Co-directors Noah Baumbach and Jake
Paltrow sit down with esteemed filmmaker Brian De Palma in the wonderful new
documentary “De Palma” for an extended, film-by-film profile of his career. As
the discussion expands to cover the director’s life, influences, and filmmaking
process, what emerges is a fascinating resource on the art of making movies.
For the nearly two hour running time, not a single other
subject is interviewed, leaving De Palma himself to do all the talking as he
takes viewers on a journey through his 55 years of directing films. From early
films like “The Wedding Party” and lesser known cult favorites such as “Phantom
of Paradise” to outright classics “Carrie,” “Dressed to Kill,”
and “Blow Out,” he covers everything. A generous helping of clips — from his
own works as well as from those that inspired him — provide illustration along
the way, and whether or not you consider yourself a fan of the director’s work,
the conversation that they inspire is always riveting.
Throughout De Palma’s career, he’s gained notoriety for
wearing his admiration for Alfred Hitchcock on his sleeve, so it’s not exactly
a shock that the film opens with a scene from “Vertigo.” But as everything goes
on, the filmmaker gives insight into how and why he deliberately chooses to
utilize the language of cinema in ways first established by his idol (not to
mention his similar attraction to the suspense genre). De Palma is open about
his obsessions and honest about the compromises that come during the necessary
mixing of business and commerce with art. In blurring the artist’s work with
stories from his personal life, the film becomes an excellent illustration of
the director as auteur, his films inextricable from the life experiences they
were drawn from.
De Palma is candid about his failures and misfires, from
“Bonfire of the Vanities” to “Mission to Mars,” he can pinpoint exactly what
works and what doesn’t about each one. “Every mistake is up there on the
screen,” the director laments. “It’s like a record of the things you didn’t
finish.”
There are also some delightful behind-the-scenes anecdotes
about the director’s contemporaries, including filmmaking greats like Martin
Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola, who were
all coming up at the same time as De Palma. The men were close through the 1970’s
and hearing the ways they occasionally helped and assisted one another
throughout their careers is endlessly entertaining.
“De Palma” is so good and so compelling that I can’t help but
hope that Baumbach and Paltrow turn this into a
series of similar films, each one focused on the work of a major modern
director. If the subjects were all willing to be as honest and open as De
Palma, they would provide an invaluable resource not just for aspiring
filmmakers but to film lovers as well.
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 5, 2016.
