Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
From somewhere in the heart of New York, Mr. Beaks has sent me another report on the Brian De Palma retrospective that's underway in the Big Apple as we speak. As with last week, it's great work, and I'm going to just get out of the way and give Beaks the floor...
A second weekend spent in the company of Brian De Palma, and I’m pleased to report that not only am I am still able to appreciate films without elaborately staged tracking shots, I also have yet to begin peeking in on the doings of my neighbors in the apartment building across the street, and have only once mused over how split-screen editing might have improved the final forty minutes of RETURN OF THE JEDI (my answer: very little. There’d still be Ewoks.)
Before I get started, however, I’d like to address answer a few questions sent my way since last week’s piece:
1) How big a jerk am I that I forgot to link the number one website for De Palma-philes BrianDePalma.net? The answer: a really big one. Also, for the latest news on De Palma’s FEMME FATALE, the screenplay for which Moriarty called “the best thing I’ve read since last month’s issue of ‘Grit,’” check out Brian De Palma Ala Mode.
2) Why no mention of the De Palma panel (including the Village Voice’s Amy Taubin, New York Press’ Armond White, and Salon’s Charles Taylor) that preceded last Saturday’s screening of BLOW OUT? Easy: a transcript will be made available by AMMI in the near future, which will allow most of you to see that it was an extremely low-key, somewhat informative defense of an unfairly reviled filmmaker. Yes, White and Taylor maintain that MISSION TO MARS is an overlooked masterpiece, Taubin insists that RAISING CAIN is, perhaps, her favorite De Palma film, and White still believes that Cassavetes-Go-Boom in THE FURY is the greatest ending in the history of cinema. Less interestingly, for those who attended, I was the wiseacre who put it to the panel that M2M was, partially, De Palma’s parody of the overtly hopeful science-fiction of Spielberg and Lucas. White took up the gauntlet, telling me that not only was I wrong, but I was also ugly and stupid, at which point I invoked code duello, and am now awaiting word from Mr. White’s second as to where our “interview” shall take place.
3) Christine shot J.R., but I don’t know why you’re asking me, and, furthermore, how this is germane to the topic of Brian De Palma.
Now, on with the show…..
SISTERS - 1973
This turned out to be the bad luck film of the retrospective, as David Schwartz, AMMI’s Chief Curator of Film, and the enlightened gentleman behind this series, struck out in his attempt to find a print. Even Ed Pressman, the film’s producer, was unable to procure a copy. To remedy the situation, a double showing of Criterion’s newly-released SISTERS DVD was held in the upstairs screening room, while the originally scheduled 2:00 screening in the main theater was replaced with the best De Palma film initially omitted from the series: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.
Following on the heels of his first major studio picture, and failure, GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT, De Palma returned to the relative safety of independent filmmaking, but rather than churn out yet another counter-culture comedy, which were growing rapidly anachronistic by 1973, he sought instead to make a lurid suspense yarn, approaching the material with a far more heightened style than evinced in any of his previous work. SISTERS, however, begins with a satiric vignette that would’ve been at home in GREETINGS, or HI MOM!; depicting a CANDID CAMERA-style show called “Peeping Toms” (De Palma is nothing if not consistent with those obsessions of his,) which is where our protagonist, Philip (Lisle Wood,) meets Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder,) a beautiful, aspiring young model/actress. Immediately after the taping of the show, the two go out for dinner where they run into Danielle’s obsessive ex-husband, Emil (Bill Finley.) Concerned for her safety, Philip takes Danielle home, a remarkably chivalrous gesture considering that she lives on Staten Island, and ends up spending the night with her. The following morning, he is awakened by the sound of squabbling; apparently, Danielle has a twin sister named Dominique, and today is their birthday. Though Philip’s first instinct is to bolt, Danielle prevails on him to stay, and sends him out to the pharmacy to get a refill of her medication. While he’s out, Philip, the consummate gentleman, buys a birthday cake for the sisters to smooth over the turmoil which his presence has caused. What transpires when he returns provides one of filmdom’s great jolts.
Though its first, undeniably shocking plot twist constitutes a direct borrow from PSYCHO, and was primarily responsible for landing him in hot water with many ignorant film critics, the most striking aspect of SISTERS is its use of split-screening – a technique cribbed from Michael Wadleigh’s WOODSTOCK – to ratchet up the suspense throughout the murder and the following cover-up. The most crucial moment in this bravura sequence comes when Philip tries to scrawl a message of help on the window, and his effort pays off when it is noticed by Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt,) who occupies an apartment across the way. In a way, this hand-off between protagonists is the fluid solution that lacks. This is not to say that SISTERS is at all superior to the Hitchcock, but this one instance represents a small improvement upon the Master’s work.
As good as the first half-hour of SISTERS is, it begins to lose momentum once Grace begins her investigation, and by the time she ends up at the mysterious clinic alluded to by her mother in one of the films most inelegant scenes, De Palma loses his grasp on the proceedings. If, however, the final moment with Grace would suggests too strongly the wrap-up of CARRIE, the closing shot of Durning up on that telephone pole is a clever enough ending to make up for most of the film’s shortcomings.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - 1996
Released in the coveted Memorial Day slot that has generally served as the official kick-off of the Summer movie season, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, a big screen version of that espionage-heavy Peter Graves television series with the killer Lalo Schifren theme song, starring Tom Cruis, who also produced, opened to blockbuster business and managed to become a sizable hit despite the fact that audiences were indifferent – there was little repeat business – while critics carped that the script, a typically cobbled together affair bearing the fingerprints of, among others, Oscar winners Steven Zaillian and Robert Towne, made absolutely no sense, and, somehow, the fault for this rested solely with Brian De Palma.
