This is a continuation of last week’s article, exploring the works of writer and director Brain De Palma...
Dressed to Kill (1980)
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Now many comment upon De Palma’s Dressed to Kill as a somewhat core text for the hyper-sexual, perverse and provocative (rather than problematic) psychological thrillers of this era of his career. In that sense everything is there; the Hitchcock homage elements, the Pino Donaggio sumptuous, sensual and startling score, the exploration of sexuality in fresh, titillating, graphic, at times purposefully gratuitous ways, all punctuated by visceral violence and a pshyclolgical commentary that puts everything in bold what Hitchcock had to put under the surface. Here the subtext of so many Hitchcock texts is just text. Now for fans of De Palma that is what makes these films so wonderfully joyous, and for those who find his work offensive, problematic or at times some have even commented deeply dangerous in its goals, themes and presentation, this is the sort of bluntness that fuels much of their critiques. These thrillers are often seen as pure De Palma from an auteurist point of view because this is also where the majority of his works that he wrote aswell as directed can be found. Dressed to Kill is one such film in every way. Its plot is captivating, but used mostly as a frame for some truly exceptional sequences. At its core of course Dressed to Kill is De Palma’s vital and dynamic re-invigoration of Psycho, now many comment this down purely to the cross-dressing killer of it all, however for me the links are more subtle at times and sometimes a lot more obvious beyond that. We open on a shower, which for De Palma can be the setting for sex, assault, murder and extreme beauty shots of a dream like nature. The film opens in fact with an incredibly extended sequence of Angie Dickinson and her dream-vision body double caressing themselves in the shower, before being attacked by a figure appearing by nightmare magic from the steam. It set’s us up for a film that constantly has its real narrative thwarted, propelled and violated by dream sequences and frequently in the plotting at times, dream logic even.
So much of the conversation that surrounds Dressed to Kill nowadays is solely around the depiction of our transgender killer, and whereas as a film like Silence of the Lambs takes great pains to distinguish their psychotic killer from normal members of the trans community, this film does not. There is in certain fan communities an adoption of a character who is never explicitly stated to be trans, to actually be a trans police officer, which would highlight great representation to balance out the depictions, but this is more so a fan adoption and in the actual script of the film, the dialogue to make this distinction isn’t there. It’s an intense over-simplification and brutal lack of tact to completely dismiss an entire film because of one element that could never have been present at the time of initial release. Certain LGBT groups have reclaimed Dressed to Kill, but for me, not that it’s my place to say, but Dressed to Kill isn’t fun in a campy sense to reclaim. It’s entertainment is in its intensity, it’s over-wraughtness, it’s wonderfully convoluted physcology and physco-sexualness. It’s a perverse wild ride infusing even auto-biographical elements for De Palma (his tracking of is own father’s adulteries) into a film as far removed from realism as you can get at times. It’s intense, it’s hyper-violent, it’s hyper-sexual and ultimately it puts De Palma in a position where he is already repeating certain tricks of his, especially blatantly his ending for Carrie. Dressed to Kill is a wild ride and is the ultimate slick perfection presentation of the De Palma psycho-sexual thriller and it’s entertaining to the very last frame, no matter at times how perverse, problematic or reductive it may be.
There is a full article to be found on Blow Out on the blog here https://clwpodcast.blogspot.com/2022/09/blow-out-where-backdrop-and-sound.html.
