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The Documentary "DePalma"

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
54 replies | jump to latest

I finally got around to seeing this on a "service."

I think maybe swanstep covered this in the near past? I should go thread browsing, but I'll start off with my own take.

Recall that my personal mantra with Brian DePalma is "I Hate DePalma, I Love DePalma."

That was based at the time on the fact that I felt his Hitchcock knockoffs in the 70s and 80s(Sisters, Obsession, Dressed to Kill) weren't nearly as good as Hitchcock at his best and yet -- he made three "big budget Hollywood productions with stars" that are among my favorite films of all time: Scarface, The Untouchables(my favorite movie of 1987 AND THE EIGHTIES) and Carlito's Way(a weirdly heart-warming crime thriller of the 90s -- I think it is the musical score of that film that "lifts" it in emotional impact.)

All these years later, my heart is warming to the stuff I didn't like in the 70's/early 80's(fellow posters on this very board have pointed me that way) and so I end up REALLY loving DePalma for those Three Big Ones, and no longer hating him so much for the Hitch stuff.

But let me bring out that SNL joke line from the early 80's: "Once a year, Brian DePalma picks the bones of a great director and gives his wife a job" (this in support of "Brian DePalma's The Clams," a birds ripoff.)

The mockery and anger expressed in that SNL bit is roughly how DePalma was seen at the time: as a guy who spent his time making Hitchcock Copycat movies when his peers were making films like Star Wars, Close Encounters, Raging Bull, and Apocalypse Now.

Indeed, there is a photo in "DePalma" of the makers of those films as young hotshots together in one shot: Lucas, Spielberg, DePalma, Scorsese, and Coppola and you realize (1) Hey, that's THEM! That's the key filmmakers of that era! And then you wonder, (2) Did DePalma really DESERVE to be in that shot with those other guys?

As a pal, he did. He advised the others on their films -- and dissed Star Wars as junk (oops.) As a filmmaker?

Oh, I guess so. As this documentary shows, "Carrie" was enough of a hit and a mini-classic to both ditch the "Hitchcock Copycat" label and earn DePalma his bona fides as a hitmaker (though he went back immediately to Hitchcock with Obsession, made first but released second, and with a Herrmann score.) "The Fury" was a big, big budget affair(but not THAT big budget, the biggest star was Kirk Douglas well past his prime) ; Dressed to Kill made money probably more for its sex than its violence; and Blow Out, while not a hit and too indebted to Blow Up and Vertigo -- felt like an intelligent cult classic.

Blow Out comes before Scarface -- which wasn't THAT big a hit(how could it be, with that chainsaw scene in it?) but became a huge, massive cult classic(ironically now DePalma's Masterpiece -- barely a Hitchcock reference in it.) But Scarface -- more than The Fury -- established DePalma as a guy who could work with a big prestige star(Pacino) and that allowed him to work with Connery and DeNiro in The Untouchables later.

And -- hey wait a minute! AS "DePalma" shows us, DePalma made some of his first, cheapest, smallest student movies WITH a young "Bobby" DeNiro -- they came up together and soon parted. And DePalma never got to work with DeNiro again UNTIL The Untouchables, with DeNiro's Al Capone almost an extended cameo. I guess they weren't the best of friends, or perhaps DeNiro felt that it was better for his career to work with Scorsese than DePalma?

For his part, DePalma disses DeNiro for doing The Untouchables "unable to remember his lines." A big problem, evidently. The world praised DeNiro for again gaining weight and wearing Capone-style satin underwear; DePalma just remembers that DeNiro couldn't remember his lines(I guess following Brando's lead with cue cards wasn't for everybody.)

I wish to offer up one more "ding" on DePalma before moving to more sympathetic praise: his command of Hitchcock's suspense techniques always struck me as poor -- too slow, too much slow motion, too disorganized.

Or as I like to say, if DePalma had directed Arbogast's murder -- it would have taken ten minutes in slow motion to get Arbo up those stairs, and ten minutes of slow motion falling getting him down those stairs.

I feel that directors like Sam Peckinpah(especially in The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs); Steven Spielberg(in Duel and Jaws), Coppola(in The Godfather and The Conversation) and Don Siegel(in Dirty Harry and Charley Varrick) were more simpatico with Hitchcock's style and techniques than Brian DePalma ever was.

And DePalma did that split-screen thing. I guess its his trademark. Season Two of Fargo(set in 1979) used split-screen a lot, and I immediately thought: DePalma.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Nonetheless, the first images you see in "DePalma" are -- from Vertigo. The opening rooftop chase, cliffhanger(rain gutter) and fall. Then a cut to DePalma talking and the documentary thus says, right up front: "DePalma is that Hitchcock Copycat Guy, no matter anything else he made."

Which is odd, given that the movie starts up (after showing clips of -- wait for it -- Scarface, The Untouchables and Carlito's Way-- did I write this film?) with DePalma's early student films, and they barely have any Hitchcock in them at all. Well, except for one called "Murder a la Mod," from which we see a quick and bloody throat-slitting of a pretty young woman.

Mainly , we get the countercultural stuff of "Hi, Mom!" and "Greetings!" and are reminded yet again that our major filmmakers always have to start small(on the one hand) and make a splash(on the other.) DePalma did, with Bobby DeNiro's early mumbling charisma of assistance(he sounds just like Robert DeNiro, but with a bit too much baby fat on the face.)

The movie that got DePalma his first studio backing was "Get to Know Your Rabbit" with the pairing of Tom Smothers and Orson Welles. DePalma points out that Welles couldn't remember his lines, either (I guess Brando was smart to go to the cue cards) and that DePalma couldn't believe he was giving helpful direction to the director of Citizen Kane. Well -- that's Hollywood. The "worse" part of "For Better or Worse."

Then DePalma reaches "Sisters" -- which we have so recently talked about here and which co-stars Jennifer Salt, who we have also talked about, and who, it turns out , worked in earlier small DePalma pictures. And we reach DePalma's anecdotes about Bernard Herrmann and now -- like every good book about a director or actor as well as every good documentary about a director or actor -- we get a wonderful "forward march down memory lane" as the DePalma career unfolds in clips and he talks between them.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Rather than try to comment on all of DePalma's comments on all of his films, better to just list them in the order he discusses them, ALL of them:

THE SEVENTIES

Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, The Fury,

THE EIGHTIES

Home Movies(unsung), Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Body Double, Scarface, Wise Guys(unsung, and this and a TV series forced the title GoodFellas on the film of the book Wise Guys), The Untouchables, Casualties of War(a horrific Vietnam film about animalistic GIs led by Sean Penn raping and killing an innocent Vietnamese girl as Michael J. Fox tries to stop them --"The Untouchables" bought DePalma the right to make this)

THE NINETIES

Bonfire of the Vanities(Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and --a notorious bomb --"DePalma out of his depth with sophisticated drama"), Carlito's Way(a comeback, and my favorite film of 1993), Mission:Impossible(a big, big hit) and...stop right there.

...as a commercial matter, we can see now that while DePalma kept getting work, Mission:Impossible, his biggest hit, was ironically, his LAST hit. In 1996. The next movie "Snake Eyes" was problematic(we are shown a great "big wave" finale that was cut and re-shot with a different ending). Then as a new milennum dawned, Mission from Mars was an expensive flop in 2000...and from 2000 on, its been a struggle for DePalma. And that's 20 more years, almost.

DePalma talks about all of those "final films" -- Femme Fatale(Hitchcock again, with a lotta sex), The Black Dahlia, Redacted(Casualties of War remade in Iraq), Passion.... he's working, but intermittently, and with unsatisfying results.

Rather like -- Hitchcock!-- DePalma is now somewhat of a Living Legend who can't make a movie to compete with the times (for Hitchcock this was Topaz and Family Plot...but not Frenzy.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

DePalma -- defending himself by again referencing his mentor -- contends that Hitchcock made his best movies in "his thirties, his forties, his fifties" -- claiming it pretty much ended with Psycho. Which Hitch made when he was 60, I might add(DePalma doesn't say that.) DePalma says "People can talk about The Birds..."(and then he waves his hand dismissively), but "the stuff Hitchcock made in his later years wasn't as good as the stuff he did in his thirties, his forties, his fifties." (Well, Frenzy is always there as a debateable topic.)

