CROSS-CUT from Drew Morton on Vimeo.

The second time around I wrote ten pages, breaking it down into scenes in which I described what happens. Sometimes I wrote some of the monologues. But it was never intended to be spoken. It was intended to be a direction the language would take.

The way it actually happened was that Kit became very absorbed in the idea and really understood it very well. So we became collaborators. I didn't know it at the time, but he had been an actor and had abandoned it.

He and I spent a week together before the shooting. We sat down in a room with a tape recorder-- and I think this is the way Brian (De Palma) got the idea to do Greetings. I would say, "This is what happens in this scene. This is what I want you to say." As you know, most of the film's dialogue is in direct confrontation with the camera.

So I would tell him what I wanted and he would do it. He'd put it in his own words and throw in new things of his own. Then we'd listen to the tape together and I'd tell him: "I don't like this. You missed this. I've got an idea; put this in." He would do it again and together we refined each scene. We didn't transcribe it. We just listened to it, again and again, until we both had a fairly clear idea of what was going to happen when we were actually pointing the camera at him.

It never got down to a word by word situation. And when we started shooting it was always better than it had been in the taping sessions. He always threw in a little zinger for me that he hadn't told me about. Kit's great. We only did, at the most, two takes of any scene. As far as the camerawork is concerned, I had an absolutely clear and vivid idea of exactly what I wanted.

In 1970, Carson founded, with Bill Jones, what would become the USA Film Festival in Dallas, screening films such as Woodstock and Robert Altman's M*A*S*H. Speaking with Wilonsky in a 1999 article for the Dallas Observer, Carson said, "Back in 1971, the organism started in Dallas with people who were kind of interested in movies but didn't know much about movies. There were no film fests in this country devoted to the American independent film. I said, 'There's no film festival for Marty Scorsese or Brian De Palma, so let's start one, because this stuff is happening and no one is saying this is happening.'"

An article by Gregory Curtis from the June 1973 issue of Texas Monthly (from which the photo of Carson above is taken) catches the last-minute hustle of the first (and what seems to have been the last) United States Festival, for which Carson, having been ousted as director of the USA fest, served as a "special consultant." As the fest disappoints with low attendance (despite the weeklong presence of Vincente Minelli, and other special guests such as De Palma, Salt, and Margot Kidder), Curtis portrays Carson as perpetually enthusiastic and driven to present films that might not otherwise be seen. De Palma, Salt, and Kidder were there to discuss Sisters, following an afternoon screening of the film. Carson moderated that discussion.

Curtis, who found De Palma's film "finally, too repellent to watch," writes, "Kit Carson began the discussion after the film by saying that the Hollywood system was still the most pervasive force in American filmmaking. De Palma, a man with flushed cheeks and snapping black eyes, took up this theme immediately. He didn't want to work in Hollywood. Directors like Francis Copolla (The Godfather) and Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) thought they could maintain their integrity while working there. 'But I don't think you can get in bed with the devil,' De Palma said, 'without having some of it rub off.'"

On his Facebook page yesterday, Paul Schrader wrote, "Kit was among the first 'film' people I knew after coming to LA in 68. We gravitated toward each other. In Feb 1971 (right after the San Fernando Valley earthquake) he invited me to be on the jury (I was critic for LA Free Press at the time) of the first USA film festival in Dallas. Other jury members included Andy Sarris, Manny Farber, Dwight McDonlald, P Adams Sitney, [Rex] Reed, Jay Cocks, Roger Ebert and others I can't remember at the moment. In that week it felt a mission and sense of belonging like never before. Happy Trails, old Pard."

In an article Carson wrote for Film Comment about being asked by Hooper to work on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Carson writes about trying to make it through the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre. "I first squirmed through it back in 1975 in a tiny, dumpy screening room just below Sunset Boulevard. I was newly exiled from Texas and had known Tobe Hooper as a good documentary filmmaker (Peter, Paul, and Mary in Concert, 71) in Austin but had no way to be prepared for the bite of The Saw. I flat couldn’t take it—neither could Paul Schrader, a curious friend who’d come along to the screening; about midway through the movie we buzzed the projectionist to skip a couple of reels and just show us the end. Whu: this sucker could really hurt you. Post-screening, blinking in the daylight leaning on our cars, Schrader and I tried to figure out what we’d run into."

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, who were mentored by Carson early in their careers, have written a tribute to Carson at RogerEbert.com. Jeffrey Wells has also posted some remembrances at Hollywood Elsewhere.

"Working post-Dave Chappelle, Simien presupposes a general racial awareness. Sam states Simien’s p.o.v. when she says 'Satire is the weapon of reason' and 'The job of the counterculture is to attack the mainstream.' Now that identity humor has become mainstream fodder, with subtle insistence on everyone’s assigned roles, Dear White People continues the assumption that everybody understands what gays, blacks, and women want. (A reality-TV subplot goes nowhere except offering the misinformation that '"re-enactment" is a documentary term.')

"Simien observes a lost generation of gays, blacks and women who forget what their protesting forbears fought for. (To wit: Sam frantically proclaims: 'It wasn’t speeches that turned the tide for civil rights, it was the anarchists that got the press'—a terrible reduction of history.) These 'post-racial' youth are shocked to discover there really is no such thing. This sad truth gives poignance to Dear White People's narrative mess...

