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Recent Headlines
a la Mod:

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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Tuesday, June 3, 2025
NEW FRENCH BOOK ABOUT 'CARLITO'S WAY'

DE PALMA, MANA, CINEMA BY FRENCH ESSAYIST JEAN-FRANÇOIS BUIRÉ
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/carlitobook1.jpg

Some notes from the publisher about the book De Palma, Mana, Cinema by Jean-François Buiré, which focuses on Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (1993). It was published in France by Pot d'Colle Editions in September 2024, and can be ordered here.


- In the field of cinema, Jean-François Buiré is an essayist (notably in the French journals Trafic, Cinéma, Cinémaction and Cahiers du cinéma, and for various video distributors), a teacher (in film departments at French universities and at a film school in Lyon), a creator of educational videos and a lecturer. He has directed ten short fiction films. Some of his work (in French) is available here: https://vimeo.com/jeanfrancoisbuire

-Carlito's Way was released in the United States in 1993 and in France the following year under the title L'Impasse. Though emotionally and dramatically intense, it received only a lukewarm reception and, thirty years later, remains relatively unknown — at least compared to other works by Brian De Palma, such as Scarface, released ten years earlier. Both are Latino gangster films starring Al Pacino in the lead role, but whereas Scarface is harsh, cold and ironic, Carlito's Way is melancholic, lyrical and vibrant. Through the journey of its protagonist — a former gangster, aging and trying to escape a past that keeps pulling him back —, the very powers of cinema are brought into play. In his analysis of the film, Jean-François Buiré compares these powers to those of magic: he sees the character of Carlito Brigante as a weary mage, wielding his faltering powers in the disenchanted New York of the 1970s and constantly at risk of losing his mana, the elusive principle of efficacy characteristic of belief-based magical societies.

Posted by Geoff at 12:30 AM CDT
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Sunday, May 4, 2025
'CARLITO'S WAY' INCLUDED IN PHILLY EX-CON FILM SERIES
SCREENS MAY 16 & 28; OTHER FILMS INCLUDE STRAIGHT TIME, DOWN BY LAW, THE DEFIANT ONES
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/carlitoproscons.jpg

Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way is part of a curated film series this month at the Philadelphia Film Society. The series, "Pros and Cons: The After Life," also includes Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time, Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones, Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law, and Gerald Kargl's Angst. "Featuring some of Brian De Palma’s most exciting set pieces," reads the series' description of Carlito's Way, "Al Pacino stars as a man given a second chance after being released from a long sentence on a technicality, but he can’t seem to shake his criminal past." The film will screen May 16th, and again on the 28th.

Posted by Geoff at 10:39 PM CDT
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Friday, April 11, 2025
PACINO TO ATTEND 'CARLITO'S WAY' APRIL 21 IN SANTA MONICA
WILL TAKE PART IN Q&A FOLLOWING AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE SCREENING AT AERO THEATRE
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/carlitodream5.jpg

Announced today and already sold out, Al Pacino will appear in-person for an American Cinematheque members-only screening of Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way on Monday, April 21st. Pacino will participate in a Q&A following the screening, at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
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Tuesday, December 3, 2024
DENISE VASQUEZ REMINISCES ABOUT WORKING ON 'CARLITO'S WAY'
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/denisevasquez.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CST
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Saturday, January 13, 2024
WEEKEND TWEET - FAVORITE PENELOPE ANN MILLER ROLES
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/tweetpenelope.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CST
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Tuesday, December 19, 2023
'WE HAD 300 OF THE BEST CLUB DANCERS IN NEW YORK CITY'
LUIS GUZMAN & MICHAEL BREGMAN RECALL THE MAKING OF CARLITO'S WAY
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/carlitosway2455.jpg

"For 20 years, my name was Pachanga, nobody knew what my name was,” Luis Guzmán tells Yahoo!Movies' Ben Falk. "Everybody loves a good gangster movie. I think Carlito’s Way, for whatever reason, it put a lot of Latinos on the forefront and everybody just loved my character. I was over the moon to be a part of it."

Here's more from Falk's article, in which Guzmán and producer Michael Bregman look back at Carlito's Way, 30 years later:

“To my recollection Al Pacino and Eddie Torres both worked out at the same gym,” explains Michael Bregman, who produced the film alongside his father Martin. “He told Al he had a book, Al read it and I guess Al ran off and tried to make it a bunch of times, but it didn’t work out. And then he gave it to my dad who gave it to me.”

The cast was rounded out by Penelope Ann Miller, John Leguizamo (who had to be convinced to do it, even though Benicio Del Toro was super-keen), Viggo Mortensen and Guzman as Carlito’s bodyguard Pachanga, while Sean Penn shocked people thanks to his balding perm as crooked lawyer Dave Kleinfeld.

“Within four minutes of the last shot and the gate being checked, he had walked into the hair and make-up trailer and shaved his own head,” laughs Bregman of Penn. “The AD almost had a heart attack.”

Brian De Palma, who of course had previous with Pacino having directed him in Scarface, was a comparatively late addition to the fold, with Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) initially attached.

“Abel had just done King of New York,” remembers Bregman. “That movie is stupendous. He’d shown up to meet my dad and I because he’d wanted to do a film about [porn star] John Holmes starring Christopher Walken.”