Without checking the calendar, I'm assuming that DePalma's "thirties, forties, fifties" films were the ones roughly from Sisters through Mission:Impossible. So maybe he's right. Certainly as he says, film directing takes a certain physical strength and energy that ebbs(I personally know this now -- not about film directing, just about ebbing energy.)

But as we've also discussed around here -- QT is another one who felt that directors didn't do that great after 60, and we live in the era when Spielberg and Scorsese are going strong in their 70's.

Unfortunately for DePalma, I think it was a career breakdown, rather than a health breakdown, that sidelined him. But its hard to work COMPETITIVELY in Hollywood past your fifties. Spielberg and Scorsese are exceptions to the rule -- and Scorsese cannily enlisted Leo DiCaprio to keep him acceptable to young audiences.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Some tidbits from DePalma:

He disses Cliff Robertson, the star he got for the James Stewart-like role in Obsession("Brian DePalma's Vertigo.") DePalma says Robertson was not his first choice, he was rather stuck with him and -- he was horrible. He says Robertson felt that Genievieve Bujold was stealing the film, so he fed her lines wrong, looked in the wrong direction, did everything he could to throw her off her game. And, notes DePalma, "he wore this orange tan make-up on his face"(we are shown a shot) so that the DP Vilmos Zigmond finally threw Robertson against wood paneling and said "Your face is the same color as this wood, I cannot shoot it!" No love lost, there. Robertson is dead now, isn't he?

He disses Orson Welles and Robert DeNiro for not knowing their lines. (Personally, I 've always found line memorization to be the one really demanding thing that actors do -- the ones who can't rarely do Broadway. Pacino does Broadway. DeNiro does not.)

He talks about wanting Don Johnson as Eliott Ness in The Untouchables. This was at the height of Johnson's "Miami Vice" fame. I wonder if Johnson might have become a movie star if he got the role. Kevin Costner became one instead -- but Costner AND Johnson are great together(as golf rivals) in Tin Cup(1996.) And he tells the well-known story of Bob Hoskins being cast first as Al Capone, and then replaced by DeNiro when DeNiro became available (Hoskins was paid in full.) DePalma says, a bit disingenuously "with Connery and Hoskins in this, the movie became too British. I needed an American gangster actor." No, I think DeNiro just finally said "yes."

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

He speaks highly of John Williams great score for The Fury and Morricone's great score for The Untouchables. I agree -- strongly -- both times. Morricone's various motifs for The Untouchables is one of the reasons that it is my favorite of the 80's.

I would personally add that I think Carlito's Way has a great, plush , emotional score -- and a very exciting one that makes the entire, scary final chase scene(Pacino trying to elude a pack of angry Mafia men through Grand Central station) a bigger deal than it might otherwise be.

And of course, Scarface has that has Giorgio Moroder early 80's Miami-Vice disco vibe that captures the 80's as well as any movie from the decade.

Could it be that -- like Hitchcock with Herrmann -- DePalma's best movies have great musical composers attached? (Not to mention great stars like Pacino, Connery, Cruise, and DeNiro...with a nod to Caine and the underrated Travolta.) And oh -- Scarface(Oliver Stone), The Untouchables(David Mamet) and Carlito's Way(I can't remember) had good writers -- DePalma co-wrote his Hitchcock copycat films, with not-great dialogue.

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DePalma rather unapologetically gets into the extreme violence against women in his films -- notably the phallic drill that impales the woman in Body Double. He makes the point(with the clip being shown) that "the drill had to be long enough to go through the woman's body, into the floor, and out the ceiling below." A practical description of a gory sexual scene and he sidesteps the shot of the drill seeming to emerge from between the male killer's legs.

We also hear Melanie Griffith's porn star talk to Craig Wasson(a brief "nobody star" of the 80's whose presence in Body Double devalues it) about all the things she WON"T do in a porn movie and we're reminded: DePalma sure had the sex angle going in his movies (QT and Spielberg, not so much.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

DePalma says here, as he has said elsewhere, that "it is more interesting for a woman to be in jeopardy than a man." Maybe, but I personally prefer a shocker where AT LEAST a man gets killed too, to avoid a feeling of exploitation. That's why I prefer Psycho(with Arbogast getting killed) to Frenzy(where only women are killed -- and raped, too.) I guess I don't like the idea of a man watching a shocker like Frenzy thinking "well, I'd be safe, he only kills women." Better to watch Psycho and realize "hey, a man ISN'T safe."

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By the time I finished "DePalma," I rather liked the guy(though he has the arrogance about his value that all notable directors have) and I decided: I guess on balance I really AM his fan, despite the Hitchcock copycatting. (Oh, I forgot "Raising Cain," which went back to Hitchcock after Carlito.)

The Untouchables is my favorite movie of 1987 and the 80's. Carlito's Way is my favorite movie of 1993. Scarface is my second-favorite movie of 1983(Terms of Endearment gets first; THERE's a pair.) And I've seen every DePalma movie made from Sisters through Snake Eyes, so I must like SOMETHING about him. Perhaps it is because-- with the exception of the unfortunate Bonfire of the Vanities -- he only makes thrillers. (No, scratch that -- Casulaties of War, Redacted -- well, mainly thrillers.)

And I have great regard for Blow-Out, and its fantastically emotional twist ending(which DePalma discusses in this film -- its an ending that helped kill the audience off.)

It took him decades, but he did it.

I Love Brian DePalma!

[–] GrowingFamily (271) 6 years ago

Ecarle, I just wanted to leave a little note on this thread about something I heard in Illeana Douglas's podcast, I Blame Dennis Hopper. Her guest was John Landis and he talked about a conversation he had with Hitchcock. Landis said Hitchcock was upset that one of DePalma's film's posters had the descriptive "Hitchcockian" written across the top. Landis said, "It's clearly an homage.". Hitchcock replied, "More of a fromage!".
By the way, I would highly recommend Illeana's podcast. There are so many great stories in it. You may know a lot of them, but it's fun to hear people who may have been there, talking about it. Her memories of her grandfather are reason enough to enjoy it but, she is a terrific interviewer also.
I finally got around to watching the DePalma documentary and I thought it was very well done. I love hearing filmmakers talk about their movies and the processes. I've always liked his movies, even the ones most people don't care for. I wish he had made a lot more. I have so many thoughts about this thread, but nothing significant to add to it, other than, "Hey, I liked that movie!", with no defense.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Ecarle, I just wanted to leave a little note on this thread about something I heard in Illeana Douglas's podcast, I Blame Dennis Hopper.

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Hello, Growing Family...that's a funny name for a podcast. Why DOES she blame Dennis Hopper, I wonder...

Illeana Douglas is an interesting actress and evidently an ex-girlfriend of Scorsese(I recall her weird take on the woman picked up and mutilated by DeNiro in the second Cape Fear.) Granddaughter of Melvyn Douglas, yes?

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Her guest was John Landis and he talked about a conversation he had with Hitchcock. Landis said Hitchcock was upset that one of DePalma's film's posters had the descriptive "Hitchcockian" written across the top. Landis said, "It's clearly an homage.". Hitchcock replied, "More of a fromage!".

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As I think I've mentioned before, Landis once said that the DePalma movie in question was "Dressed to Kill" -- which came out two months after Hitchcock's death in April 1980. So I've always felt that it could not have been "Dressed to Kill." Maybe "Obsession" of 1976(very much a take on Vertigo)?

In any event, the fromage comment tells us that Hitchcock wasn't flattered by DePalma at all. Hitchcock didn't much like filmmakers whom he considered young competitors, I don't think. Also, I recall some PR writings calling DePalma "The Master of Suspense". I hope Hitchcock wasn't alive to see THAT.

On the other hand, Hitchcock befriended and embraced Mel Brooks after the latter made "High Anxiety," but that was a comedy spoof(and not a very good one, you ask me) and Brooks was a gushing Hitchcock fan who loved "The Lady Vanishes." Hitch sent Brooks champagne on the release of "High Anxiety" and the two were photographed as a pair. I saw Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft at the Hitchcock Memorial Service in Beverly Hills in 1980(I was there in the hallowed position of "guy standing with the crowd on the street corner watching the celebrity mourners walk in to the church.")

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

By the way, I would highly recommend Illeana's podcast.

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OK. Thank you!

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There are so many great stories in it. You may know a lot of them, but it's fun to hear people who may have been there, talking about it.

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Insiders are the best sources. She was in some movies, but she clearly knows others who were, too. Including her grandfather.

