's JK Schmidt:
What was your favorite scene, second season, that you've got to make?

Kyle Patrick Alvarez: Oh, man. Probably the end of episode ... There's a few, but I think the sequence I was most excited about, or the most invested in myself, was the end of episode two when Janelle and Hong see each other from across the crowd as the balloons are falling, and we go into split screen. Because I remember in my first pitch, I said, "Look, I think this season ..." Split screen was used in a very utilitarian way in season one. It was, "Hey, we're going to be ..." It's an immense amount of phone calls in season one, but it never weighs on you because the split screen is always keeping you engaged on both sides of it. So here it was like, "Okay, we only have two phone calls this season, maybe three. So how else can we utilize split-screen as a narrative device?"

And so for me, when I came in, I said, "Well, look. Episode two is all about her tracking this woman. She has no idea who she is, and tracking her and tracking her, and it's this labyrinthine thing going around this building. And we need to make this the biggest, De Palma, over-the-top kind of meeting we can, because obviously it leads to a bit of a twisty moment. And so for me, that's one of those rare moments where everything you conceive of, it ends up working and clicking.

Usually, filmmaking is about unexpected surprises, both good and bad ways, and that's one of those scenes that just ... It worked. It was how we storyboarded it, it was the score fit in how we imagined it. It all clicked into place, and so I watch it, and it feels very planned and fulfilling to me because I'm like, "Oh, that worked." So I'd say I'm the most proud of that. It was just technically really difficult having that incredible amount of extras, only being able to afford to drop those balloons a couple of times. There was a lot of pressure on how we're going to pull that off.


Queerty's David Reddish also asked Alvarez about De Palma and Kubrick:
I would call this quite a departure from your work on Tales of the City or 13 Reasons Why. This is a potboiler thriller, and at times, a very surreal one. How did you land the job? How did you develop your approach?

Getting the job meant a lot to me. I was a big fan of Season 1, and actually watched it while we were shooting Tales. I was in New York and watched it all in my hotel room and loved it so much. It’s a show that asks a lot from a director. The visual style is baked into what the show is and how it’s built. Sam [Esmail, director of Season 1] had built this beautiful fresh thing for TV, so it became about evolving it, making it different. For me, the last movie I’d done was The Sanford Prison Experiment which was in the same style of 70s filmmaking, all the stuff Sam was drawn to. I suspect we like all the same movies, because watching Season 1, it felt like someone made the show for me.

Awesome.

In the interim, I’d done a lot of TV work with Tales and 13 Reasons. So was going back and forth between a lot of genre stuff. Honestly, I was waiting for an opportunity like this to get to direct every episode and have a voice. It’s not like directors don’t have a voice in TV, but it’s different. You’re the substitute teacher. You come in, do your episode, and leave. Here, I was there from the moments the scripts were finished until the very last special effects shot. It feels really gratifying.

Absolutely. And it is very much yours. That’s one thing I love about it—it has a cohesive voice and visual style. You like to use a lot of very long takes, and a lot of split-screen. I’m guessing you’re a fan of Brian DePalma, in that sense. The long zooms feel like something out of Kubrick, especially The Shining. What do you love about that approach?

You know, it’s interesting. Even though I think the styles are relatively similar between the seasons, I feel like Season 1’s North Star, in terms of a director, was Alan J. Pakula, with The Parallax View being essential. This season I kind of went into a little bit pulpier, like let’s do DePalma. I always joke that there are a couple of moments where, if he is watching, he’ll roll his eyes. I obsessively watched the end of Carrie and especially Blow Out. It’s one of my favorite movies.

Right.

It’s just about making sure you’re not copying a filmmaker you love; you’re taking inspiration from how they evoke a feeling. That’s how you avoid imitation. Kubrick, obviously, the set was out of 2001. But zooms kind of went out of fashion. I love them. I think it’s kind of wrong; there’s a lot you can do with them. I just love what they do.

That’s wonderful. And I wouldn’t be too self-conscious about borrowing from DePalma. He’s borrowed from other directors—Hitchock, Eisenstein, Antonioni—his whole career. It’s everywhere.

That’s very true. He may have invented the idea of referential directing.

But it fits. It adds an almost surrealistic feeling to the action. Do you storyboard or rehearse?

