In Los Angeles, American Cinematheque begins a 5-day De Palma series on June 1st with a 40th anniversary screening of Carrie. The next three days see double features (Dressed To Kill/Obsession June 2nd, Body Double/Femme Fatale June 3rd, Scarface/Carlito's Way June 4th), leading up to a "Members only" screening of De Palma on Sunday June 5th.

"THINK OF DE PALMA'S CINEMA IN THE SHAPE OF THE SPIRAL FROM THE OPENING CREDITS OF 'VERTIGO'"
In the programmer's essay for the TIFF retrospective, Brad Deane writes, "Though De Palma's oeuvre doesn't follow a clear thematic trajectory, ideas, motifs, and images repeat obsessively throughout his work; each of his films exists resolutely on its own terms, yet the more you watch, the more they all seem to be haunting each other. Rather than a straight line, think of De Palma's cinema in the shape of the spiral from the opening credits of his beloved Vertigo: an endlessly swirling vortex where recurring stylistic, thematic and narrative elements whirl into and out of view. And against that spiral, think of the split: the knife thrusts that slice open bodies, the doubled protagonists and fissured psyches, and that bifurcated screen which shatters the illusion of a single, immersive reality. In the cinema of Brian De Palma it is always, finally, the audience who must somehow sew that split back together."

Gorber concludes, "As a survey of the man's work it's near complete, as what has resulted in being a memorium to a legend the film is even more vital. By capturing the man in his many environments - a hot pool, overlooking Budapest, sitting in a screening room - one gets the sense that we're meeting a genuine article, one both humble and yet proud of his accomplishments. As a warts-and-all take on the man's work it may falter, as a perfectly encapsulated close encounter with a giant of the last half century of film it's a priceless testament."

The Hollywood Reporter's Jordan Mintzer writes that the film "uses an extensive interview with the director of photography, shot in 2014 on the occasion of a Paris retrospective, as the starting point to explore Zsigmond’s prolific and impressive career. Alongside the humble-sounding cameraman, who recounts various anecdotes in an accent thick enough to cut with a meat cleaver, a host of other colleagues and collaborators – including John Boorman, Peter Fonda, Jerry Schatzberg, Darius Khondji, Haskell Wexler, Bruno Delbonnel and Vittorio Storaro – speak inspiringly about how Zsigmond influenced both their own work and a major period in American filmmaking that we now call the 'New Hollywood.'”

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER WEXLER/ZSIGMOND TRIBUTE ISSUE FROM APRIL
The April 2016 issue of American Cinematographer featured a cover story tribute to "ASC Legends" Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zsigmond. The articles consisted of remembrances from many who worked with both cinematographers. Here are some excerpts in which Zsigmond's work with Brian De Palma are discussed:

After discussing working with Zsigmond on Heaven’s Gate, which he says was intense, hard work, camera assistant Michael Gershman tells AC, “Blow Out was a hard film as well. But I never saw Vilmos get down when we were working. He was always positive. And I think that the idea that he was always creating beautiful images—he thrived on it.

“Vilmos would say, ‘Michael, Michael, there are no rules, Michael! You can do whatever you want to do!’ That’s something that stayed with me as I became a cinematographer. The only rule is that there are no rules.”

Mike Sowa, colorist on The Black Dahlia: “I had the honor of grading Vilmos’ first digital-intermediate feature in 2006. Grading The Black Dahlia will forever be one of the highlights of my career. One memory that stands out was the time Vilmos invited Laszlo Kovacs to the DI theater. There I was, in between two absolute legends in the business. With great enthusiasm and wildly animated gesturing, Vilmos explained to his dear friend how exciting it was to have such wonderful grading tools available in this new world of digital.”

Stephen Pizzello (American Cinematographer editor-in-chief and publisher)
“When I was covering Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia for the magazine, Vilmos invited me to a DI session at EFilm. Upon arriving, I was happy to see his lifelong ‘brother from another mother,’ Laszlo Kovacs, sitting at the timing desk, just hanging out and keeping his best friend company. Laszlo’s health was declining by then, and he seemed to be nodding off, but never underestimate the vigilance of an accomplished cinematographer. At one point, as Vilmos was scrutinizing a scene, Laszlo must have opened an eye, because he suddenly sat up and warned, ‘Careful, Vilmos—that shot is a little soft.’ Vilmos squinted, looked at the screen a bit more closely and croaked, ‘Uh-oh—I think he’s right! I’ll have to talk to Brian about that.’ Laszlo settled back into his seat, and we soon heard him snoring, but he had his pal’s back.”

Say whatever you want to about the school of painting and design known as "op art"...you've already been beaten to the punch by the vox populi caught on camera by Brian De Palma in 1966.

In fact, the majority of the director's documentary account of the opening of the titular Museum of Modern Art exhibit dedicated to perceptual art -- art that, as John Lancaster put it, played with "the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing" -- is given over to commentary from both artists and spectators about the effectiveness of pieces by Bridget Riley, Josef Albers, and Alexander Liberman. In their collective view, the work was deemed everything from stunning to nauseating. Or, as one interviewee says during the film: "I don't think it's art."

Any other director would have stuck with curator William Seitz and psychologist Rudolph Arnheim as they took them on a tour of the exhibit, teasing out their own interpretations of the art. Instead, De Palma turns the whole piece into one of the wittiest films of his oeuvre as well as a sly commentary on the state of the art world in the '60s. It's a neat trick, and one that he pulls off using the strongest part of his visual arsenal at the time: editing.

His use of jump cuts into dialogue from the interviews echoes the itchy movement of his debut feature The Wedding Party. In that film, he hearkens back to the work of directors like D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, not to mention the French New Wave filmmakers who were using the same artistic tricks: overly-caffeinated pacing and quick edits between two competing scenes.

With The Responsive Eye, many of the same storytelling devices are brought over to the documentary format. De Palma jumps between the discussions of Seitz and Arnhelm, and the reactions of people at the opening night event. They go by so quickly that the effect is as sometimes disorienting as the art on the walls of MoMa. They are short jabs of punch lines and little visual gags (the woman in an evening gown bending repeatedly at the knees to catch the "movement" of a piece she is looking at).

It's also important to look at the people that De Palma and his camera crew choose to interview for the film. They are an absurd bunch: the bespectacled child who declaims that he wouldn't put the art in his home, the woman dolled up for the night in a completely striped outfit ("The tights are from Macy's, and the dress is from Bloomingdales"), the drunken woman being held aloft by her husband saying, "I loved it," and the coup de grace, the caricature of an English nobleman at the very end, complete with a haughty air about him. And a monocle.

The only people you are meant to take seriously, it seems, are the artists behind the work. In that camp, you get Mon Levinson showing off how he creates the illusion of movement with his pieces, and discussing at the end how excited he was to see it. Best, though, is Josef Albers, who kvetches loudly about how long it has taken his work to be appreciated.

Albers may have a point, but it brings up one of the underlying issues of this film and this exhibit. As Marc Campbell on Dangerous Minds points out, Responsive Eye was "the first significant exhibit of optical art synchronous with and in some cases arising out of the early days of psychedelic culture." i It's amazing, really, that no one in the film addresses this fact. I think De Palma knew that going into the project, and although he doesn't press the issue, the point is simple: these folks just don't get it.

That kind of attitude was De Palma's whole mindset at this early stage of his career. The work he was doing before and after this documentary kicked against the ideas of Hollywood filmmaking. Beyond The Wedding Party, he helped create the two Godardian, politically-driven films, Greetings and Hi Mom!, and the slapstick slasher flick Murder a la Mod. Why would anyone expect him to make a dull documentary about an art exhibit?