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Her memories of her grandfather are reason enough to enjoy it

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All those golden era classics, but I like three of his later films especially: Hud(Oscar), Hotel(a personal favorite; Douglas' surrogate father-son relationship with Rod Taylor is quite moving), and The Candidate(Douglas' REAL father-son relationship with Robert Redford is intriguing; they are like Pat Brown and Jerry Brown in California.)

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but, she is a terrific interviewer also.

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A real skill, I can see her doing well at it.

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I finally got around to watching the DePalma documentary and I thought it was very well done. I love hearing filmmakers talk about their movies and the processes. I've always liked his movies, even the ones most people don't care for.

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I'm probably in the same boat. The ones that I didn't care for in the beginning (Obsession, Dressed to Kill -- even Carrie, which I found rather silly with the telekinesis and overwrought in the mother character)...are now nostalgic to me, and as DePalma movies, not Hitchcock copycat films.

And I love the ones that I care for(Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way.) I also love Snake Eyes almost all the way through, and Blow Out.

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I wish he had made a lot more. I have so many thoughts about this thread, but nothing significant to add to it, other than, "Hey, I liked that movie!", with no defense.

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Well, that's good enough for me. I liked a lot of his movies too. With no defense(especially with regard to The Untouchables as my favorite of the eighties.)

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

DePalma has a new film called Domino (2018)- and it looks very DePalmanian! If it ever gets released, I look forward to it. There was rumor "it would never be released" so who knows.

Looks like they should add on to that documentary if he keeps making more films. LOL
He's also talking about writing a film with a Harvey Weinstein type of character, but I honestly have the "eye roll" for this idea.

I watched this DePalma documentary recently too. It was great to hear the man himself talk about all of his movies. Unlike you, ecarle, I love his Hitchcockian rip off movies (but I see a bit of Giallo horror and some Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur in there too). His crime movies rip off all the 30's and 40's crime films, but that doesn't bother me. He has his own style, despite all the homage to other directors. Tarantino steals from other filmmakers too, but his influences are more obscure & unknown and most people don't notice. I really enjoyed the doc and wish other directors would something similar (perhaps they are and I'm missing it?).

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

DePalma has a new film called Domino (2018)- and it looks very DePalmanian! If it ever gets released, I look forward to it. There was rumor "it would never be released" so who knows.

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I had not heard of that one. DePalma still has a name, so I'm assuming he can still put movie deals together -- but they are tenuous, small scale -- I don't think "Passions" got a proper release, even though it had a "name" in it(Rachel McAdams.)

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Looks like they should add on to that documentary if he keeps making more films. LOL

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Yes...I've said with books about movie stars and directors I try to buy only ones about stars who have DIED. Otherwise, you end up with a book that is "unfinished." ("But Michael Caine has made 10 movies SINCE he wrote this autobio!"_
Same goes with documentaries I suppose.)

On a sad note, the most recent book I have seen that fits my requirements(the star has died, his career is finished) is the new book about Robin Williams. I wasn't much of a Robin Williams fan(in either his too-manic or too-quiet roles) but I will probably buy that book and read it. His story ends sadly and we need to know more about how to avoid this.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

He's also talking about writing a film with a Harvey Weinstein type of character, but I honestly have the "eye roll" for this idea.

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Me, too. Guys like DePalma are always "on the hustle" -- still WANTING to work, pitching ideas in the press.

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I watched this DePalma documentary recently too. It was great to hear the man himself talk about all of his movies. Unlike you, ecarle, I love his Hitchcockian rip off movies (but I see a bit of Giallo horror and some Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur in there too).

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I can't shake off my dislike of how slow and misguided his suspense sequences were in the beginning. There is one in The Fury(involving a hard-to-believe Rube Goldberg series of events in slow motion that leads to Carrie Snodgress getting killed) that almost infuriated me in its mis-use of Hitchcock's techniques.

But...but...I've come to realize that DePalma's version of Hitchcock is HIS version of Hitchcock, at his speed(along with the giallo and other influences, I see some Sergio Leone in the over-length of his build-ups to action.)

That said, the big "staircase with baby carriage" shoot-em-up in The Untouchables is super slow, too, but it WORKS magnificently, the action choreographed for maximum excitement and some humor(that happy baby.) Our Hitchcock Copycat here went for Eisenstein, and Potemkin and -- to great effect. Its like DePalma needed a few years and bigger budgets to get his style down. (Also the musical counterpoint between a baby's lullaby and grim slow shoot em up music -- courtesy of Morricone -- is great.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

His crime movies rip off all the 30's and 40's crime films, but that doesn't bother me. He has his own style, despite all the homage to other directors. Tarantino steals from other filmmakers too, but his influences are more obscure & unknown and most people don't notice.

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I think the connection is Hitchcock to DePalma to QT (certainly I love the two at either end.) QT has never been interested in the sedate nature of much of Hitchcock's non-violent pre-Psycho work, and QT(says this documentary) likes DePalma BETTER than he likes Hitchcock (understandable; DePalma's work is R-rated blood and gore stuff with style.) But indeed, QT and DePalma have influences OTHER than Hitchcock.

QT has made nothing but genre films -- there is no Bonfire of the Vanities or Casualties of War on HIS resume. We have crime thrillers(his initial LA trilogy), Westerns, a war movie with a twist, horror(Death Proof) and action(Kill Bill and Death Proof.) In this way, QT connects up better to Hitchcock than to Spielberg or Scorsese, both of whom experiment beyond genre all the time.

And this thought occurred to me: in the photo of Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, DePalma and Coppola, the one who really DOESN'T belong there in comparison to DePalma is -- Coppola. He made his name with the Godfathers and gave us the controversial(in that some like it, some don't) Apocalypse Now, but then -- he really faltered and failed a lot. Meanwhile, DePalma was making movies with Pacino, Connery, DeNiro, Penn...Cruise.

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I wish other directors would something similar (perhaps they are and I'm missing it?).

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I'm sure there have been some others. Someone did this with Spielberg recently -- on HBO I think, same format -- talking and clips. And an old PBS series from 1973 entitled "The Men Who Made the Movies" did Hawks and Wyler and a couple more, I think, en route to the final episode...the big one...Hitchcock talking with clips.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

A couple more stray thoughts:

DePalma, in this documentary, pretty much dismisses any concern on his part about the violence in his films towards women. As did QT -- in regards to Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds(the strangling of Diane Kruger), and The Hateful Eight(the beatings of Jennifer Jason Leigh) in particular.

Well, some months ago, I discovered footage of Hitchcock being interviewed about Frenzy, and it went like this:

Interviewer: Mr. Hitchcock, in your new film Frenzy, you give us a particularly violent sexual killing of a woman.
Hitchcock: And what's wrong with that? Why shouldn't I? I believe if you are going to do something, you should do it well.

I sensed, in that very moment, Hitchcock laying the ground for DePalma and QT (and perhaps for his peer at the time, Peckinpah.) A man. Willing to defend his outrageous(fictional) treatment of women on the screen. Declaring himself a dangerous rebel. As if daring the interviewer to look "square."

Its a weird issue.

And unrelatedly, this:

I think the releasing studio for "DePalma" is the same one that gave us "Hitchcock/Truffaut" and "78/52"(about the Psycho shower scene) in about a two-year span. It is as if this studio set forth to create a "Hitchcock trilogy" in which Hitchcock clips link everything together: Hitchcock, Truffaut, DePalma...Vertigo, Psycho.

Its a mini-Hitchcock industry.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

ecarle wrote:
And this thought occurred to me: in the photo of Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, DePalma and Coppola, the one who really DOESN'T belong there in comparison to DePalma is -- Coppola. He made his name with the Godfathers and gave us the controversial(in that some like it, some don't) Apocalypse Now, but then -- he really faltered and failed a lot. Meanwhile, DePalma was making movies with Pacino, Connery, DeNiro, Penn...Cruise.
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Yeah, but Coppola makes some great wine nowadays. LOL.
Actually, I watched Coppola's 2011 movie Twixt on netflix a few years ago, he wrote and directed this film based on his own dream. It stars Val Kilmer and Bruce Dern. One netflix customer review summed it up pretty well "O, how the mighty have fallen." This is the plot summary from imdb: 'A writer with a declining career arrives in a small town as part of his book tour and gets caught up in a murder mystery involving a young girl. That night in a dream, he is approached by a mysterious young ghost named V. He's unsure of her connection to the murder in the town, but is grateful for the story being handed to him. Ultimately he is led to the truth of the story, surprised to find that the ending has more to do with his own life than he could ever have anticipated.'
... and this summary makes it sound much better than it actually was.

