De Palma Review

<p>We&&num;8217&semi;ve seen our fair share of documentaries before&period; The &&num;8220&semi;talking head&&num;8221&semi; is nothing new to the documentary form and&comma; thankfully&comma; directors <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0000876&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;ttfc&lowbar;fc&lowbar;cr2">Noah Baumbach<&sol;a> and <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0658823&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;ttfc&lowbar;fc&lowbar;cr5">Jake Paltrow<&sol;a> don&&num;8217&semi;t present it as such&period; <em>De Palma <&sol;em>features one man&comma; famed director <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0000361&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;ttfc&lowbar;fc&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t1">Brian De Palma<&sol;a>&comma; in front of the camera and the two other men behind it&period; Spliced between footage of the famous director&&num;8217&semi;s films&comma; archival photos&comma; and the talking head&comma; the documentary is able to achieve something pretty significant&period; But that&&num;8217&semi;s not to say the movie is for everyone&period; In fact&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s for people who would only care about Brian De Palma in the first place&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Starting at the beginning of his career&comma; De Palma speaks about his involvement in school as a science nut and heading into filmmaking at another school&period; These sections are the most informative and&comma; therefore&comma; the most interesting&period; I knew that <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0000134&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t5">Robert De Niro<&sol;a> got his start working with De Palma on student films&comma; but not to the extent that the film informed me&period; Paltrow and Baumbach are able to get some great information out of him&comma; almost as if they&&num;8217&semi;re <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;newyorker&period;com&sol;magazine&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;27&sol;de-palma-baumbach-and-paltrow-meet-for-dinner">friends<&sol;a> outside of the documentary&period; That familiarity gives the film an insider&&num;8217&semi;s feel&period; Each little anecdote almost feels like a secret that the audience shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be hearing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109296" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109296" style&equals;"width&colon; 1023px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109296" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03133707&sol;MV5BMjA1NjMyNzY3NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODE0MTU0NA&percnt;40&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Carrie&comma; Metro Goldwyn Mayer&rpar;" width&equals;"1023" height&equals;"681" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109296" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Carrie<&sol;em>&comma; Metro Goldwyn Mayer&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>With films like <em>Carrie<&sol;em>&comma; <em>Mission Impossible<&sol;em>&comma; <em>Blow Out<&sol;em>&comma; <em>The Untouchables<&sol;em>&comma; and <em>Scarface<&sol;em> under his belt&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;d think the director would be a bit bigger in the film world currently&period; For one thing&comma; there has been a bit of a critical re-evaluation in terms of his films&period; This documentary has been released at the perfect time &lpar;not that it&&num;8217&semi;s going to help the 75 year old director release one&rpar;&period; By the time De Palma ends&comma; you wonder what the entire point of it was&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I can&&num;8217&semi;t say I learned anything really substantial by the end of this film&period; The anecdotes and short tales are mostly fun and entertaining&comma; but how entertaining would they be if they weren&&num;8217&semi;t coming from the man that truly went through it all&period; That is the one strength of this film&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s not just cool enough to have to go through what he went through&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s being able to tell it successfully&period; He does tell it successfully&comma; but there&&num;8217&semi;s still an emptiness by the end of the film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Not that it&&num;8217&semi;s the biggest problem&comma; but there&&num;8217&semi;s little to no substance here&period; While the filmmaking is the interesting part&comma; there didn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to be too much of a struggle for him&period; Or&comma; if there was a struggle&comma; it didn&&num;8217&semi;t last long&comma; as the movie wanted to talk about something else instead&period; <em>De Palma<&sol;em> and the directors don&&num;8217&semi;t tend to have the patience to really get under the skin of some of the issues within the filmmaking of his prior films&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As much as I can say I enjoyed <em>De Palma&comma; <&sol;em>I must admit that this is a glorified Criterion Collection documentary&period; In fact&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;jyAo1F0ZpJo">here<&sol;a>&&num;8216&semi;s a clip of Baumbach interviewing the director for the Criterion Blu-Ray for <em>Dressed to Kill<&sol;em>&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s not much difference watching them close together&comma; except this time you see Baumbach&period; Whether or not it should be seen on the big screen is debatable&period; Whether or not it should be seen at all&comma; more so&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109295" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109295" style&equals;"width&colon; 1023px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-109295" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03133724&sol;MV5BMTA1NDAxMTM5OTleQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU3MDkwODc0MzQ&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Dressed to Kill&comma; Metro Goldwyn Mayer&rpar;" width&equals;"1023" height&equals;"691" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109295" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Dressed to Kill<&sol;em>&comma; Metro Goldwyn Mayer&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>If you have any interest in the director&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;ll probably find something of interest here&period; But here&&num;8217&semi;s the thing&colon; this movie is for cinephiles and cinephiles only&period; If you&&num;8217&semi;re interested in hearing his opinion on the narrative framing on his 1992 film&comma; <em>Raising Cain&comma; <&sol;em>then there&&num;8217&semi;s gonna be something for you&period; But most people will know the opinion of any 75 year old if they were asked if someone could score their movie with a hip-hop soundtrack&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s just not that interesting to most people&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite that flaw&comma; there are enough interesting stories and tidbits to be of interest to the film community&period; Baumbach and Paltrow have essentially filmed their friend telling them the same shit they&&num;8217&semi;ve heard before&comma; but on record this time&period; Learning about the writing situation on the set of <em>Mission Impossible<&sol;em> was worth the price of admission on its own&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s best to come in with the expectation that it&&num;8217&semi;s not the most informative or entertaining&comma; but it does the job just fine&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>De Palma is distributed by A24<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;