DE PALMA (2015)

Studio:       A24
Director:    Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow
Writer:       Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow
Producer:  Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow
Stars:     Brian De Palma

Review Score:

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Summary:

Director Brian De Palma reflects on his career with recollections and anecdotes covering his complete filmography.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Initially enrolled at Columbia to study physics and math, Brian De Palma gravitated toward filmmaking after becoming fascinated with the French New Wave movement. De Palma enrolled in Sarah Lawrence liberal arts college, where he met his mentor Wilford Leach as well as several actors who would go on to become his reparatory players, including Robert De Niro.

De Palma supported himself by shooting documentaries during graduate school, eventually becoming part of Universal Studios’ “New Talent” program. Frustrated with the program, De Palma made the film “Greetings” on his own in 1968. Around this time, De Palma became friends with fellow directors Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola.

Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) – De Palma recalls the film being troubled by Orson Welles not learning his lines and fallout with star Tommy Smothers.

Sisters (1973) – Disappointed with “Get to Know Your Rabbit,” De Palma returned to New York. Borrowing the technique from “Dionysus in ’69,” De Palma began regularly employing his characteristic split-screen edits to give the audience two pieces of information at the same time. De Palma recalls being frightened in his first meeting with Alfred Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann, whom he first worked with on “Sisters.”

Obsession (1976) – De Palma’s split-screen technique became supplemented by split diopter shots. De Palma recalls star Cliff Robertson being difficult to work with.

Carrie (1976) – Initially cancelled over a budget dispute, “Carrie” brought De Palma back to the studio system. He and George Lucas cast “Carrie” and “Star Wars” from the same auditions. With this film, De Palma discovered split-screen was too intellectual for action sequences. De Palma believes the idea for the hand from the grave came from “Deliverance.”

The Fury (1978) – Described as “not one of my favorite films by a longshot,” De Palma disliked having to shoot a car chase, but was attracted to the project because of its cast.

Dressed to Kill (1980) – De Palma’s inspiration for the script, which he sold for $1 million, came from following around his father when he was cheating on his mother. “Dressed to Kill” was among De Palma’s first fights with the ratings board over its depiction of violence against women.

Blow Out (1980) – John Travolta’s involvement with the film ballooned the budget to $20 million, and it would go on to bomb. On this project, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond introduced De Palma to the Steadicam.

Scarface (1983) – “Scarface” epitomized De Palma’s interest in stories about megalomaniacs living in isolated universes. De Palma quit the project in solidarity with the original writer, but came back through a series of circumstances involving director Sidney Lumet taking a different project from him. De Palma had to have screenwriter Oliver Stone removed from the set for interfering with actors. De Palma also recalls losing Al Pacino for two weeks due to injury, forcing him to shoot lengthy sequences like the signature shootout. “Scarface” found renewed success in the hip-hop community a decade later, though De Palma refused to allow a rescore using hip-hop music.

Producer Don Simpson wanted De Palma to direct “Flashdance.” Irritated over the handling of his script for “Act of Vengeance,” De Palma purposefully ran up a large deal on “Flashdance” and then walked away.

Body Double (1984) – De Palma identifies his storytelling style as starting from construction and then filling it in, as opposed to starting with characters and building outward. De Palma says he is driven by unrealistic ideas and then uses actors to ground them. “Body Double” renewed accusations of misogynistic violence. De Palma counters that films are products of their time, but are constantly criticized against current fashion.

Wise Guys (1986) – After the criticism of “Body Double,” De Palma chose something different by directing Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” music video starring Courteney Cox and then a comedy with Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo.

The Untouchables (1987) – De Palma got the project after dropping out of “Fatal Attraction.” He initially wanted Don Johnson to play Eliot Ness, but the producer, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan sold him on Kevin Costner. De Palma replaced Bob Hoskins with Robert De Niro as Al Capone to heighten an American gangster feel. De Palma found working with De Niro deeper in their careers to be much different, as the actor was not learning his lines. Sean Connery was upset about having to wear a bullet squib vest. The “Odessa Steps” sequence was improvised after David Mamet refused to write additional material following removal of a train chase due to budget.

Casualties of War (1989) – De Palma believed the source material was the best story every written about the Vietnam War. Michael J. Fox’s involvement finally got the movie made, although it was an emotionally challenging film and commercial disappointment.

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) – De Palma chose to soften the story because of Tom Hanks and the desire to be more broadly appealing, but the film was still a failure. De Palma regrets not going harder on his initially dark vision.

Raising Cain (1992) – Dejected by reviews of the previous picture and newly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, De Palma decided to return to the familiar thriller genre.

Carlito’s Way (1993) – Although the film was only mildly successful, De Palma watched “Carlito’s Way” and thought, “I can’t make a better picture than this.”