Back to DePalma, he seems serious about making the Weinstein-inspired movie. I still have the eye roll about it. It's already on imdb titled as 'Predator' (categorized as announced, not in production yet) - that name doesn't remind anyone of any other movie, right?

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

ecarle wrote:
And this thought occurred to me: in the photo of Lucas, Spielberg, Scorsese, DePalma and Coppola, the one who really DOESN'T belong there in comparison to DePalma is -- Coppola. He made his name with the Godfathers and gave us the controversial(in that some like it, some don't) Apocalypse Now, but then -- he really faltered and failed a lot. Meanwhile, DePalma was making movies with Pacino, Connery, DeNiro, Penn...Cruise.
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Yeah, but Coppola makes some great wine nowadays. LOL.

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Ha. I"ve been to his winery ...well ...before they moved it. He put a meager few props in the room...like a desk from Godfather II and a car from Tucker(a nifty movie from 1988 that didn't much do any business.)

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Actually, I watched Coppola's 2011 movie Twixt on netflix a few years ago, he wrote and directed this film based on his own dream.

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Uh oh. Reminds me of a joke Hitchcock told Truffaut:

"A Hollywood producer wakes up in the middle of the night, awakens his wife, turns on the lamp, writes feverishly. 'I have the most incredible idea for a movie, I got it from my dream just now, I have to write it down!' He writes it down, and his wife and he go back to sleep. He wakes up in the morning, checks his pad and it says: ...."Boy meets girl."

That Hitchcock, what a card!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

and directed this film based on his own dream. It stars Val Kilmer and Bruce Dern.

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How's Val looking in the film? Well, it was from 7 years ago.

As for Bruce Dern, with his buddy Jack Nicholson pretty much retired(less one rumored return that hasn't happened yet)....its like Dern's in EVERYTHING. Nice to see him earning so well in his later years.

---One netflix customer review summed it up pretty well "O, how the mighty have fallen."

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The Coppola decline can be charted: its starts with Apoc Now, continues on to that musical he made with his own money(which bankrupted him) and then collapsed when The Cotton Club proved that Richard Gere was no Al Pacino. (Actually the movie started out for Sly Stallone and Richard Pryor and ended up with Gere and Gregory Hines.) Thereafter, he was a director for hire. I rather like "Peggy Sue Gets Married" (I now ache when I see the scenes of Kathleen Turner getting to have breakfast before school with her parents again) and I REALLY liked his ultra-bizarre Dracula movie(which had an action climax that was like a Western at Wicked Witch Castle.) But he's been hit or miss since 1980, and seems to have really blown his money -- THAT's a great danger in Hollywood.

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This is the plot summary from imdb: 'A writer with a declining career arrives in a small town as part of his book tour and gets caught up in a murder mystery involving a young girl. That night in a dream, he is approached by a mysterious young ghost named V. He's unsure of her connection to the murder in the town, but is grateful for the story being handed to him. Ultimately he is led to the truth of the story, surprised to find that the ending has more to do with his own life than he could ever have anticipated.'
... and this summary makes it sound much better than it actually was.

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Eh...one never knows from a summary....but that one is pretty weak.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

ecarle wrote
DePalma still has a name, so I'm assuming he can still put movie deals together -- but they are tenuous, small scale -- I don't think "Passions" got a proper release, even though it had a "name" in it(Rachel McAdams.)
---

I tried to watch Passion 2012 several times. It was OK, not his best in my opinion. Perhaps I made the stupid mistake of watching the original French film Love Crime 2010 before watching DePlama's version. I can't get over how he decided to remake a film only two years old. His version was stiff and silly in comparison. The French film by Alain Corneau was much better.

I rewatched DePalma's Femme Fatale 2002 recently and noticed so many incredible details. It's one of my favorite movies from his recent years. It grew on me, to be honest. The score was very good too. Not much Hitch in that one, not any Giallo either, it's much more the film noir "bad girl" femme fatale films from the '40's.

On the subject of French films, you guys might really enjoy the semi-Hitchcockian A Woman in Danger 2001 starring the talented and beautiful Marion Cotillard. It's on amazon prime right now. If you haven't already discovered this gem, watch it before they take it down. I highly recommend it!

ecarle wrote
I think the releasing studio for "DePalma" is the same one that gave us "Hitchcock/Truffaut" and "78/52"(about the Psycho shower scene) in about a two-year span. It is as if this studio set forth to create a "Hitchcock trilogy" in which Hitchcock clips link everything together: Hitchcock, Truffaut, DePalma...Vertigo, Psycho.
Its a mini-Hitchcock industry.
---

What company is this? I couldn't find any ties between those docs, they all seem to have different distributors. I might be missing something, though. Wouldn't making those documentaries be a nice day job? Of course, you'd have to be an insider already- like Jake Paltrow who directed the DePalma doc, otherwise you can't even get contact info for DePalma's agent. Would be fun...

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I rewatched DePalma's Femme Fatale 2002 recently and noticed so many incredible details. It's one of my favorite movies from his recent years. It grew on me, to be honest. The score was very good too. Not much Hitch in that one, not any Giallo either, it's much more the film noir "bad girl" femme fatale films from the '40's.

---

My memory of that one is from seeing it in 2002...a long time ago. As I recall, there was some Rear Window to Antonio Banderas' character, and the nostalgic use of DePalma split screen. But there was also a brilliant opening heist of a necklace off an actress at the Cannes Film Festival(the actual Festival was shown in parts) -- this plot line is in the current "Ocean's 8," I might add. Somebody copycatted DePalma!

There was also in Femme Fatale, as I recall...a pretty damn sexy femme fatale, the beautiful model Rebecca Romjin (whatever married name at the time), taking off her clothes and reminding us that the biggest DIFFERENCE between DePalma and Hitchcock is DePalma's strong willingness(in some films at least) to go for the sex and the nudity: Carrie, Dressed to Kill,Scarface, Body Double. And a bit in Carlito's Way(Pacino's gf is a stripper.) And yet: The Untouchables is clean as a Sunday church meeting, sex-wise.

You know, even in his years of "decline," DePalma could be interesting. The opening heist at Cannes is interesting(and sexual -- a bit of lesbian seducing is necessary to get that necklace.) And I really liked how "Snake Eyes" kept covering the same big boxing match and ensuing assassination , from different angles and with sensuous camera moves -- it collapsed at the end because the ending was changed, but getting there was a lot of fun.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

On the subject of French films, you guys might really enjoy the semi-Hitchcockian A Woman in Danger 2001 starring the talented and beautiful Marion Cotillard. It's on amazon prime right now. If you haven't already discovered this gem, watch it before they take it down. I highly recommend it!

--

I'll try to find it. I think Cotillard is a beauty. On topic she restaged the shower scene for Vanity Fair some years ago, in a series of stills (even as other stars restaged The Birds and NXNW and Strangers on a Train.)

ecarle wrote
I think the releasing studio for "DePalma" is the same one that gave us "Hitchcock/Truffaut" and "78/52"(about the Psycho shower scene) in about a two-year span. It is as if this studio set forth to create a "Hitchcock trilogy" in which Hitchcock clips link everything together: Hitchcock, Truffaut, DePalma...Vertigo, Psycho.
Its a mini-Hitchcock industry.
---

What company is this? I couldn't find any ties between those docs, they all seem to have different distributors.

---

I might be wrong. The number "24" is in the production company's name. I'll double check. Again, I might be wrong. It happens.

---
Wouldn't making those documentaries be a nice day job? Of course, you'd have to be an insider already- like Jake Paltrow who directed the DePalma doc, otherwise you can't even get contact info for DePalma's agent. Would be fun...

---

I think several directors let other directors interview them over the years. Hitchcock started it -- not only with Truffaut, but with Bogdanovich, whom Hitchcock allowed for interviews both before AND after Bogdo became a hit director (for a time.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

"Live and in person" back in 2005, I went to the Oscar Academy in Hollywood and watched Curtis Hanson(the director of my 90s favorite LA Confidential) interview director Clint Eastwood about ANOTHER director -- Don Siegel -- who had directed ACTOR Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry and several other films. Siegel was dead by then and represented, on the big Oscar theater screen, by some clips("Do You Feel Lucky?") and one entire film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers '56.

