One of history's most notorious squatters is the Phantom of the Opera. And the greatest film inspired by Gaston Leroux's classic story is PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE!

Of course it's also just as much an adaptation of Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray as it is Opera. In just an hour and a half, director Brian De Palma folds a ridiculous amount of narrative into PHANTOM and yet it never feels rushed or overstuffed. Every moment is more inventive than the last, and there are elements of the director's style all over: the public horror of CARRIE, the surveillance technology of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, the coked-out sleaze of SCARFACE. But it's also vastly different from anything he'd ever make again - in part because the movie is as defined by one of its stars and composers, Paul Williams, as it is by De Palma.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE is a stylistic balancing act, drifting between genres - from expressionist horror to slapstick comedy to searing melodrama - to tell the tragic saga of a passionate artist devoured by the ruthlessness of the music business. Williams, then a songwriter for acts like the Carpenters and Three Dog Night, spoofs everything from Phil Spector-produced teen pop to Alice Cooper-like shock rock on the soundtrack and in his role as villain tastemaker Swan.

The film does what all good satire does: it cuts to the truth by going beyond it. De Palma draws on the tropes and themes of classic stories and creates images that are almost mythic. The story is as much a parable as it is a parody, a fairy tale-like warning about the damage celebrity can do to the psyche, leaving one no choice but to take to the rafters in response.

On his twitter-X page this afternoon, Landon himself posted, "Finally get to announce this one. I’m so excited to work with such a talented group of people. This is my love letter to DePalma."

“It was a very important event and it was a real turning point for all of us — for Brian, of course, and by extension all of us who were working low-budget in America at the time, particularly not in Hollywood. Low-budget, independent pictures were quite rare in America at the time, and it helped open the way for filmmakers like Jim McBride and Phil Kaufman, for myself,” he said. “It gave a stature in a sense that the studios started to take us seriously … It paved the way for me meeting up with Bob De Niro and casting him in ‘Mean Streets.’ And 10 years later, I would come to Berlin for the first time with ‘Raging Bull,’ opening night 1980 and then back again with the Rolling Stones for ‘Shine a Light,’ and then again with ‘The 50 Year Argument.'”

Scorsese went on to say that film festivals are where he has met his community of fellow filmmakers, Wenders included.

“Watching each other’s pictures, complimenting each other, arguing with each other, going down our own paths. I mean, what else can one do when you become obsessed with an art form?” Scorsese said. “When you live it, when you have to be on your own. That’s the lonely part, but it’s so important to remember that, even though it’s lonely, that you’re part of a community. And that community of people is driven by an obsessive love with this art called cinema.”

Scorsese added that “the work that we do individually is part of an ongoing, ultimately endless conversation” before teasing that he may make his return to the Berlinale sooner than later.

“I really feel that I’ve been blessed to have taken part in that conversation for most of my life now,” he said. “And as for looking back on my work, I can’t … partly because I really do seem to keep wanting to make pictures. So maybe I’ll see you in a couple years, I hope with another one.”

While the structure of the theatrical cut does take something away from the experience, I would vehemently argue that it still has plenty of merits exactly as it is. So, for the sake of simplicity, I will focus this essay on the theatrical version because it remains the most widely accessible incarnation of Raising Cain. But for anyone keen to track down the alternate cut, Shout Factory has released Gelderblom’s version as part of a collector’s edition Blu-ray.

No matter which cut of the film you watch, John Lithgow’s ever-versatile performance is a key element of the picture’s success. The actor shines in his turn as several different characters and personas that live inside Carter’s mind. Lithgow manages to convey a sense of real menace in his turn as Cain, helplessness as Carter, and a level of unhinged fury in his portrayal of Dr. Nix.

Like so many of De Palma’s films, Raising Cain is filled with giallo influences. Although it may not have been De Palma’s initial intent, the theatrical cut sort of functions as an exercise in dream logic. There’s a constant surreal quality to the proceedings that feels reminiscent of the output of Argento and Bava. The inclusion of multiple dream sequences combined with narrative developments that feel very dreamlike make the proceedings a bit chaotic. But given my deep appreciation of the Italian murder mysteries of yesteryear, I don’t mind.

The film is also helped along by a number of signature De Palma techniques, including some beautiful split screen and split diopter shots. Not to mention, the director frequently demonstrates his keen ability to craft tension. The sequence where Jenny believes she’s left a gift for Carter in her lover Jack’s (Steven Bauer) hotel room is supremely suspenseful. The footage is assembled masterfully and paired with a chilling Pino Donaggio score. The exchange serves to keep the viewer in a state of perpetual dread as Jenny sneaks into Jack’s room in the middle of the night. There’s a jump scare associated with this setup that makes me leap out of my skin every time I see it. Even though I know it’s coming, I still react the same way.

Moreover, the picture’s final shot is absolutely phenomenal. The way it’s framed and what transpires within only serves to make me love this film all the more.

As I mentioned previously, Raising Cain is set on and around Valentine’s Day. There are plenty of references to the holiday to make this flick a logical alternative to the obvious choices we revisit each year. Valentine’s Day works as a nice backdrop, giving Jenny a reason to buy gifts for both her husband and her lover. But it’s not a central theme, which makes it accessible all year.

In 1975, Disneyland opened Mission to Mars, a cost-conscious update of their Flight to the Moon attraction, which simulated interplanetary travel using vibrating seats and multiple 16mm projectors. It closed in 1992, and was eventually replaced by Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port. Eight years after its closure, Mission to Mars would enjoy the distinction of being the first Disneyland ride to receive a theatrical film adaptation (preceding The Country Bears, Pirates of the Caribbean, and two different iterations of The Haunted Mansion). If Mission to Mars the attraction was a thrifty repurposing of a Disney holding past its prime, its movie adaptation, an all-ages tentpole budgeted at $100 million and helmed by Scarface and Dressed to Kill director Brian De Palma, was anything but. It’s the year 2020 and the first manned expedition to Mars has successfully landed on the planet’s surface, an unforgivingly hostile landscape that summarily terminates the entire crew, save commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle). Luke’s best friend Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise), a classic space melodrama hero with a dead wife to make proud, charges ahead on an equally disastrous rescue mission which will kill more of his friends and end with the secrets of the cosmos revealed to the bedraggled survivors. Upon release, Mission to Mars ran afoul of mainstream American critics affronted by its undiluted sentimentality and genial space woo-woo, their dismissals stoking full-throated defenses from Cahiers du Cinéma (who placed it in their top ten of the year alongside films by Chantal Akerman and Edward Yang) and assorted De Palma auteurists for whom the film’s excellence was inextricable from its director’s formal trademarks. Featuring a stately and lush score from frequent De Palma collaborator Ennio Morricone.

Preceded by: “Our Lady of the Sphere” (Lawrence Jordan, 1969) – 10 min – 35mm from Canyon Cinema