We didn’t have the time to rehearse. We did storyboard a lot. Weirdly, for me, the process of storyboarding is where you get the value. Storyboards themselves are more for everybody else. Me and the storyboard artist would meet from 6-7:30 every morning before everyone showed up and try to draw as much as we could. When you have 500 extras, you can’t improvise.

Sure.

A crane shot can take three hours to set up, so you have to be so exact. If not, you won’t make the days.


See also:

More details on the Donaggio cues used in Homecoming


Posted by Geoff at 10:33 AM CDT
Updated: Monday, May 25, 2020 7:03 PM CDT
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Tuesday, May 19, 2020
'ELEGANTLY IMPENETRABLE' MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
JUSTIN CHANG WEEDING OUT "ULTIMATE SUMMER MOVIE", MENDELSON ON BIGGEST MEMORIAL DAY RELEASES
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/expecttheimpossible.jpg

"Brian De Palma’s sinuous, elegantly impenetrable first installment" of the Mission: Impossible film franchise "remains one of the Tom Cruise series’ high points," states Justin Chang today in the fourth week of the L.A. Times Ultimate Summer Movie Showdown. It's a "16-week contest to program the greatest summer movie season ever," Chang continues. "Or at least since 1975, the year that Jaws forever changed the landscape of moviemaking, gross tallying and beach bumming forever."

Each week, Chang presents a list of 16 summer movies from 1975 to 2019, and asks readers to vote for their favorites via his Twitter acount, @JustinCChang. De Palma's Mission: Impossible is one of the 16 movies Chang listed this week.

Meanwhile, over at Forbes today, Scott Mendelson takes a look at the ten biggest Memorial Day weekend releases "that aren’t Star Wars or Indiana Jones" movies. It turns out that if you remove those two franchises, and adjust the grosses for inflation, De Palma's film is the eighth biggest Memorial Day weekend release... and John Woo's sequel is the ninth biggest. Here's how Mendelson describes each of these:

Mission: Impossible (Paramount)

$181 million in 1996/$383 million adjusted

Brian DePalma’s low-key, adult-skewing thriller, one which emphasized espionage over action, is still one of the best films in the franchise. It grossed a then-record $75 million over its Wed-Mon Memorial Day weekend. The film would be rather frontloaded, partially due to folks being appalled at having to (gasp) pay attention in order to follow the tricky plot. That Mission: Impossible II was both more streamlined and had scenes where characters stopped the movie to explain what had happened up to that point makes this franchise a rare example of filmmakers “listening to the Internet.” Oh, and turning the TV show’s hero into the villain didn’t fly any better in 1996 than it would in 2020.

...

Mission: Impossible II (Paramount)

$215 million in 2000/$374 million adjusted

Released 20 years ago this summer, John Woo’s ridiculously over-the-top romantic melodrama (“Notorious meets Hard Boiled”) almost qualifies as self-satire, both from the director and his top-billed star as Ethan Hunt is turned into (conventionally speaking) the coolest (and hottest) action hero ever. The film marked the end of an era where star-driven, non-fantasy action movies were expected to rule the box office. It also began the transformation of Tom Cruise from “biggest movie star on Earth who occasionally does action movies” to “American Jackie Chan who mostly makes action movies.” In a time when Hollywood was starting to embrace “gritty” realism even in its blockbusters, Mission: Impossible II was gloriously surreal.


Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Friday, May 22, 2020 7:34 AM CDT
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Sunday, May 17, 2020
GENO SILVA HAS DIED AT 72
ACTOR PLAYED KEY ROLE AS 'THE SKULL' IN 'SCARFACE'
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/theskull2.jpg

Geno Silva, the actor who played a key role as The Skull in Brian De Palma's Scarface, has died at 72. Mike Barnes at The Hollywood Reporter reports that, according to Silva's family, "Silva died May 9 at his home in Los Angeles of complications from frontotemporal degeneration, a form of dementia."

Barnes later adds that in Scarface, Silva's "foreboding character never speaks a word while he guns down Montana with a shotgun from behind at the end of the Brian De Palma-directed classic. One poll placed The Skull No. 7 on a list of the best henchmen in movie history."