Seeing as how his last, positive, for-hire experience occurred under the aegis of Paramount, it’s hard to argue with De Palma returning to the studio in yet another effort to resuscitate his career after the baffling, but costly, failure of CARLITO’S WAY, and what could be safer than working with one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars? What’s more, for such a huge production, De Palma is undoubtedly in control and, technically, on top of his game. So why the harsh reaction? Frankly, I think it took a lightening rod like De Palma to embolden the critics to finally take issue with the so-called “mindless action film,” but for all it’s supposed illogic, how are the plot holes in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, an otherwise vastly entertaining film, any different than those in, say, THE BIG SLEEP (in which Raymond Chandler himself admitted to not being sure who committed one of the film’s murders?) In this case, I believe the critics were a tad early in bemoaning the quality of the Hollywood blockbuster; they should’ve held off for five years until the release of THE MUMMY RETURNS, which is all set-pieces and utterly devoid of suspense.
I also would like to ask the AMMI’s David Schwarz why they didn’t postpone last week’s repertory screening of RIFIFI until this week, which would’ve been a somewhat fitting companion piece with its silent heist scene.
RAISING CAIN - 1992
Aside from THE FURY, RAISING CAIN was my most anticipated film of the retrospective, if only to see, nine years later, if it remains the gonzo masterpiece that I’ve long held it to be.
It is with some regret that I cannot in good faith confer such an honor upon this, De Palma’s return to low-budget suspense following the debacle that was BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. For every audaciously brilliant sequence (e.g. the nightmare within a nightmare that ends with the dreamer waking up in the safety of their own bed, only to be smothered,) there’s a moment like Lolita Davidovich’s protracted, exposition-filled voice over that is as glaringly awful as the monologue delivered by Morgan Freeman at the end of BONFIRE. The best way to approach RASING CAIN is as a boldly self-conscious exercise in style that allowed De Palma to parody his own obsessions and indulgences. In a way, it’s a companion piece to the similarly loopy PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, with De Palma once again paying wicked homage to PSYCHO (this time, it’s the car in the lake,) while, in the film’s most glorious moment, dropping references to his own work in an overblown, slow-motion finale that, this time, elicited rapturous applause from a delighted audience. If that’s not enough to recommend it, check out the tracking shot at police headquarters that jokingly *knows* it’s a tracking shot. And just when you think De Palma’s going to cut, the shot continues.
A parting shot: it’s worth noting that many of the critics who found De Palma’s self-conscious stylization so distasteful praise filmmakers like the Coen Brothers for indulging in a similar manner.
CARRIE - 1976
I used to view CARRIE primarily as a warm-up act for the main cinematic event that is THE FURY, but after seeing it projected in a well-preserved 35mm print, I don’t think I’ll ever link the two again. After grinding his gears trying to develop his aesthetic by way of those filmmakers – Hitchcock, Powell and Antonioni – he so ardently adores, De Palma finally found his voice with CARRIE, which was also the first adaptation of a Stephen King novel, and still ranks among the better interpretations of his work.
CARRIE is the story of womanhood blossoming under strict religious fanaticism, and finding no relief in the outside world, where Carrie, at sixteen, is well-behind the curve in the age of the sexual revolution. From the opening, voyeuristic (surprise) sequence in the girl’s locker room – the shameless full-frontal nudity would no doubt garner an NC-17 if released today – where Carrie experiences her first period, through the gradual casting off of her mother’s restraints as she learns more about her peculiar “power,” to the end where, after her cruel prom night humiliation, she returns home to seek refuge in the arms of the erstwhile oppressor, her mother, CARRIE is an astonishingly weighty disquisition of the perils of nascent womanhood, and a provocative condemnation of not only religious fanaticism, but Christianity in general. Couched in the sensationalistic tone of King’s pulp novel – a solid book, but not one of his better works – De Palma, ever the counter-culture prankster, finally found a more elegant outlet for his own strongly held beliefs, and the result is galvanizing cinema.
HI, MOM! - 1970
A sequel of sorts to GREETINGS, HI, MOM starts off on a hilarious note as that inveterate peeping tom, Jon Rubin (Robert De Niro,) sneaks up on a sleazy landlord (Charles Durning, credited here with the last name of Durnham,) and inquires about renting a room in one of his buildings. The following scene, improvised and shot from De Niro’s POV, consists of Durning showing off a run-down apartment to hilarious results, and the jokes land precisely because of the sharp editing, courtesy of Paul Hirsch, in what would be the first of many collaborations with De Palma. It is precisely Hirsch’s work, along with De Palma’s steady maturation behind the camera and another sharp comedic turn from De Niro, that allows HI, MOM to periodically transcend its scattershot vignette approach to become a piercing, darkly satiric film.
The centerpiece of the picture is a guerrilla theater production called “Be Black, Baby,” which turns out to be an interactive play in which the white audience is victimized by black “actors” wearing whiteface in an effort to allow them a glimpse into what it’s like to be black in America. It’s not a subtle concept, but shot in grainy black and white 16 mm film, the sequence achieves a certain power as it veers from the comic to the terrifying, and then concludes with a savagely witty punchline.
And that, my friends, was my weekend. Let’s see how I hold up when, next weekend, I endure OBSESSION, THE FURY, BODY DOUBLE and DRESSED TO KILL.
Until then, pray for me, or send me an email. I promise that this address actually works.
Faithfully submitted,
mrbeaks