Mission: Impossible (1996) – De Palma believed he could make a hit with Tom Cruise onboard as the star. Conflicting visions from two screenwriters created creative problems that De Palma resolved with Cruise’s influence. De Palma laments that modern action sequences lack emotion because they are pre-visualized by digital artists who reuse clichéd shots.

Snake Eyes (1998) – Although he was coming off the biggest movie of his career, De Palma’s second marriage ended and he went into hiding until “Snake Eyes.” De Palma was disappointed that he was forced to scrap his original ending involving a massive tidal wave.

Mission to Mars (2000) – De Palma realized he was in over his head with a challenging schedule and $100 million budget. At age 60, De Palma wondered if these were the kinds of projects he wanted to continue spending his time on.

No longer interested in making films in the United States, De Palma began making subsequent movies in other countries. In returning to a more personal movie with “Passion” in 2012, De Palma concludes that directors make their best films in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, suggesting age is a determining factor in how he views quality of current and future endeavors.

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Review:

“De Palma” is framed inauspiciously to the point of being initially awkward.  The accomplished director sits slightly slouched in his chair, dressed like a dad dropping his kid off at karate practice.  A lone camera captures him coldly, mostly in a motionless medium shot so ordinary, De Palma would never permit it in one of his films.  Unheard questions are asked in between edits.  There are no talking heads except his.  If nothing else, for better or for worse “De Palma” is one hour and 50 minutes of the filmmaker truly in his own words.

“De Palma” isn’t a technically polished documentary.  The movie moves through material fast, not always segueing sleekly.  Audible changes in ambient sound signal when voiceovers are rearranged or spliced in after the fact.

Yet as the conversation continues, what starts as arm’s length intimacy supplemented with irrelevant background bits gradually warms into an intriguing fireside chat about craftsmanship in the context of a specific career.  Once the time tunnel trip through his complete catalog gets in a groove, Brian De Palma gets in one too, and the storytelling session hits its stride.

“De Palma” has nearly everything that can be imagined for a Hollywood BTS bio-doc.  Love “what if” scenarios of alternate casting and “could have been” projects?  Imagine if Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan hadn’t sold De Palma on Kevin Costner, leaving him with his pick of Don Johnson as Eliot Ness for “The Untouchables.”  Or if pettily digging at producer Don Simpson didn’t take priority over agreeing to do “Flashdance.”

“De Palma” has dirt too.  Some of it his, but most of it belonging to others.  Much of this involves quick hits like Orson Welles not learning his lines or Cliff Robertson being one of several veteran actors who proved challenging to work with.  Better beats come when De Palma chokes on chuckles.  Al Pacino burning him on a “Carlito’s Way” subway scene and Sean Penn purposefully pushing Michael J. Fox’s buttons on “Casualties of War” are two particularly entertaining recollections.

Collectively through these anecdotes, multiple sides of the moviemaker are seen.  Reflections come from a candid man so far removed from the business-minded maze of celebrity egos and back room backstabbing, he isn’t terribly concerned with protecting imaginary legacies through revisionist history.

There’s no sense of dirty laundry malice either.  At worst, De Palma comes off as an occasionally mischievous saboteur, intentionally doing things he suspect won’t work, but experimenting anyway to irk an irritated producer.  De Palma has the humor of hindsight when recalling feuds, more or less reflecting on creative differences with a hatchet-long-buried laugh of copacetic resolution.

What you won’t see is a bright spotlight on De Palma as a man.  Personal details are only shared selectively when they relate to specific influence on screenplays, such as telling a psychiatrist he was a homosexual Communist in order to avoid Vietnam or stalking his father when he was cheating on his mother, scenes later written into his films.

“Gale” is spoken aloud, although “Anne Hurd” isn’t.  So if you’re in the dark about his second wife’s full identity, the movie isn’t turning on that light, for instance.  Then again, Brian De Palma is such a skillful storyteller that he succinctly sums up this marriage in a single sentence: “Gale and I fell together at a certain time in our lives and then basically went back to the lives that we hadn’t finished.”

The true value of “De Palma” is the casually delivered insight on creating cinematic suspense and what directing is as both artform and job.  De Palma dispenses wisdom in words that are throwaway notions of obviousness to him, yet indispensible gold to fans and other filmmakers.

De Palma even influences perception of films that aren’t his.  His personal assessment of Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” explains the purpose of slow zooms in a period piece.  When De Palma opines that “movies are a record of the things you didn’t finish,” immortalizing every mistake and shortcut, the mind might wander to his friend George Lucas’ desire to recut the “Star Wars” special editions based on that very same notion.

That any singular voice can have such sway over conception of an entire medium is astonishingly remarkable.  And “De Palma” captures that remarkable voice with a comprehensive collection of copious clips, memories, and revelations that are fascinating to hear, see, discover, and savor.

Review Score:  85

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