The evening was marked by Eastwood's respect for Hanson's achievement with LA Confidential, which made him "OK" to talk with Clint about Don.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

Wow, holy smokes. That must have been in interesting interview! You ever think of writing a movie blog?

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I have thought of writing a blog, but I really haven't the technical know-how(or money?) to mount one.

Moreover, I have watched as a few blogs I really liked to read -- shut down. It must be difficult to keep them going.

Also: I can't say that what I have to say is always interesting enough for a full blog. By posting, I can "hit or miss." What has been nice is how I suddenly remember various Hollywood exploits here that otherwise would not be remembered.

I got mail from the Oscar Academy for many years, and had to grind my teeth and let a lot of these "starry seminars" pass me by(I lived far away from LA.) Like, I missed Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway at a Chinatown seminar.

But twice, I managed to come up with the airfare/hotel fare for an event: a Hitchcock Cenntennial event in 1999; and this "Salute to Don Siegel" with Eastwood and Hanson in 2005. (And some other Siegel movie stars were there, like Angie Dickenson from The Killers, and Kevin McCarthy from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, who stood up and yelled "Its too late, they're already here -- War of the Worlds has been released!"(Spielberg's; that very summer.)

Anthony Hopkins was there, just to watch the show and wave from the audience. ENORMOUS head. And while I never got to see Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins) in real life, I DID get to see Hannibal Lecter.

On the "falling in love" angle...Zooey Deschanel was there, again, just to watch the show. Swoon. OK, I was a few decades older than she, not famous, not rich, no movie star looks...but a man can dream can't he?

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

Well, if I start a movie blog... perhaps you would contribute from time to time as a guest writer. I really don't have the time to devote right now, maybe one day in the future. You are a specialist of sorts. I quite enjoy all the conversations with others here too, the back and forth exchange is great!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Well, if I start a movie blog... perhaps you would contribute from time to time as a guest writer.

--

There ya go! I would be flattered.

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You are a specialist of sorts.

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You got that right. Swanstep and some others have greater overall depth on film(American and International) Telegonus and movieghoul have the "historical depth" (I love Telegonus' encylopedic knowledge of character men from the 30s through the 60s, minimum.) And I apologize if have left some folks out.

My speciality is NOT Hitchcock -- though I certainly got the bug for him at an early age and managed to see all his films (less some of the earliest.) But I come up short on general interest Hitchcock boards -- I simply don't remember The Secret Agent or Suspicion as I remember Psycho or NXNW. Perhaps I am a "50s/60s cusp" specialist on Hitchcock and other filmakers. I love that period.

I've noted before that I don't qualify as a film buff. I'm a "genre" buff -- thrillers, Westerns, comedies, action. But then that's where a lot of people are today (see: MCU and Star Wars.)

I've certainly loved all the movies I've seen in my lifetime, but so many of them are off the beaten track and special to me, perhaps alone(Lonely are the Brave, Mirage, Hotel, Charley Varrick, Used Cars, North Dallas Forty...to name a few.)

My movie blog would be pretty damn esoteric, come to think of it. Better perhaps to post.

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I quite enjoy all the conversations with others here too, the back and forth exchange is great

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Well, that's when we're cooking with gas (as I believe swanstep says.) I put out my posts and sometimes they get responses and sometimes they don't -- but it sure is fun when they DO. I can sit back and let some real smart cookies opine....and not necessarily on JUST what I've written. Brilliant new ideas about other films flow forth.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Still, I'm OK with my stuff that gets "0" responses. I feel that I've expressed myself, said my piece, maybe somebody read it, but if not, I expressed it. Got it off my chest.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

ecarle wrote:
I've noted before that I don't qualify as a film buff. I'm a "genre" buff -- thrillers, Westerns, comedies, action. But then that's where a lot of people are today (see: MCU and Star Wars.)

I've certainly loved all the movies I've seen in my lifetime, but so many of them are off the beaten track and special to me, perhaps alone(Lonely are the Brave, Mirage, Hotel, Charley Varrick, Used Cars, North Dallas Forty...to name a few.)

My movie blog would be pretty damn esoteric, come to think of it. Better perhaps to post.

----
That's good, though. If I wanted to read the 'same old same old', I wouldn't be reading all these posts. I like many weirdo obscure movies and have no problem with the lack of recognition from the masses. Sometimes I read your posts and have nothing to say other than "yes, exactly". If you get zero responses at times, it's possible there is nothing else to add to your thoughts. Like Marion with the newspaper full of money, I just read that and agreed. I will ask other folks on here as well to contribute to a movie blog, I have been enjoying their posts for many years. This group is unique and you can't find discussion like this anywhere really (or tell me where to look if it exists elsewhere). Sometimes I don't have the time to give a proper reply but I still take the time to read the posts.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That's good, though. If I wanted to read the 'same old same old', I wouldn't be reading all these posts. I like many weirdo obscure movies and have no problem with the lack of recognition from the masses.

---

Its perhaps the fun of these kind of threads -- -everybody has their own favorites.

This IS (as I sometimes sharply reminded) the "Psycho board," but one great thing about the very famous Psycho as a centerpiece for dialogue is that it is so very influential a film. Slasher movies, yes, but also Cape Fear, The Manchurian Candidate, Charade, Mirage, Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Exorcist, Jaws...much of DePalma, some of Scorsese(Taxi Driver), and a lot of Tarantino.

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Sometimes I read your posts and have nothing to say other than "yes, exactly". If you get zero responses at times, it's possible there is nothing else to add to your thoughts.
Like Marion with the newspaper full of money, I just read that and agreed.

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This is exactly what I am hoping happened. (Sigh of relief.)

I also have pledged a certain "fealty to the Psycho board AS the Psycho board" to make sure I post on Psycho frequently.

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I will ask other folks on here as well to contribute to a movie blog, I have been enjoying their posts for many years.

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That would be great. Maybe get this group wider distribution.

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This group is unique and you can't find discussion like this anywhere really (or tell me where to look if it exists elsewhere).

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I've had trouble finding similar fertile territory and co-talkers. Someone once directed us to a google reference where our talks were being discussed by someone -- we are read. And I do mean WE.

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Sometimes I don't have the time to give a proper reply but I still take the time to read the posts

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You'd be surprised how often I am reading your stuff and everyone else's without being able to reply at all. I enjoy the reading!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I've certainly loved all the movies I've seen in my lifetime, but so many of them are off the beaten track and special to me, perhaps alone(Lonely are the Brave, Mirage, Hotel, Charley Varrick, Used Cars, North Dallas Forty...to name a few.)

---

I wanted to follow up a bit on the list of movies i "called out" above.

They were off the top of my head, and then I thought a bit:

Which ones were my favorites of their year of release?

Only North Dallas Forty(1979)
Used Cars(1980)

With regard to the others:

Lonely Are the Brave(1962)...favorite: The Manchurian Candidate
Mirage(1965)...favorite: The Great Race
Hotel(1967)...favorite: Wait Until Dark(this in the year of Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate.)
Charley Varrick(1973)...favorite: American Graffiti.

This is a way of revealing to oneself that, in any given year, there are a LOT of "favorites." I chose the favorites for certain reasons(often having to do with who I was when I saw them, where and with whom), but there are certainly days that I like Charley Varrick better than American Graffiti.

American Graffiti, I write on rarely except to say: it is the one film in all the 1000s I have seen that actually changed my life. And so I give it the Number One for 1973 even if I find 1973 to be one of the most spectacular years for movies ever (personally): The Sting, The Exorcist, The Way We Were, Charley Varrick, The Paper Chase, Westworld, The Seven Ups, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Long Goodbye, Sleeper, Magnum Force...and a re-release of Frenzy.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

I wrote
On the subject of French films, you guys might really enjoy the semi-Hitchcockian A Woman in Danger 2001 starring the talented and beautiful Marion Cotillard. It's on amazon prime right now. If you haven't already discovered this gem, watch it before they take it down. I highly recommend it!

--
ecarle replied
I'll try to find it. I think Cotillard is a beauty.

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Here's the link ecarle (and anyone else looking for something good to watch), it's included free with prime right now https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Danger-Marion-Cotillard/dp/B017Y3V6EE/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1532705109&sr=1-1&keywords=a+woman+in+danger&dpID=51QAmx-K7yL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
wish it was in HD, because it's such a beautiful film. The south of France and Marion Cotillard couldn't be more beautiful.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

The south of France and Marion Cotillard couldn't be more beautiful.