Silva also appeared in three of Steven Spielberg's films: 1941 (1979), Amistad (1997), and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997). In another significant film role, Silva was cast by David Lynch as the MC of Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive (2001). In 2002, Silva talked to the magazine Wrapped In Plastic about how that came about:

So I go there, and Johanna Ray is a wonderful, lovely woman. I'm talking to her, and she brings up this thing about being an ethnic actor in Hollywood, and she asked me about Spanish. So I threw some Spanish into the videotape mix - we're talking, and I spoke Spanish. I talked about doing Zoot Suit on Broadway. And that was it.

Nine months go by, and my agent calls me: "Geno, remember that David Lynch film?" "Yeah?" (I had assumed it had moved on.) "Well, he wants you to do it." I said, "Do what!? (Laughter) I couldn't believe it! He said, "Listen, I had some clients work on Fire Walk With Me, and this is the way he does it. He works on the fly." I said, "But is there a script?" He said, "Geno, do you want to work with David? And I said, "Well it's kinda of hard to say 'yes' when you don't know what you're going to do. Let me get a look at something." It was Friday and I said, "When does this go?" And he said, "It goes Monday." (Laughter) So he sends me over what, I guess, was supposed to be sides. All it said was, "Mexican emcee introduces Rebekah Del Rio." No dialogue. Nothing. I was really mad, and I threw it across the room! I said, "I'm not going to do this. this is s---!" You get really angry at stuff like that. You think you're being exploited, and you think that somehow you're Tom Cruise or something!

So I go to wardrobe, and they present that incredible, beautiful red suit. It fit like it was made for me. Then I found those old black-and-white shoes, and I thought, "Well this could be some fun."

...

"I had finished the day about four in the afternoon. We were shooting downtown, and my wife owns a dance studio in Hollywood. So I drive over there on my way home and call my answering machine to check my messages. There are these three frantic messages: 'Geno! Oh my God! Call us back as soon as you can! This is Frank -- the AD on Mulholland Drive -- you've got to come back! You've got to come back!' They were, like, nuts! I called back and they said, 'Can you come back now!?' And I said, 'What happened? Did you guys burn the film?' He said, 'David wants to know if you want to play another part.' I said, 'When?' 'Right now. Can you come back to the set?' I said, 'He wants me to play another part, now, at the same set?'

I go back there and as I drive into the lot a hundred walkie-talkies go off: "Geno's here!" It was echoing across the block. It was so weird. I said (to the costumer), 'Look, before anything happens, I need to talk to David. Give me a walkie-talkie.' So I get David and I say, 'David, what am I doing?' He said, 'Ah, Geno, I'm so glad you got back. I have an idea. I think it will be some fun.' I said, 'Do you want me to change my look? Change my hair or shave, maybe?' He said, 'No, no. I want you to look exactly the same.' Then he said, 'What it's going to be - this is your day job. The other one's your night job.' (Laughter) I had no idea. I still have no idea! But I'm just loving this!"

David was so happy. He said, "That was great, Cookie." He kept calling me Cookie. What was funny to me was that nobody makes movies like this. That's like guerilla filmmaking, except the guy is one of the top directors in the world. That's what you would do if you were on college. But he can pull it off because of his incredible vision in true collaboration. That's what's fun about it.




On May 11, John Ortiz wrote a heartfelt Facebook post in mourning tribute to Silva:
Heartbroken at the passing of Geno Silva. My love and prayers go out to his amazing wife, Pam, their wonderful daughter Lucia, and her family especially the beautiful grandchildren Eva & Levon.

Geno was my friend. A father figure. An artistic warrior brother. A confidante. A lover of life.

He was generous, passionate, bold, strong, intelligent, joyful with a regally imposing physical presence which never shut down his magnetic curiosity or spirituality. He was proud of his roots, and even prouder of his friends and family.

I knew him for 26 years, and since day one it felt ancestral.

In the first 5 years of knowing Geno, I was lucky enough to act alongside him on 3 different intense projects as his lover, his business partner, and his son.

By the end of the 3rd project, we knew we’d be in each other lives forever.

I loved having meals and conversations with him that lasted for hours and hours. I loved his stories. One of my favorite things to do was to ask him about any of the hundreds of beautiful photos in his home because he would regale me with the most vivid, entertaining stories. I admired his love for his family. I loved his home. So comforting, so cozy, and filled with so much love. I was always welcomed by him and Pam, and I took full advantage. Showed up at random times, sometimes unannounced, but always greeted with the warmest smile and the biggest hug. He had that amazing quality of making people feel like the most important person in the world, me included.