Scarface (1983)
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The world is yours... There is of course a camp of people in the world who have only ever seen one De Palma film and those people have seen Scarface. Scarface is almost infamously the basic-fan’s favourite De Palma film, which is not only patronising in element to these people (just let people like what they like), but also frankly this is a great, great film and a great De Palma film too. No time do I watch the ever re-watchable Scarface and think that it was a sacrifice in any kind of any of the auteurs chief elements or vision. Scarface is of course a big-budget epic modernised take on the original 1932 gangster classic from Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, whom the film is actually dedicated to, but all throughout De Palma vitalises and visually masters a somewhat traditional (despite the then revitalising modernisation) rags to riches story. But this is not unlike Obsession, a tale that also incredibly features the collaborative talents of two sensational auteurs voices, with De Palma directing an Oliver Stone screenplay. Now according to De Palma, Stone was a little too hands on for the purely writer role he was in. Once these frictions were resolved it is clear that the final product is a brilliant pairing with De Palma making brilliant epic work of Stone’s brilliant script that spans years and years and so many brilliant character arcs, so many different characters and so many sub-plots that all naturally come to the ‘tragic’ end they have to clash to. The cast is sensational all across the board in every department. Al Pacino (in his lesser of collaborations with De Palma, not by much, but I do prefer the more effecting tragedy of Carlito’s Way) is brilliant here at translating a very similar arc of sorts to Michael Corleone across less time, with the same deftness, with a fervent cocaine fuelled brutality and furiosity separating the two characters by leaps and bounds. But Pacino may be the haunted, tragic, violent, scary core... but there is so much more to the ensemble of this film. Ranging from the brilliant Steven Bauer, the hauntingly psycho-sexual plot of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s Gina, to the terrifyingly calculated businessman of Paul Shenar, to Robert Logia as the elder statesmen whose menace slowly but surely reveals itself. Michelle Pfeiffer is of course the standout of the ensemble as the incredibly sensual but sure-headed, if under-served by the screenplay, character of Elvira. Overall Scarface is so much more at the end of the day then I think everybody gives it credit for. If this is a case of De Palma elevating material or De Palma simply bringing it to the screen with great power and effect, be of your own mind.
Body Double (1984)
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Often described as possibly the most Briand De Palma movie the man ever made, Body Double may be the biggest cult hit amongst fans circles and critical bodies. However of course like most cult films of the type, how did the film start off? Naturally as one of his most reviled. Now films of De Palma’s that were in the psycho-sexual vein had undoubtedly more than their share of controversies and scandals, aswell as many accusations of misogyny and critiques that his depictions of violence were not only glamorised and made gratuitous depictions of horrible, horrible acts of sexual and non-sexual acts of assault. I think what makes Body Double the film that remains provocative to this day, and the film that garnered the undoubted worst of all the waves of criticism thus far in his career, may very well be the frankness of it and the air about the film of a final big blow-out (pardon the pun). One gets the feeling that De Palma is putting it all on the table and declaring once and for all that this is his style and with this most extreme version of it, critics and audiences can decide once and for all if they are in or not. Body Double is a perverted, sensationalist, violent masterwork of hyper-modernisation and overt sexualisation in the world of homage and at times one could even comment parody. De Palma himself has commented a few times on possibly even going too far with this films, not exactly in the places you might think, places where despite getting the most uproar the man will defend stringently till his dying day – No, here we have De Palma actually reflecting retrospectively that some of his moments of melodrama may have crossed the line into overly emotional and even laughable in the worst cases. But Body Double is a film that relishes in extremes and so it’s perhaps the hardest case to argue for and against the knowingness of De Palma when it comes to certain matters. Body Double is extreme in every way. Why ape and hyper-sexualise one Hitchcock film when you can make a hedonistic and heady combination (or clash) of Rear Window, Vertigo and even just plainly Psycho once more. It’s here we find the touchstones for De Palma with Hitchcock, with these three films in both big ways and small ways already being works he has homage and interrogated with his lens. Here he goes in once more, fuelled instead now by a hyper-surrealist at times, languidly tense and frequently hyper-sexual and hyper-violent film that has to be seen to be believed. And even then, you have many days after to ponder in actuality what did you actually see? Afterall as the film loves to show us, you can’t believe everything you see.