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Thanks for the link...and I have Amazon Prime(for now.)

I didn't see her Oscar-winning role in Piaf, but once Cotillard started appearing in more films(Oscar does that for you), I saw her and noticed her and fell a bit in love with her. Chris Nolan used her twice, yes? Memorably in the non-Joker Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

I didn't see the Piaf movie yet either. I liked her in Inception and Midnight in Paris too. She was also pretty good in a supporting role in Blood Ties (2013) directed by her handsome actor/director husband Guillaume Canet. I didn't like Allied, but her acting was good.

'A Woman in Danger' is from 2001 -17 years ago now, so Cotillard is much younger. She carries the film and her acting is superb. It's just a well done film all around in my opinion. It's very French...

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

More about Coppola: I've read Eleanor Coppola's (his wife) journal turned into a book titled 'Notes', it's about the making of Apocalypse Now. It was VERY interesting if you are a fan of the film. Coppola himself turned into a Kurtz-like personality on the set. In the Philippines, Francis created his own "Kurtz compound" where he ruled with supreme insanity, for a little while at least.

Coppola made movies that were very personal, always a part of himself. I often wonder what happens when a filmmaker makes one turd after another. Are people just telling him "yes, that's great" for everything or what? His gauge is way off, and no one has the guts to tell him the truth? I always have hope that he'll regain some of his previous magic, even after all these years.

About violence to women in DePalma or QT or even Hitch... I remember Jamie Lee Curtis being interviewed for a retrospective on John Carpenter's Halloween, she said something about "what it means to be truly vulnerable". The violence toward women in Hitch and DePalma's films are all about that. It works on audiences without a doubt because those women are vulnerable.

On the other hand, Tarantino gave us some female characters that "had it coming". As a women myself, I had no problems with Daisy being treated they way she was, I even chuckled to "How do ya like the sound of those bells, bitch?" She is pure evil and not the vulnerable female in danger. Kurt Russell was also my favorite character in terrible QT movie Death Proof... really, who didn't want to kill those girls?

I've been watching several of Dario Argento's early Giallo films & his later ones dealing with more occult themes. There's lots of violence toward women, but the killers are usually women too.
Argento rips off Hitch all the time. The first 8 minutes of The Stendhal Syndrome '96 is a hypnotizing museum scene, with a haunting Ennio Morricone score. No dialog, just a great sequence in the famous Uffizi Gallery.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

More about Coppola: I've read Eleanor Coppola's (his wife) journal turned into a book titled 'Notes', it's about the making of Apocalypse Now. It was VERY interesting if you are a fan of the film.

---

I've heard of it, never read it. I need to order it (I'll wean myself off of bookstores soon -- everything's only on the net now it seems.) I would also like to read "The Devil's Candy," the expose of DePalma's crash-and-burn production of "Bonfires of the Vanities." I HAVE read "Final Cut" a great piece on Michael Cimino's crash-and-burn with Heaven's Gate.

Pretty much all these directors of big hits in the 70's seemed to go nuts when they suddenly got the power to do what they wanted and ran up the bills to do it: Close Encounters, 1941, Apoc Now, Sorcerer, The Blues Brothers, Heaven's Gate...all over budget, few hits.

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Coppola himself turned into a Kurtz-like personality on the set. In the Philippines, Francis created his own "Kurtz compound" where he ruled with supreme insanity, for a little while at least.

---

You have to wonder: real insanity or some sort of showman's self-indulgence? And didn't Coppola liken making this Vietnam movie to actually being in the Vietnam War and fighting to the death? Sheesh. Hollywood...

BTW, I think my biggest problem with AN is Brando at the end. He's the name star, he was the Great One in the fifties and the Comeback Kid in 72/73 and...he showed up to mumble and non-act his way through the end of the movie. We wait the ENTIRE MOVIE to meet Kurtz and he's...Uncle Fester?(That's somebody else's joke I stole it.)

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

To give you a taste/sneak preview of Eleanor Coppola's Notes:
"November 16, 1977, Flight to Washington DC
I am sitting on an airplane with the hors d'oeuvres plate on the folding table in front of me. [she describes the crab leg platter] George Lucas is leaning over the seat in front of him. Steve Spielberg is across the aisle. Between them they hold the top three film grosses of all time. Jaws is number one. George just said that Star Wars will be number one at 7:05 next Saturday night. Godfather is number three. Between them, their films have grosses over a billion dollars. Steve calls them the billion dollar boys. They are talking about the depression they felt after a big success. All of their drive and focus to get a big hit, the dream of their life. They are talking about the jolt of actually doing it. Steve is saying that after Jaws opened he wanted to get away, he went around the world, there was no place but India and Russia where there wouldn't be Jaws billboards and t-shirts.
Francis is talking about using success to stretch the bounds of filmmaking. Stretch the form, make the films you want, make a forty-minute film, a six minute film. To be able to say "I'll never make a picture again as successful as Jaws, Star Wars, or Godfather." And make the films you really want to make.
Steve wants to do a live TV show. Francis is saying "Do a daytime soap if you want to. Take a chance, be risky." George said "You, too, Francis." Francis replied "Yes, but I no longer have the financial base." George said "Ah, come on, you'll always have the money." Francis is saying "You just have to make something beautiful; you can't worry if anyone will see it. You can distribute it. Success is a drug. It's like a woman: if you chase it, you won't get it."

There's tons of personal marriage issues throughout Notes and I honestly felt like some of it was too much information.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Steve Spielberg is across the aisle. Between them they hold the top three film grosses of all time. Jaws is number one. George just said that Star Wars will be number one at 7:05 next Saturday night. Godfather is number three.

---

Interesting, when you think about it. The Godfather is the beloved epic of the "New Hollywood" generation -- dark, brooding, adult in its study of business and family relationships. And rated R. By the time we get to Jaws, the rating is PG, and while there is "adult relationship material"(the three men and their conflicts and camaraderie)...we are inching into "teenage monster movie" And by the time we get to Star Wars -- say some -- we have arrived at the blockbuster as "children's movie." Back to Disney(whose studio was floundering without meaning in the 70's.)
Though obviously there is a creative intelligence to Star Wars, and adults liked it , too.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Between them, their films have grosses over a billion dollars. Steve calls them the billion dollar boys. They are talking about the depression they felt after a big success. All of their drive and focus to get a big hit, the dream of their life. They are talking about the jolt of actually doing it.

---

And all of them did it EARLY. Young. Of the three, in fact, Lucas had a pretty big surprise hit before Star Wars -- American Graffiti(1973), with Coppola listed as producer to get it made.

Hitchcock said of Spielberg and Jaws: "Its very good, but how will he top it?" Hitch knew of what he spoke. He likely felt that Spielberg had made HIS Psycho, and that, like Hitchcock, he'd never find a movie to beat it.

But Hitchcock didn't understand how the blockbusters would be coming fast and furious in the 80's. Spielberg DID top Jaws -- with ET. And then he topped ET...with Jurassic Park. Inflation was part of the show, however.

Hitchcock and Hawks and Wilder had all pretty much said the same thing about the movie business when they knew it: they were paid very well(usually about $250,000 with possible percentage of gross), they put out small hits with regularity, and their misses didn't cost that much. The film business in their time was a great way to be "comfortably rich" without the shock of too MUCH success. Hitchcock got that with Psycho(which was really the first of the Godfather/Exorcist/Jaws youth-driven blockbusters, you ask me.) And it shook him. Hard.

Hitch lived to see Star Wars and wrote to someone in 1977, "Now the movie business is like putting a big chip on the roulette wheel and seeing if you make multi-millions or go bust." It threw him -- and he didn't stick around to play that game.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

In reading about Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola all together in that book excerpt, I'm reminded that in the early seventies, Paramount allowed for the affiliation of a DIFFERENT trio of hot directors to produce films together.

It was Coppola again, but with these as the other two: Peter Bogdanvich(hot off of The Last Picture Show and What's Up Doc) and William Freidkin(hot off of The French Connection, but not yet with The Exorcist...for this company made Paper Moon with Bogdo first.)