“He seemed like the right fit [for Carlito’s Way], but the temperament was not going to work at Universal Pictures,” he continues. “Abel’s an outlier and he has a certain way of working. It was a terrible parting of the ways because we’d become friends in the midst of it and then he wasn’t doing the movie and he went bats*** crazy. Then a year or so later we were pals again.”

Guzman recalls being “directed but not really” by Brian De Palma. The director had laughed during his audition, with the star not knowing whether that was a good thing until he arrived back home afterwards to find a message on his answering machine telling him he had the part. On-set, early in his career and keen to impress, the actor would ask the helmer whether he was on the right track and was normally rewarded with little more than a grunt. “He was a man of very few words,” says Guzman.

But for the actor, who had grown up Latino on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Carlito’s Way felt authentic to his blue-collar upbringing and former career as a social worker.

“Back in those days it was coke, alcohol, a lot of parties. A lot of girls,” he remembers. “We used to go clubbing and then you come back to the neighbourhood and there were these little social clubs. In the back of the social club there was always a pool table. That’s where s*** always started. That’s where I would find the people who exemplified the Pachangas of the world. Those guys were my reference.”

He continues, “The club scenes in Carlito, they were spot on. We had 300 of the best club dancers in New York City. In the holding area, it was like a party going on the whole time. People would bring their boom boxes. Instead of sitting around, it was fifty, sixty couples just dancing.”

Bregman recalls shooting in a pre-Guiliani New York that still reflected the grimier Big Apple of the 1970s when the film was set.

“We were lucky,” he says. “It still hadn’t metamorphosised and you could drop into the barrio and stuff structurally still existed. Subway stations in the outer boroughs still looked they did [20 years previously].”



Posted by Geoff at 11:09 PM CST
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Wednesday, December 6, 2023
'CARLITO'S WAY' DISCUSSION - 'WATCH WITH JEN' PODCAST
BEGINS AROUND AN HOUR AND 36 MINUTES INTO THE EPISODE
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/watchwithjen2.jpg

Posted by Geoff at 11:23 PM CST
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Thursday, November 16, 2023
ALAN JONES - 'CARLITO'S WAY' GOT DISCO EXACTLY RIGHT
DE PALMA'S FILM DISCUSSED ON NEW EPISODE OF PODCAST "ALL ABOUT AL"
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/pillowtalk.jpg

On the November 6, 2023 episode of the podcast All About Al, film critic Alan Jones joins host Mark Searby to discuss Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way. In the first part of the episode, Jones talks about the film's depiction of disco:
I just love Carlito’s Way, because it’s, for me – coming from the disco point of view – it’s actually one of the few films made after the era that could have well been made within it, if you see what I mean. There’s very few movies – and Saturday Night Fever is obviously, you know, the one that’s going to do it – and all the others that came along didn’t quite get it right, whereas Carlito’s Way got it exactly right. I do have a couple of issues with a few of the songs that are in there that are actually out of the time loop. But other than that, for me, if you’re a De Palma fan, if you’re a gangster fan, if you’re a disco fan, it is the perfect movie. And I also – I’m going to bore you to death with disco by the end of this, I’m sure – but I mean, I’ve just written my autobiography, which is called DISCOMANIA! And basically what it is, is my favorite disco movies of all time, of which Carlito’s Way is one. Why they’re important to me, what memories they spark, and the tracks in it that actually take me back to my era of the punk-disco seventies. So that’s where it’s all coming from.

Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CST
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Wednesday, November 15, 2023
VIDEO - SISKEL & EBERT DEBATE 'CARLITO'S WAY' IN 1993
SISKEL TURNED OFF BY EARLY SCENES, EBERT LIKED IT A LOT

Posted by Geoff at 8:12 PM CST
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Sunday, November 12, 2023
'CARLITO'S WAY' RELEASED IN THEATERS 30 YEARS AGO TODAY
BRIAN DE PALMA IN 1993: "I CAN'T MAKE A BETTER PICTURE THAN THIS"


Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way was released in theaters 30 years ago today, on November 12, 1993. In the Noah Baumbach/Jake Paltrow doc De Palma, De Palma recalls watching the film at the Berlin Film Festival (where the film screened in February of 1994) and thinking to himself, "I can’t make a better picture than this." At the end of the decade, Cahiers du cinéma chose Carlito's Way as one of the three best films of the 1990s. Writing for Reverse Shot in 2006, Matt Zoller Seitz, who provides an excellent, insightful commentary track on Arrow's recent 4K UHD Blu-ray edition of the film, begins, "Everything about Carlito’s Way (1993) is improbable, starting with the fact that it’s a masterpiece."

In The Pocket Essential Brian De Palma (2000), John Ashbrook writes about Carlito's Way, "This is De Palma's first film noir. Essentially, the noir protagonist is a character with too much past and not enough future. Redemption is only achievable with death, because only with the full payment of all outstanding debts can the books be cleared. In essence, Carlito is dead before the film begins. As he tells Kleinfeld, 'I was dead and buried and you dug me up!' Consequently, he is now living on borrowed time. He has been given a chance to undo some of the evils of his life, but he fails. His time is wasted."

As Gail says while looking at Carlito in the mirror, "I know how this dream ends, Charlie..."


Posted by Geoff at 1:14 PM CST
Updated: Sunday, November 12, 2023 8:59 PM CST
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