Body Double is a film of constant twists and turns that relishes the use and lingo of a Hollywood De Palma was detached from at the best of times, despite being perhaps the most auteurist journey-man director that they’re ever was. De Palma here places us in a Hollywood as setting in a way he won’t return to really until the seedier elements of The Black Dahlia. Here we have brilliant and scarily realistic depictions of the worst kind of acting classes, aswell as frequently confronting us with fakes and staged scenes, nothing is ever as it seems and just when we think we’re on solid ground, we are uprooted once more. Perhaps there is no more surprising, in many ways inventive, in many ways hilarious and frankly in many ways brilliantly entertaining than that of the extended porn shoot sequence which effectively works as a music video for the Frankie Goes To Hollywood single Relax, even with members of the band appearing and performing! This comes also exactly around the point where the film completely shifts on an axis we never knew was there to be shifted upon and sends us on a complete different path. Whereas Vertigo is this films closest parallel in regards to structure, Body Double instead of getting darker and more psychological, becomes more graphic, more frank sexually and more entertaining. This is of course surprisingly late into the film we meet Melanie Griffith, and actress who has never particularly worked for me and has always felt slightly mismatched. Am I going to now come off as some hyper-sexed straight man and now reveal that this performance where she plays a porn actress, is repeatedly nude, hyper-sexualised and often speaks in vulgarities and crudities about her industry, is undoubtedly my favourite of her performances and one where I felt she was unequivocally in complete control of her performance and suited the film in no way I have seen her before? With regret, my humble readers, yes. Read into that how you will, I’m sure you will. Of course the polar opposite to Griffith is that of Craig Wasson as our lead. Now for as much as the rest of the supporting cast do great work, Dennis Franz as a Brian De Palma stand in, Gregg Henry as a puppet master and Deborah Shelton as a beautiful siren. The film is indeed made for Wasson, which again is a bizarre choice. This may be one of the most unexpected and unrootable leading men we meet in the world of film, never mind De Palma’s cannon, never mind the world of the erotic thriller. The character is so bizarre in so many ways and Wasson is so bizarre himself that I have really no idea what to make of it, and this guy is our lead. Overall with Pino Donaggio’s synth based score of sensuality and tension, we go along for the ride anyway. De Palma’s ride this time around is unwieldy, extreme in every way and shocking at its core as a rule it seems. Body Double is brilliant bizarre stuff; very watchable and very entertaining.
Wise Guys (1986)
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Time after time De Palma has made films in the world of the gangster and for the most part these films are pure genre pieces with all the elements of De Palma’s work that you would expect to see; then almost out of nowhere there comes Wise Guys, a very broad comedy removed from all the dark cynicism that made De Palma’s earliest comedies work as well as they did. By all accounts the film was critical and commercial failure, with it in actuality never being released officially in cinemas in the UK, instead going straight to VHS. This is a movie from a very popular director at the time (or at least a name) starring one of film and TV’s biggest stars then and still now, Danny De Vito, in a plot that’s broadly appealing and when you finally watch it does have a lot of humour and ideas going for it. Now sure it doesn’t completely make the most out of those ideas and George Gallo’s script is more so a thing whose quality is boosted by De Vito and De Palma, rather than it being a sturdy piece of work in itself, but Wise Guys overall is a very solid studio comedy. This being said this is not the held opinion of De Palma, who has stated before that “It’s not one of [his] favourites because nobody at the studio ever liked it”, going on to comment that the greatest takeaway was just how enjoyable his time spent working with De Vito was. Hollywood lore even has Billy Wilder, one of the greatest directors of all time sh*tting on the film, following a private screening organised by one of the film’s producers Jerry Weintraub. Wilder reportedly stated “it’s a piece of shit! I can tell you how to make it less of a piece of shit, but it would still be a piece of shit”. Not knowing any of these opinions heading into the film, only knowing from my own lack of knowledge on the film (even as a huge fan of the director) that it was widely one of De Palma’s least seen films. After watching it, one can understand why. A true balance of tone is never found exactly, the film would seriously have been better off staying within the lane it finds in its opening introductory sequences, with small jokes and humorous different looks at the behind the scenes of a mob operation, however the film itself ends up devolving into a ‘guys on the run’ plot that doesn’t wholly lead to major audience investment. All the same it’s not a terrible little comedy palate cleanser in-between two of the three classic De Palma gangster drama classics.
The Untouchables (1987)
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For me this is the perfect companion piece to a film we get to soon MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, of De Palms coming and bringing his mastery of suspense and thrills to somewhat conventional populous product. Of course here there is the added subversive nature of having David Mamet writing the dialogue and it’s this combination of fierce and cunning dialogue with similarly intriguing and thrilling camera works makes this almost entirely fictitious retelling of the true story Al Capone’s eventual arrest for tax evasion into a provocative and endlessly entertaining filmic affair. The film has so many distinctly successful elements that I think you could ask ten different fans and get ten different answers. Many would cite De Palmas mastery of tension and action being able to be fuelled by a big budget studio again, whereas others may indeed cite Mamet’s constantly delightful Capone exchanges whether they be thoroughly intellectual and perform active or just the vulgar outbursts of angry little villain. Or perhaps it’s more so for the performances, whether it be the ultimate all American lead Kevin Costner bringing the clean cut charisma of older legends with a touch of modern wit and sex even, or indeed it could be for De Niro returning to work with De Palma as Capone almost two decades after their experimental early days as struggling artists. Andy Garcia too in his early days already bringing a fierce masculinity and powerful confidence to even this one of his earliest roles. However its most likely for Sean Connery in this the role that won him best supporting actor playing the distinctly Scottish, somehow Irish American, elder statesman figure, a simple honest cop on the beat who gives Costner Ness the exact right advice and imbues exactly with the right amount of grit to lead Capone to his ultimate demise. Although of course the ending is a triumphant one it really can’t be underestimated what a journey of grief we gone on along the way to get there. De Palma and Mamet throughout carve out a path to triumph paved by multiple incredible set pieces and many excellent exchanges of Mamet’s signature pure Chicago dialogue with this time an interesting period element to it.
