We’ve seen our fair share of documentaries before. The “talking head” is nothing new to the documentary form and, thankfully, directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow don’t present it as such. De Palma features one man, famed director Brian De Palma, in front of the camera and the two other men behind it. Spliced between footage of the famous director’s films, archival photos, and the talking head, the documentary is able to achieve something pretty significant. But that’s not to say the movie is for everyone. In fact, it’s for people who would only care about Brian De Palma in the first place.
Starting at the beginning of his career, De Palma speaks about his involvement in school as a science nut and heading into filmmaking at another school. These sections are the most informative and, therefore, the most interesting. I knew that Robert De Niro got his start working with De Palma on student films, but not to the extent that the film informed me. Paltrow and Baumbach are able to get some great information out of him, almost as if they’re friends outside of the documentary. That familiarity gives the film an insider’s feel. Each little anecdote almost feels like a secret that the audience shouldn’t be hearing.
With films like Carrie, Mission Impossible, Blow Out, The Untouchables, and Scarface under his belt, you’d think the director would be a bit bigger in the film world currently. For one thing, there has been a bit of a critical re-evaluation in terms of his films. This documentary has been released at the perfect time (not that it’s going to help the 75 year old director release one). By the time De Palma ends, you wonder what the entire point of it was.
I can’t say I learned anything really substantial by the end of this film. The anecdotes and short tales are mostly fun and entertaining, but how entertaining would they be if they weren’t coming from the man that truly went through it all. That is the one strength of this film. It’s not just cool enough to have to go through what he went through, but it’s being able to tell it successfully. He does tell it successfully, but there’s still an emptiness by the end of the film.
Not that it’s the biggest problem, but there’s little to no substance here. While the filmmaking is the interesting part, there didn’t seem to be too much of a struggle for him. Or, if there was a struggle, it didn’t last long, as the movie wanted to talk about something else instead. De Palma and the directors don’t tend to have the patience to really get under the skin of some of the issues within the filmmaking of his prior films.
As much as I can say I enjoyed De Palma, I must admit that this is a glorified Criterion Collection documentary. In fact, here‘s a clip of Baumbach interviewing the director for the Criterion Blu-Ray for Dressed to Kill. There’s not much difference watching them close together, except this time you see Baumbach. Whether or not it should be seen on the big screen is debatable. Whether or not it should be seen at all, more so.
If you have any interest in the director, you’ll probably find something of interest here. But here’s the thing: this movie is for cinephiles and cinephiles only. If you’re interested in hearing his opinion on the narrative framing on his 1992 film, Raising Cain, then there’s gonna be something for you. 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. That’s just not that interesting to most people.
Despite that flaw, there are enough interesting stories and tidbits to be of interest to the film community. Baumbach and Paltrow have essentially filmed their friend telling them the same shit they’ve heard before, but on record this time. Learning about the writing situation on the set of Mission Impossible was worth the price of admission on its own. It’s best to come in with the expectation that it’s not the most informative or entertaining, but it does the job just fine.
De Palma is distributed by A24