He often believed in me more than I did in myself.

The greatest gift my profession has given me is the ability to meet some of the most interesting and dynamic people in the world. If I’m lucky, a few of those meetings might grow into a long lasting, transformative relationship.

My relationship with Geno certainly grew into one of those meaningful relationships.

I’m so grateful for the time we had and for the Silva spirit that will continue to live on in so many people lucky enough to have crossed paths with him.

Thank you, Geno, you giant of a man.

Rest In Power.


Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Thursday, May 21, 2020 7:55 AM CDT
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Saturday, May 16, 2020
DE PALMA'S 'HOME MOVIES' TURNS 40
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FILM MADE WITH STUDENTS AT SARAH LAWRENCE, RELEASED IN NYC MAY 16, 1980
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/hmposter.jpg


Posted by Geoff at 5:37 PM CDT
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Friday, May 15, 2020
PODCAST JUXTAPOSES 'BODY DOUBLE' & 'PRETTY WOMAN'
'HAPPILY EVER SLASHER' LOOKS FOR LINKS BETWEEN ROM-COM & HORROR
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/bdspiral1.jpg

"He kills her with spirals," giggles one of the two hosts in the latest episode of the podcast Happily Ever Slasher. "All’s fair in love and gore" is the tagline for the podcast, hosted by Amanda and Tara, which looks at one romantic comedy film and one horror film every week, "to find out just how much the two have in common."

The latest episode links Garry Marshall's Pretty Woman and Brian De Palma's Body Double, which, Amanda and Tara note, both take place in Los Angeles, with shared themes of authenticity and performance. "Can we call ourselves feminists and still enjoy these movies?" they ask in the episode description. "(We can and we do.) But we can admit it’s a BIG problem. BIG. HUGE. The lesson this week: Life is not a fairytale. Princesses need to save themselves. So pry yourself away from the telescope and join us."


Posted by Geoff at 9:04 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, May 16, 2020 1:05 AM CDT
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Thursday, May 14, 2020
LUCA GUADAGNINO IS LATEST DIRECTOR FOR 'SCARFACE'
ALSO, HE COUNTS DE PALMA'S 'THE FURY' AS ONE OF THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/scarface.jpgLuca Guadagnino, director of the recent high-profile remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria, and who included Brian De Palma's The Fury on his top ten for the 2012 Sight & Sound greatest films of all time poll, "is now set to direct Universal Pictures’ reimagination of Scarface," according to Deadline's Anthony D'Alessandro. "The new movie will be set in Los Angeles," D'Alessandro adds. "The pic’s shooting script will be off of Joel Coen and Ethan Coen’s version, who’ve been with the project for at least three years, with earlier drafts by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, Jonathan Herman and Paul Attanasio."

In fact, when Antoine Fuqua came back a second time as director of this "reimagination" in 2018, Dunnet-Alcocer was brought in to rewrite the Coen Brothers' 2017 draft. It sounds like that draft has since left the building along with Fuqua. Right around the first time Fuqua had left the project, in January of 2017 (prior to the Coen Brothers' involvement), Diego Luna was attached to play the lead. However, Diego confirmed to Collider's Jeff Sneider at Sundance this past January that he is no longer attached to Scarface.

Previously:

With Fuqua back, new writer for Scarface remake

Fuqua circles back to Scarface remake

David Ayer drops out of Scarface remake

David Ayer in talks for Scarface remake

Coen Brothers will rewrite Scarface script

Fuqua drops out of Scarface remake; Diego Luna will play lead

Terence Winter to tackle Scarface script

The Scarface remake just got a lot less interesting

Scarface remake is Larraín's dream project

The Scarface remake just got a lot more interesting

 


Posted by Geoff at 7:37 PM CDT
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Wednesday, May 13, 2020
VIDEO - THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROBERT DE NIRO
EDITED BY LUIS AZEVEDO, BEAUTIFULLY COVERS ENTIRE CAREER IN 4 MINUTES

Posted by Geoff at 7:35 AM CDT
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