Rank Brian DePalma's Films

Correct answer: yes, they are rank!

Still only moderately excited for this one. But that still makes it my #1 most-anticipated movie I can think of.

I'd rerank, but I've got a couple new ones to watch yet. Body Double should be significantly higher.

I am doing something of a DePalma retro at home to coincide with this:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/features/briandepalma.asp

Of the stuff I've seen for the first time recently, Carrie excels in the acting and humiliation tragicomedy (and yes, I jumped at the end even tho I knew what was coming since '76). Sisters is way too sketchy (and early) to sufficiently transform the Hitchcock tropes. Dressed to Kill really goes downhill once Angie D exits, but it has one of my fave pervy moments from him, the discovery of the STD letter after the museum pickup.

Of the for-hire jobs, Carlito's Way is ridiculously superior to Scarface, despite Sean Penn reprising his worst Falcon and the Snowman tics and the wheezy romance. Pacino ditches the shouty act for fatigued resignation. That subway/Grand Central chase climax is a marvel. (Didn't see any major '70s anachronisms either... but man, they hadda cast Viggo Mortensen as a Rican just to make Al feel authentic.)

So far, I still think he excels at frosting more often than cake.

Next: The Fury

cuz it's at the beginning?

Penn way too Look At Me. The real mobster he has the jailhouse conf with is way better!

Also, does anyone remember a note of the Phantom of the Paradise music three days after seeing it? Paul Williams wrote better songs for The Muppet Movie.

I last saw Obsession on TV as a teen, long before Vertigo was finally re-released. Forgot that Schrader wrote it, I'd reexamine just for that.

then comes body double, scarface, carrie and the untouchables. the rest are not great but pretty fun to watch anyway.

OTFM - as a big Paul Williams fan (and a fan of OTT 70s glam musicals in general) I was fairly excited to finally see this, but the music was so not up to the task. Looked great though. DePalma's hit-or-miss for me, he's made a lot of crap ("Snake Eyes" anyone? "Raising Cain"?)

blow out is unbearable for travoltas ponderous epiphany of the whole thing. watching those gears turn, ugh.

I think Dressed To Kill is good and creepy all the way through (that STD letter, sheesh.)

sean penn's jewfro alone is worth the price of admission.

Is Alfred jokily or unintentionally conflating Stallone and Travolta? Stayin' Alive trauma?

The Fury, however, is not.

I have, and quite recently. Only a matter of time before it's everywhere.

Pacino's narration is one of the more successful of the last few decades. Just the right weary pitch.

eh, maybe - I think his dry spell didn't really end til "Boogie Nights" (which is also pre-Soderbergh)

apparently guzman recently moved near my dad's rural vermont town and adopted a bunch of third world orphans - so they cross paths at the price chopper; my dad channeling his inner aging hippy say something like hey man, i like you and i like what you're doin' you're allll right!

no word yet on guzman's reply. (story relaying interrupted by me and my sister's uncontrollable laughter).

Just watched Obsession for the first time on TCM. I dug it.

I'm not a DePalma fan, but that's the one I like best. It's not his most technically accomplished film, but it may embody his work better than anything else he's done, in a way that can be seen as critical of his vision (or lack thereof).

DePalma's harshest critics argue that DePalma thinks he's Hitchcock even though he lacks Hitchcock's genuine fascination with human behavior (or what makes us human). Some claim he's more interested in duplicating Hitchcock's films than creating anything personal himself. One of DePalma's favorite films is Vertigo, and Obsession is obviously heavily inspired by it. Some may even dismiss it on the grounds that it's DePalma trying to remake Vertigo, just as Sisters was a pastiche of other Hitchcock films.

If you believe there's a lot of truth to that, I would say that even though Obsession repeats the same approach, the context makes it far more engaging. Mirroring Scottie's relationship to Madeleine, here is DePalma fixated on a film that he not only adores but is compelled to reproduce as closely as he can, short of a straight up remake. If it seems too close to a rip-off, that's the point - it's not lack of imagination so much as a perpetual compulsion on DePalma's part, telegraphed by a scene in Obsession when one of the main characters is working on an art restoration - she wonders if she should try holding on to an original element of the work that is very degraded, and her suitor tells her to "hold on to it." The character is obviously echoing his own inability to let go of the wife he's lost (and will try replacing with a lookalike), but this could apply to DePalma's filmmaking in Obsession. De Palma even gets Hitchcock's longtime collaborator Herrmann (who scored Vertigo and already scored Sisters for DePalma) to once again do the score here, and to drive the point home, DePalma even used Vertigo's score as a temp track in order to convince a producer to let him hire Herrmann.

At worst, you can say it sounds like an exercise in trying to replicate a film that DePalma could never approach, giving us a hollow thriller instead of a true, disturbing masterpiece with a deeply felt tragedy. Scottie trying to revive Madeleine through his relationship with another woman could even be thought along the same lines - that is, what's going on between Scottie and Judy is the result of necrophilia instead of a great love. But Judy really is in love with Scottie and there's a terrible yet honest sadness in how she allows Scottie to do something so awful to her. I'm not moved by Obsession the way I am by Vertigo, but I find it compelling for what it sees in Vertigo and what it regurgitates.

And thanks to Herrmann, Obsession does have real feeling - his score articulates beautifully what's going on between the two romantic leads. The best is when Robertson goes back and follows her after work. Not a word is exchanged, he stays behind her. It builds to a marvelous peak, when she goes into her home and he comes out on the street. Watch as he walks and pulls up, and how the music shifts and subtly augments that moment. His back's to you and he's in long shot, but with that bit of walking in synch with that perfect music, you can feel Robertson's heart begin to flutter. And then the killer is when we fade to a shot that drifts down from a ceiling to Robertson, who's in the foreground of a deep focus shot. As that camera floats down, listen to those soft, stray notes plucked on the soundtrack. When we finally land on Robertson (seen in profile, deep in thought), you can feel his mind miles away, thinking only of her.

Watch that scene alone and without music - what's going on is still clear, but you don't feel the intoxicating pull that's swallowing him up. It could be a cold case of stalking that elicits no empathy. That changes with Herrmann's score.

One more thing about the film - Paul Schrader's screenplay originally called for a Patti Page song, "Changing Partners," to be played during Michael’s opening dance with his wife and daughter, but the rights would have cost about $15,000. Schrader said “the money thing that hurt me most in the movie was that I lost (the song), because that to me was just everything that the movie was about… ‘I’ll keep changing partners till you’re in my arms again.'” In its place, Herrmann composed a waltz theme that recurs at the end, when De Palma’s camera swirls around the reunited father and daughter.

Here's the recording in question and as much as I like Herrmann's score (a masterpiece in itself), this feels pretty perfect, with a sense of humor that puts it on par with Kubrick's musical choices IMHO.