Coppola, Bogdo and Friedkin were played up as the "the three new great ones" and then that collapsed very fast. Bogdo made three bombs -- Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, and Nickelodeon. OUT. Friedkin raged about Coppola making "The Conversation" on their dime("He said it was a Hitchocck movie...it was a boring art film!") The "Directors Company" as it was called, was over by the mid-seventies.

And Lucas and Spielberg moved in to fill the gap.

I do picture Hitchcock watching all this in the 70's , reading about it. Bogdo had been an interviewer and a friend. Friedkin had worked on AHH. They came up, they crashed down.

Famously, Hitchcock literally ran off the Universal soundstage set of Family Plot when told that Spielberg was coming to visit. It was in the Jaws summer of 1975, and Hitchocck evidently felt "out of it." He told Bruce Dern that he particularly "felt like a whore" for taking one million dollars to do some Universal Studios Tour commercial.

Near the end of the seventies(and his life) Hitchocck made lunch pals with John Landis because he loved the younger man's "Animal House"(me, too.) Animal House was a blockbuster, too, Landis joined the team for awhile. Landis tried to convince Hitchcock to hold a tiny special effect Lily Tomlin in his hands for a trailer for "The Incredible Shrinking Woman," but Hitch said no. He only promoted his own movies, and he wasn't doing that anymore.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

There's tons of personal marriage issues throughout Notes and I honestly felt like some of it was too much information.

---

Well, Francis Coppola was dissed out in that Peter Biskind book(by other directors' wives) for flaunting his affairs in front of Eleanor, including with some of the Playboy women in AN. I can't recall if they are still married, I think they are. Some Hollywood wives and husbands put up with it -- Shirley MacLaine wrote that the best ones "understand that their spouses affairs will end and they will always come back." MacLaine had a LOT of affairs on her Japan-based husband. It was an open marriage really.

Of the group, Spielberg is still married to wife Number Two(Kate Capshaw), and I don't know about Coppola, but I think Lucas simply has girlfriends. Scorsese, too. "Film is their mistress."

[–] SavageBeauty (61) 6 years ago

more from Notes
"December 19, Napa
.....I heard that one of the editors stole the whole ending of the film, reels and reels of the print, and sent letters full of ashes to Francis every day for a week. George Lucas said to me "God, you could make your movie about that." "
----

ecarle wrote:
BTW, I think my biggest problem with AN is Brando at the end. He's the name star, he was the Great One in the fifties and the Comeback Kid in 72/73 and...he showed up to mumble and non-act his way through the end of the movie. We wait the ENTIRE MOVIE to meet Kurtz and he's...Uncle Fester?(That's somebody else's joke I stole it.)
----

Too funny. Yes, Brando at the end was very disappointing for many people! I can't tell you how often I've heard that about Apocalypse Now- from fans of the film. It was a problem during production too. They didn't know what to do about Brando.

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ecarle wrote:
You have to wonder: real insanity or some sort of showman's self-indulgence? And didn't Coppola liken making this Vietnam movie to actually being in the Vietnam War and fighting to the death? Sheesh. Hollywood...
----

I suspect narcissism (possibly combined with drugs), but who knows for sure? Francis started out like Willard and slowly turned into Kurtz, at least according to his wife. It's amazing how well AN turned out considering all the crazy stuff.

Did you or anyone here see Coppola's Youth Without Youth (2007)? Just curious if it's worth watching?

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

BTW, I think my biggest problem with AN is Brando at the end. He's the name star, he was the Great One in the fifties and the Comeback Kid in 72/73 and...he showed up to mumble and non-act his way through the end of the movie. We wait the ENTIRE MOVIE to meet Kurtz and he's...Uncle Fester?(That's somebody else's joke I stole it.)
----

Too funny. Yes, Brando at the end was very disappointing for many people! I can't tell you how often I've heard that about Apocalypse Now- from fans of the film. It was a problem during production too. They didn't know what to do about Brando.

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'I recall something. Superman came out at Xmas 1978 and Brando was only in the first 20 minutes of the movie. AN came out in the Summer of 1979 -- maybe 8 months later, and Brando was only in the LAST 20 minutes of the movie. Brando was actually quite good and commanding in Superman, and helped launch the movie(and comic book movies in general, him and Nicholson as the Joker 11 years later). . He was terrible in AN and you had spent the whole movie waiting for him.

Both movies revealed that his weight had gotten out of control...not good for movie stars of any age. AN cloaked him in darkness but it was like a disembodied head giving a performance.

Recall that Coppola had all sorts of trouble getting stars for AN. The lead was turned down by McQueen, Newman, Pacino, and Caan. Harvey Keitel took it and had a young man's heart attack and was replaced by Martin Sheen..who I found an underwhelming star, even at his best(aging and The West Wing FINALLY gave him a personality.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Most people turned down AN because they didn't want to work in the steamy Phillipines(and since it turned out to be almost two YEARS for Sheen, they were smart). Coppola managed to lure two Godfather actors there out of loyalty -- Duvall and Brando -- but for short parts. And whaddya know -- DUVALL owns the movie -- the helicopters, the Ride of the Valkyries, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"(a truly classic movie line for the ages.) Brando -- I dunno, he's ALWAYS interesting, but here, he's clearly not connected to the part or the material (the last thing he seemed like was a crack military strategist at one time.)

I saw AN at the Cinerama Dome(now the Arclight) in Hollywood as part of a special "pre-release engagement". It had no credits, it was subject to more editing and rearrangement of scenes, and -- it was a glorious mess, with great sequences alternating with not-so-greats. I hear there is a very good re-cut(with some scenes among French people) but I have not seen it.

All I can go with is that first viewing. It was not my favorite film of 1979. The same month(August, 1979), I DID see my favorite of that year -- North Dallas Forty -- and I remember being surprised that the quickly made, sorta skimpy football expose was much more entertaining and involving to me than Coppola's long awaited epic(of course, Nick Nolte was a much more charismatic star at the time than Martin Sheen...)

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

Nolte was interviewed by Marc Maron recently and they discussed North Dallas 40 at length. It turns out that that project was Nolte's baby all the way, and he still feels great fondness for it.

Search for Maron and Nolte jointly and you'll find the podcast or you can listen to it in a couple of places on youtube, e.g. here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V72hxElnmhw
Go 25 mins in for the Nolte interview (i.e., unless you want the full Maron, endearing, "Woody CK", depressive neuroticism experience - sometimes I'm in the mood....)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Nolte was interviewed by Marc Maron recently and they discussed North Dallas 40 at length. It turns out that that project was Nolte's baby all the way, and he still feels great fondness for it.

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Yes, I have read this.

In fact, I was in a book store recently and I browsed a new book about Nick Nolte and it spent some time on his regard for North Dallas Forty, too. Nolte even offered up the end-of-the-review personal rave the New York Times critic gave Nolte about his performance in the film. It was QUITE a rave -- announcing Nolte as a true star -- and its nice to see that Nolte kept his clippings.

Is it the Greatest Nick Nolte Movie? Maybe. 48 HRS was his biggest hit, I think, but that was Eddie Murphy's breakout. The Deep was big, but Nolte wasn't much in it. Nolte kept a career going for decades after North Dallas Forty, but that one feels like the one that captured him young and handsome and compelling.

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Search for Maron and Nolte jointly and you'll find the podcast or you can listen to it in a couple of places on youtube, e.g. here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V72hxElnmhw
Go 25 mins in for the Nolte interview (i.e., unless you want the full Maron, endearing, "Woody CK", depressive neuroticism experience - sometimes I'm in the mood....)

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I am on my way. Nolte sure doesn't look like he did, does he? He aged a lot worse than say, Redford or Newman.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I might add that for much of the 70's, "North Dallas Forty" was a big deal paperback on newsstands everywhere, with one of those "nicely painted covers" with a muscular football player and a curvy babe on the cover, rumored to become "a major motion picture" for some years before it was finally made. In other words, the movie didn't come out of nowhere, and almost had a "Godfather"/"Love Story"/"Jaws" cachet to it -- a paperback movie. But the story just wasn't so mainstream as those bigger hits, and the movie was rather small scale. Still, I love it for a lot of reasons.

One is: I READ the book well before seeing the movie, and the book ends in violent melodrama. The NFL player's girlfriend is shot to death by a good ol' boy Texas millionaire jilted boyfriend. This didn't fit the realism of the story, and was mercifully cut from the film.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

the documentary thus says, right up front: "DePalma is that Hitchcock Copycat Guy, no matter anything else he made."