Casualties of War (1989)
Hailed frequently by Quentin Tarantino as “the greatest Vietnam war film”, this decades spanning passion project of De Palma’s came about from perhaps the most frightening of inspirations; a real life news article. As the initial title card reads Casualties is “based on an actual incident that occurred in the Vietnam war, it was first reported by Daniel Lang to The New Yorker magazine in 1969”, and the underpinning and foundation of truth that this film and this story is based upon, just can’t help but unsettle, unnerve and contextualise all you are seeing as perhaps the most gruelling, vicious, honest and brutal of the Vietnam war films of the 80’s. Perhaps Tarantino’s statement can be argued over and over and again, it’s not as if there aren’t a plethora of great Vietnam war films to choose from, but Casualties may very well be the most underrated when it comes to undeniable quality frequently not discussed. I think some of this lack of reputation may be down to its reputation perhaps as a sanitised piece. Now anybody who has actually seen the film knows full well that this unflinching tale of an army private (played truly excellently by Michael J. Fox in perhaps in his best performance) as he struggles morally and ethically with the actions of his almost rogue squad as they kidnap a Vietnamese native for repeated rape, or as the sick and perverted mind of Sean Penn’s leader of the squad calls it “R and R”. This supposed sanitisation I think comes from two known factors largely related to writer David Rabe’s relationship with the piece. Rabe has since distanced himself from the film citing an altered ‘happy ending’ of sorts completely removed in tone and sentiment from the originally written and shot ending that placed Fox’s actions (or lack there of) a little more under fire. Now for me the ending we do get is one of a more haunting quality, it’s not Fox’s character is let off the hook, more so that he is free to go about his life but the horrors of what he witnessed and stood by, albeit trying to stop, will never leave him until he himself dies.
Fox and Penn as clashing forces is a great clash of personalities on screen and off with marvellous results for De Palma and the film. Penn was known to bully Fox to get ‘better results’ and it has to be said that Fox’s supposed naivety and good boy persona make his casting, performance and arc all the more effecting. With Penn’s notorious qualities of volatility and un-predictability utilised here to make this violent psychotic character taking advantage of the vast unruliness of war. Fox and Penn are the main clash, but the film is stacked with other ensemble players making the narrative all the more textured, effecting and complex. John C. Reilly in his first major role is perfect as the sort of unwittingly unassuming figure in the mix of these other hot-heads, with Don Harvey being a more menacing and purely villainous presence, with John Leguizamo also appearing as a figure caught somewhere in between the complexities of the situation. Of course there are no complexities in reality; murder is murder, rape is rape and the acts of the men are brutal and undeniably horrific. However the greys of war and how that colours all the men do are what makes Rabe’s screenplay (whatever he’s willing to claim) and De Palma’s direction all the more enthralling. De Palma lends his normal techniques here to surprise, taunt, shock and compel his audience to a level that up until his point he hasn’t utilisesed in such a dramatic capacity. I don’t think it can be underestimated to waht extent this De Palma’s first through and through drama for me, without winking, without genre knowingness, without enjoyable sexuality or violence. The violence and ‘sexual scenes’ here are brutal and presented entirely with sophistication and without gratuity of any kind. In the chief rape sequence De Palma’s camera shows us just enough to grasp the entirety of the situation. We need no more. I think this is De Palma’s greatest talent here and it in a way justifies and defines his depictions of sex and violence up until this point, for this film shows us with immense clarity that De Palma knows exactly when not to show us these things, which for me highlights how in the rest of his films up until this point and after, he’s known exactly when to show us what we see. When we can enjoy it, when we can be turned on, when we can sickened, when we can be horrified, when we can be enthralled or repelled – De Palma is a voyeur and relishes in it most of the time, but also has tact aplenty to know when to distance his audience and when to relish would be to bastardise the film.
This article will continue and conclude in the next edition...
- - Thomas Carruthers
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