"Simien’s satire isn’t as sharp as Joseph Kahn’s audacious Detention and it lacks the radicalism of Brian De Palma’s 1970 classic Hi, Mom! with its unforgettable 'Be Black Baby' mockery of white liberal fantasies. In the Obama era, comics have lost the ability to mock their own prejudices. Simien’s efforts cost him the depth of his four main characters—gay Lionel in particular. But I must admit: By movie’s end, Lionel’s confusion is more affecting than at the beginning."

For $25 tonight, you get the movie and tasting (3 pours of beer or wine courtesy of Silverlake Wine). The movie-only tickets for Carrie, which went for $10 each, are sold out already. There is, however, free parking, and, according to the web site, "you are welcome to bring your own food, soft drinks, and a blanket; however, NO outside alcoholic beverages will be permitted. No dogs are allowed. Movies start at dusk on top of Los Feliz’s scenic Olive Hill. This fundraiser is a 21+ over event." According to the Barnsdall specific Carrie page, "All profits from the wine tastings benefit Barnsdall Art Park Foundation programs and projects, such as Free Sunday Art Classes for children and families in the community, as well as capital projects like the Monument Sign."

As posted yesterday, Carrie also screens at midnight tonight at the Landmark E Street Cinema in Washington, DC.

Muller-Serreau says she wanted to give Rachel a “contemporary Hitchcockian feeling with shapes that have a modern vintage style in bold colours.” Christine begins the film in an ice-blue shirt and palazzo pants combo topped off by a blueberry-vanilla coloured scarf tied artfully around her neck, while Isabelle’s black dress shirt and pants pop against the white walls and light-coloured furniture of Christine’s house. She has to be dominant so she gives the scarf as a gift to Isabelle, wrapping the blueberry-vanilla scarf around Isabelle’s neck; it stands out against her black coat.

The following morning, Christine struts her stuff down the path in her front yard in a double-breasted blood-red overcoat that would scare the bejeezus out of Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964); Christine looks like a spoilt little rich girl about to be chauffeured to private school. If Christine sometimes looks like a child playing dress-up, there’s a scene late in the film where she wears a striking black overcoat worn with a wide-brimmed hat, round sunglasses and teal stiletto sandals. It’s a coat that Muller-Serreau wanted to look like a little girl’s coat, so she based it on a classic child’s coat since Christine’s twin sister died in childhood.

Isabelle, the second-in-command, wears black for most of the film signalling her lack of identity. Since Muller-Serreau didn’t have colour to work with for Isabelle, she gave her shape and texture. There’s a suit jacket with heavy shoulder pads that hint at Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (1945) and a side-breasted military jacket she wears when she has the upper hand. Her Edith Head hairstyle, fringe and all, helps make her look like she stepped out of an old movie.

One particularly inspiring moment is when an angry, depressed Isabelle at an office reception wears a black dress shirt and pants with a black tie. Underneath the slightly sheer shirt is a black bra. She’s dressed in a stereotypical male outfit, but despite the butch quality of the outfit, she still wants to be desired sexually as a feminine woman. Muller-Serreau says Isabelle’s look was supposed to be a “uniform”, presenting Isabelle as a “soldier” — a soldier who wants to be seen as a sexy woman.

While Isabelle wears only one colour, her assistant Dani wears many colors, and is the only person who threatens Christine’s status as the most colourful person in the room. She often wears animal prints and sometimes pairs it with clashing horizontal stripes. Her costumes are meant to garner attention, like the denim daisy dukes she wears paired with tights and knee-high stiletto boots, and an asymmetrically zipped purple leather motorcycle jacket. However, she also achieves elegance in a violet lace shirt. It’s a look Muller Serreau describes as “feminine and sexy” and that it’s a departure from the “butch lesbian cliché.”

Dirk wears braces with his pinstripe suits and checkered suits; the braces hark back to a much earlier era. His costumes consist of all suits, except for when he wears a tank top in his bedroom post-coital. Lying on a bed, his thin frame is more evident here, making him appear more vulnerable. He confesses secrets while smoking in a cigarette, becoming more feminine in his gestures and voice: he seems to be imitating Christine when he tells Isabelle that the blueberry-vanilla scarf looks better on her. It’s a perfect example of how men are emasculated in this film, and how the characters are much different in private.

Fresh out of the Yale School of Drama, the New Orleans native auditioned for the casting director Lynn Stalmaster to play the wife of Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. She was "kind of glamorous," with big 80's Southern hair, which "seriously could just fit in through the door" and a racy fuchsia dress.

The agent clued Clarkson in – and toned her down. Clarkson returned to meet DePalma in a borrowed "goony" gingham dress, dowdy tresses and no make-up. She explained, "I walked in and I made a joke about it with Brian and we just got on immediately. We started laughing about it. He ended up reading with me. He played Eliot Ness and I was cast almost in that room...On the set, the first day I shot, Brian did 30 takes to see where I fell, if I reached it early or reached it late. He learned I was early, and by the 30th take I'm just not here."

Back in May of 2004, an interview article at the Washington Post (no longer available online without subscription) discussed Clarkson's voice, calling it "her most arresting feature." Described by the author as a "throaty" and "husky" voice that harkens back to the screen sirens of the 1930s and 1940s, Clarkson told how she would walk into auditions "blond, pretty, whatever. But then I'd open my voice and they'd say, 'Hmmm.'" The article then mentions De Palma as "one director who wasn't put off," casting Clarkson in The Untouchables. "I think he liked that I looked a certain way and I had this voice," Clarkson told the Post. "Brian is irreverent and brilliant and funny and I think he just kind of liked it."