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In Reply to: Nice to see Brian DePalma is making movies again....coming this fall... posted by TWB on August 25, 2006 at 00:34:26:
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Follow Ups:
Body Double is a very fine film indeed, one of the very best American films of recent years -- though, I am sure, many will find it distasteful. Femme Fatal was also excellent -- though a bit cerebral for some. Dressed to Kill and Scarface are both great thrillers. They may seem a bit tame and pedestrian today, as do some of Peckinpah's films (a far less talented director in my opinion), but when they were released, their effect on audiences was sensational.DePalma is a true student of films, and often gets ridiculed for "sampling" Hitchcock, and other notable film makers. But his films, though they appear to be simple exercises in suspense and titillation, are really about the art of film-making itself: how we see, hear, and remember; how imagination becomes truth, and how perception becomes reality. And these cinematic quotes are not simply there for the sake of historical reference, but are integral to his films' thematic development.
He has surely been a disappointing film-maker from time to time, precisely because his directorial talents are so considerable -- and he has certainly put out a clunker or two.
But in comparison to most of the refuse that gets churned out of Hollywoods's profit machine, his films, though occasionally flawed, are almost always worth the attention of cinematophiles.
...DePalma just doesn't do it for me.
De Palma has always cited Eisenstein as a major influence and has never denied that Potemkin's Odessa Steps inspired The Untouchables' shoot out scene. Odessa Steps is one of the most famous scenes in film history; De Palma could hardly claim that the baby carriage rattling down the steps was his original idea, nor did he ever try to assert that. Anyone who ever took Film History 101 in college immediately recognized what De Palma was referencing. It was both an homage and an in - joke for film buffs. I distinctly remember laughing out loud at the scene when I first saw the movie.As I recall the script originally called for Ness to take the bookkeeper from Capone's gunmen in an elaborate car vs. train chase sequence. When the budget ruled that out De Palma came up with the gunfight on the Chicago Union Station steps idea.
...perhaps 'ripped off' was a bit harsh, only cause it is so blatantly obvious, even for those of us who didn't take that ubiqitous film history class. It is as on the nose and revelatory as saying Eisenstein was a major influence. Don't remember laughing though, guess maybe I assumed he didn't intend for me to do so.
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