I've been thinking a bit about the charge of 'copycatism' lately. Is being a copycat or remixer of other people's material really any sort of problem? Here's a full-scale defense of the proposition that it isn't:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc
Further evidence that nobody really thinks it's a problem is provided by the *very* +ve critical response to Paul Schrader's latest, First Reform. FR is a flat-out splicing together (and color updating) of two arthouse faves, Bergman's Winter Light (1963) and Bresson's Diary of A Country Priest (1951) (Dreyer and Tarkovsky are nodded to once or twice also). Everyone reviewing the film is aware of how beyond-derivative FR is (Schrader even casts people who resemble their counterparts in Winter Light and uses almost the same dialogue at key overlapping plot points!), and almost *nobody* has a problem with it. Perhaps this is because most movie reviewers are film buffs and honestly believe that the film world (and maybe the world as a whole) could use a bit more Bergman-Bresson etc. influence, or perhaps because they think that FR is an especially ingenious or artful mashup of its influences. At any rate, the response to FR argues that being a flat-out remix/mashup is compatible with being one of the films-of-the-year (and 'best Schrader since Raging Bull'-style reviews)

Why didn't/doesn't De Palma get the same pass as Schrader? Is it just that De Palma's influences were too obvious? That even in a world without De Palma there'd be tons of Hitch-like stuff around on TV and movies, and Hitch himself has never really gone away, so 'the world didn't *need* a Hitchcock remixer in the same way it's never really needed a slavish Beatles or Led Zep copyist. Or maybe it was the quasi-feminist objection to De Palma's R-rated jeopardizing of pretty women in their underwear that was decisive.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

That even in a world without De Palma there'd be tons of Hitch-like stuff around on TV and movies

Note that De Palma himself seems to disagree with this. In the De Palma doc. he seems to say that he was the *only* person who was seriously influenced by Hitchcock in the '70s and '80s. But that's just not so: Spielberg and Scorsese and Carpenter all have a ton of Hitchcock in their basic styles (it's just that it's cut together with lots of other influences from Disney and Ford and Kurosawa and Hawks and Welles to Powell and Bresson and Rossellini and Minnelli), and Chabrol, Argento, Lynch, Coens, Curtis Hanson, De Vito, and many many others are all basically unthinkable without Hitchcock. Not to mention all the Hitchcock influence on James Bond, Mission Impossible, Columbo, Man From Uncle, and so on.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Or maybe it was the quasi-feminist objection to De Palma's R-rated jeopardizing of pretty women in their underwear that was decisive.

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That's probably key. DePalma seemed out to make women his enemies. He reveled in killing them off so bloodily and showing them off so sexually in his films.

Hitchcock had his rap about "torturing and killing women on screen" but in his violent last two decades, men got tortured and killed almost on equal terms:

Arbogast in Psycho
The Farmer with the Pecked Out Eyes in The Birds
The Sailor in Marnie
Gromek in Torn Curtain
The husband tortured(along with his wife) in Topaz

Against which, only Marion in Psycho, Melanie in The Birds(and she doesn't get killed) and all the female victims in Frenzy are the women tortured and killed by Hitch.

DePalma was much worse.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Chabrol, Argento, Lynch, Coens, Curtis Hanson, De Vito, and many many others are all basically unthinkable without Hitchcock.

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I suppose the issue here is how many of the above are more famous in art cinema circles than "mainstream." DePalma was known to many, and somebody went ahead and called HIM "the master of suspense" in some ad(I recall feeling that was a big mistake.) Plus, guys like DeVito and Hanson did their Hitchcock films as "one offs" and the Coens(as big as Hitchcock in some circles now), have their own style.

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Not to mention all the Hitchcock influence on James Bond, Mission Impossible, Columbo, Man From Uncle, and so on.

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Boy, THAT should not be discounted, should it? Its like the success of NXNW spawned a whole "spy hero market" aimed more at American TV than at the movies. The Man From UNCLE was made at MGM(where NXNW was made), featured Leo G. Carroll and the UN building(from NXNW), and made sure that an "ordinary person" stumbled into each week's spy plot, ala Roger Thornhill. But The Man from UNCLE also spawned everything from I Spy to The Wild Wild West to Batman...and they all used Hitchcock tropes.

Indeed, I only finally saw NXNW on CBS AFTER I saw The Man From UNCLE, et al, and I recall thinking: "This is like one of those TV spy shows only bigger -- hero, pretty woman, bad guy, his henchmen -- its all there." This was the TV Batman formula, too.

As for Columbo, the format seemed a pure steal from "Dial M for Murder." But the cat-and-mouse of Columbo and his weekly prey wasn't all that far removed from...Arbogast questioning Norman. Good thing Columbo never got killed! (Its been noted in some quarters, and agreed with by me, that Anthony Perkins would have been a great Columbo villain, given his experience with Arbogast. Perkins DID TV in the 70s. But it never happened.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Why didn't/doesn't De Palma get the same pass as Schrader? Is it just that De Palma's influences were too obvious? That even in a world without De Palma there'd be tons of Hitch-like stuff around on TV and movies, and Hitch himself has never really gone away, so 'the world didn't *need* a Hitchcock remixer in the same way it's never really needed a slavish Beatles or Led Zep copyist. Or maybe it was the quasi-feminist objection to De Palma's R-rated jeopardizing of pretty women in their underwear that was decisive.

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Well, all of the above, but let's zoom in on the Hitchcock copycatting to start with. The movie to choose is Obsession, because it is very definitely a re-working of Vertigo and Vertigo is a religion in film circles, and was in 1976 when Obsession came out.

As has been noted in many a place, once DePalma cast Cliff Robertson in the James Stewart role, the project was kind of doomed. Stewart may have looked aged in Vertigo but he was a top rank, classic-tested, bona fide movie star. Robertson had never broken through(despite a Best Actor Oscar for "Charly" which doesn't much get shown anymore does it?) , really, so "Obsession" is a movie whose star isn't a star. And you can FEEL it, every step of the way. Genevieve Bujold had more "cred" (recent Oscar nominations, good art house reviews) , but she wasn't a Kim Novak level star.

Obsession has a Bernard Herrmann score, and it is good, but it is not GREAT, like the Vertigo score(I think Herrman had a much smaller orchestra to lead this time.)

And the re-working of DePalma (from a PAUL SCHRADER script) of the essential Vertigo play-out(woman dies, is resurrected as another woman, is pursued by the nutty hero) ...goes to places Hitchcock didn't go: possible incest. Which throws the love story(tragic or not) off.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Its funny. We've had one of our debates here recently on Hitchocck's Psycho vs Van Sant's Psycho...a direct remake. But something like Obsession rankles because its essentially a remake without SAYING it is. And I suppose debating James Stewart versus Cliff Robertson in the lead isn't all that removed from debating Anthony Perkins versus Vince Vaughn in the lead(which reminds me, Perkins was a bigger star when he made Psycho than Vaughn was when he made Psycho -- and Perkins had an Oscar nomination under his belt.)

I dunno...where am I going here? Well, probably to this: Obsession wouldn't exist if Vertigo had not been made first to influence it. Dressed to Kill wouldn't exist if Psycho had not been made first to influence it. And that was clear at the time.

Whereas such "Hitchcockian" movies as Duel and Jaws(Spielberg); The Exorcist(Friedkin) and Taxi Driver(Scorsese)
all stood alone as their own creations with their own plots, and didn't need Hitchcock movies in place to copy from.

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

One interesting feature of First Reform is that it's shot in the old 'Academy' Ratio of 4:3. This works very well with all the steepled church exteriors and naved church interiors and with all the face close-ups. I assumed that Schrader was also influenced in this choice by both main sources for FR being in 4:3, but in interviews he's claimed that it was Ida (2013)'s use of 4:3 that grabbed him. Other standout recent 4:3 pictures include Son of Saul (2015) & American Honey (2016). That asp. ratio has rather become a signifier of high-minded intent and ambition, much the way B&W has been for the last 40 years.

One wonders how tempted Schrader was by B&W given that the film is almost entirely blue-grey (except for some pepto-bismol!) and that Winter Light, Diary of A Country Priest, and Ida are all in B&W?

[–] swanstep (2715) 6 years ago

I think maybe swanstep covered this in the near past?

Here's a link to that earlier discussion:
https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/58c707524e1cf308b9383f09/OT-De-Palma-2015