Sisters: Brian De Palma

[Revisit Review]

Brian De Palma's Sisters is a fantastically crafted, fantastically cynical thriller that answers the unasked question of what a politicized Hitchcockian suspense film would be like. His sneering contempt for corrupt policemen and an easily manipulated mental health system are eerily prescient considering today's political climate. Sisters was really the first time (of what I've seen) that De Palma made a truly great film that wasn't part experimental student film, at least stylistically. And it has a truly fantastic downer ending which, in a strange way, seems to predict the ending of Blow Out (1981).

8/10

Snake Eyes: Brian De Palma

When Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes was first released, it was met with abysmal reviews. I think this was due to two main reasons. First, it’s a whodunnit cop procedural that reveals the identity of the main antagonist about halfway through its run-time. Second, even for a De Palma film it is unusually obsessed with the concept of spectatorship: there are several sequences shot with newsroom cameras; deliberately choreographed tracking shots; a crucial scene is done with his trademark split-screen technique. The result is a mystery film with no mystery that repeatedly reminds its audience that they are, in fact, watching a movie. In a sense, these Brechtian techniques result in a kind of anti-thriller. But that’s what makes Snake Eyes so compelling: it’s not the mystery that’s important, it’s how the people involved in the mystery are effected by it. Nicolas Cage—in a performance that seems like a warmup for his later turn in Werner Herzog’s The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)—is downright heart-breaking as an unapologetically corrupt police detective who is forced to deal with a devastating betrayal. One scene in particular left my jaw on the floor. It’s a moment where Cage explodes at a woman who helped him identify the mastermind behind the assassination around which Snake Eyes revolves. The reason for his anger? Her revelation forces him to become the last thing he would ever want to be: a good, honest person. There would have been no way to seamlessly incorporate such a scene into the film if it had waited until the end to pull back the curtain on the identity of the killer.

8/10

Hi, Mom!: Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma's Hi, Mom! deliberately, deliriously jumps from genre to genre with wild, unrepentant abandon. The result is a confusing yet nevertheless charming black comedy. I think that De Palma is trying to say something about spectatorship and the need for attention in the media with this story of a failed pornographer-cum-urban-terrorist. But much of the intellectual impact is lost in the stylistic pyrotechnics and narrative digressions, particularly the intense "Be Black, Baby" segments. Some of the scenes are very funny (especially one part where Robert De Niro goes shopping for contraceptives), some are just weird and uncomfortable. But I think that was probably the point. Hi, Mom! doesn't collapse in on itself like De Palma's later comedy Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972), perhaps because he was trying to make the latter film a comedy. Hi, Mom!? It's its own beast entirely.

7/10

Phantom of the Paradise: Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise doesn't really work. In fact, I'm not sure it ever could have worked under any circumstances. The film just has too much going on for its own good. For the most part it's an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera (the French novel, not the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical) with elements from Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray mixed in. Set in the world of rock 'n' roll instead of opera, the film also showcases prominent sequences that tribute films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Touch of Evil (1958), and Psycho (1960). And yet, the film has acquired a cult following. Why? Well, first of all, the film features genuinely incredible music from Paul Williams. Second, one can't help but be mesmerized by its sheer bravado and courage in attempting so much. The film may have failed, but it was a glorious, honorable failure.

6/10

Get to Know Your Rabbit: Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma's Get to Know Your Rabbit is one of those bizarre films that don't quite work yet nonetheless are fascinating in their audacity. Perhaps this is due to the fact that De Palma struggled with his producers so vehemently that he was eventually fired. Whatever the case, Get to Know Your Rabbit is an odd curio. Exhausted and fed up with the world of corporate upper management, Donald Beeman unceremoniously quits his job one day to become a tap dancing magician. His old boss Mr. Turnbull desperately tries to get him back. But when Beeman's show business career eventually takes off, Turnbull has another idea: create a Tap Dancing Magician course for other businessmen. So Beeman returns from a tour to find that he has become an advertising mascot. The very lifestyle that he fled to has become just another corporate prison. This kind of cynicism is brilliantly subversive and a true treat. However, the film is weighed down and eventually capsized by De Palma's unusual use of humor. Heavily inspired by British absurdist humor (think Monty Python's Flying Circus), the film contains bizarre characters, seemingly random events, and performances that irritate and confuse. One sequence where Beeman seduces a woman who delivers a monologue about how she prostituted herself for newspapers when she was younger is especially vexing. Of course, the film does have its charms. Orson Welles turns in a rare self-deprecating performance as Mr. Delasandro, Beeman's tap dancing magician teacher. In true Welles fashion, he steals the show with several of the best lines and jokes. My two favorites:

Mr. Delasandro [While he trains Beeman to tap dance]: "I'm the heckler, right? I've been needling you for the last ten minutes, right? Time now for you to strike back with all the style and wit at your command!"
Beeman: "Up your's, fella!"
Mr. Delasandro [Pensively]: "Not bad...not bad..."

Mr. Delasandro [After Beeman has graduated from his program] : "Donald, before you go, would you like me to look upon you as the son I never had?"
Beeman [Smiling cheerfully]: "No, I don't think so."

That last one made me laugh so hard that I woke up my dad. So Get to Know Your Rabbit doesn't work. But it does something right. I'm just not sure what that something is...

5/10

Dressed to Kill: Brian De Palma

After finishing Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill, I asked a few friends whether or not it was odd that I liked it more than Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the film that obviously served as its primary inspiration. My query was met with a resounding "YES!" But then again, I'm the putz that liked La Grande Illusion (1937) more than The Rules of the Game (1939). So I clearly cannot be trusted when it comes to matters of cinematic taste. But I stand by my judgement: I like Dressed to Kill more. The first third of the film follows a domestically-suffocated NYC housewife named Kate Miller who goes to the Metropolitan Museum, meets a dashing beau, and has an affair with him. However, once she leaves his apartment she is brutally murdered in an elevator by a strange-looking blonde woman. At this point, the film switches protagonists to Miller's son, Peter, and high-priced call girl Liz Blake (who witnessed the murder) as they try and discover the identity of her killer. I guess if I had to pick one reason why I like Dressed to Kill more than Psycho is its use of purely visual storytelling. The ten minute sequence where Kate Miller is seduced at the Metropolitan Museum should be taught in universities. De Palma displays a rapturous joy in the act of looking, forcing the audience to become voyeurs, participants, and eyewitnesses. This is cinema distilled down to its very essence: beautiful, breath-taking, captivating, and hypnotic.

9/10