De Palma (Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow, 2016)

[thirtyframesasecond]

De Palma is an interesting documentary - it's just Brian on camera talking about his life and his movies for two hours. He speaks about them chronologically, so starting with his student films with Robert De Niro and ending with Passion. Loads of interesting anecdotes on each film, usually about how the studio or ratings board were appalled by them.

[D50]

De Palma is an interesting documentary - it's just Brian on camera talking about his life and his movies for two hours. He speaks about them chronologically, so starting with his student films with Robert De Niro and ending with Passion. Loads of interesting anecdotes on each film, usually about how the studio or ratings board were appalled by them.

SpoilerShow

I liked when he revealed what Sean Penn whispered to Michael J. Fox during the Courts Martial scene in Casualties of War.

[dda1996a]

De Palma is an interesting documentary - it's just Brian on camera talking about his life and his movies for two hours. He speaks about them chronologically, so starting with his student films with Robert De Niro and ending with Passion. Loads of interesting anecdotes on each film, usually about how the studio or ratings board were appalled by them.

SpoilerShow

I liked when he revealed what Sean Penn whispered to Michael J. Fox during the Courts Martial scene in Casualties of War.

That was indeed pretty funny. I found it just fine, mostly how I feel about De Palma. I still have a few more films by him to watch, but overall I enjoy his craft way more than I like his films. I though this was just fine, but am wondering what pulled Baumbach to make this

[colinr0380]

I've just been assuming that the interview between Baumbach and De Palma on Criterion's Blow Out disc was a good starting point for going on to do a film on De Palma's whole career.

[Mr Sausage]

Baumbach is apparently friends with de Palma and frequently lunches with him. Baumbach said he helped make this movie in large part to preserve these stories he'd heard over the years.

[Ribs]

I like to imagine he made it solely to inspire a crisis in confidence in Armond White

(The movie was actually filmed years ago, I think even before Passion had released; the Blow Out interview on the BD was done around the same time, I think)

[DarkImbecile]

I found De Palma fun to watch as well, though as moderate fan (as it sounds like most people are at best) it seemed like less of a deep dive into any of his themes or techniques than an introduction to the director for novices, or an enjoyable career recap for someone who hadn't seen one of his films in 15 years.

[colinr0380]

Does it say much about Redacted? That's a later De Palma film that feels rather overlooked but also feels like a fascinating companion piece to Casualties of War.

[knives]

Honestly I'd place it in my top five. It's so interesting not just in its relation with the earlier film, but in terms of how cinema was changing with the novelties of the Internet and the Bush doctrine. It's a film so wonderfully dated to the moment of its inception.

[Ribs]

The last few movies, after Femme Fatale or so, are covered for less than a minute each (and Passion isn't actually discussed at all, I think - Baumbach and Paltrow just use clips of it as he explains his recent approach to making movies; if I remember rightly, anyway).

[Mr Sausage]

This film is about the charisma of Brian De Palma. It's carried along by his winning, outsized personality more than novelty or any striking analysis and insight. There's a lot here that has been heard before, but the project is less about the information than giving De Palma a chance to reveal who he is at length. And he's a great raconteur. Curiously, he never dwells too long on his own emotions, even when narrating (sometimes briskly) what sounds like very painful moments in his life--there is a story about the young De Palma breaking into his father's practise and threatening him with a knife that sounds harrowing and even traumatic, but De Palma narrates it as only a by-the-by example of how some of his personal experience went into Dressed to Kill. De Palma never seems detached or emotionless--he's just uninterested in working through certain emotions from the past. Mostly he's affable and good-humoured--showing moments of amused frustration or confusion, but rarely a sense of loss, pain, or regret. He is comfortable with everything. It's hard to feel bad for him, even when you ought to (his account of his reaction to the mixed critical reception of Carlito's Way ought to make you feel sad, but De Palma's attitude makes you inclined to take it in similar stride). The movie gives the impression that he was often treated unfairly, including over films that admittedly aren't very good but somehow deserved a less hysterical reception than they got. But this impression is gained mainly by accumulation, with story after story of the same thing. De Palma himself, tho', never dwells on it for too long nor with much bitterness. You can glimpse the toughness that got him through his lowest periods.

The movie made me wish I liked De Palma's films more. It's hard not to admire him--he's such a weird filmmaker, weirder really than the rest of his cohort even though he made more consistently commercial genre films. He's committed to fighting to remain himself on film. I was surprised at how often he was a gun-for-hire just because his films seem to belie that. They're always very much his.

[thirtyframesasecond]

The last few movies, after Femme Fatale or so, are covered for less than a minute each (and Passion isn't actually discussed at all, I think - Baumbach and Paltrow just use clips of it as he explains his recent approach to making movies; if I remember rightly, anyway).

They filmed De Palma in 2010, before Passion was made, so I guess that's why.

I was watching the Arrow Blu Ray of Sisters yesterday - one of the extras is a film by film overview of De Palma's career - again, the last half dozen or so films get a very fleeting mention.

[dda1996a]

Well to be honest their reception is decent at best. I have only seen Snake Eyes and Passion and while Eyes is decent I hated Passion. I much rather he talk about Carlito, Casualties, Dressed to Kill and Carrie then his recent oeuvre