I have just seen Greetings for the first time. My immediate reaction was that it is SO 'Sixties. Parts of it resembling an episode of The Monkees. Especially when a group of people are live animated in a park.
As Sixties memorabilia it represents both some of the best aspects of the zeitgeist, such as the dreaminess of a character dwelling on a woman in the street, and it's most excruciatingly embarrassing aspects. Such as the unnecessary and not at all erotic nudity thrown in just for the sake of being oh-so revolutionary. The worst of this being in the ridiculous part where the conspiracy theorist is using a naked woman as an anatomy mannequin and she is supposed to be asleep all through his writing on her and rolling her this way and that.
It is of course fascinating to see DeNero so young in this film, yet with some of his tics already formed. However, as a visual artist I found the richest part of the film to be the drawn out conversation with Richard Hamilton. The British originator of the term "Pop Art" who effectively explains in detail the rationale of some of his paintings of the period and takes the opportunity to assert that they pre-dated Blow-Up, to which they were already regarded as deriving from.
The film is pretty much without a story and it's many episodes range from the excruciatingly embarrassing to the fascinatingly dated via some good humorous elements and a bit of social history. The nutter in a book-shop whose conversation leads inexorably to the logical conclusion that he was going to be "next" is genuinely clever. Overall, however, this film would not have fore-warned me of some of the super work that De Palma would yet make. It feels amateurish. A student quality piece.
As Sixties memorabilia it represents both some of the best aspects of the zeitgeist, such as the dreaminess of a character dwelling on a woman in the street, and it's most excruciatingly embarrassing aspects. Such as the unnecessary and not at all erotic nudity thrown in just for the sake of being oh-so revolutionary. The worst of this being in the ridiculous part where the conspiracy theorist is using a naked woman as an anatomy mannequin and she is supposed to be asleep all through his writing on her and rolling her this way and that.
It is of course fascinating to see DeNero so young in this film, yet with some of his tics already formed. However, as a visual artist I found the richest part of the film to be the drawn out conversation with Richard Hamilton. The British originator of the term "Pop Art" who effectively explains in detail the rationale of some of his paintings of the period and takes the opportunity to assert that they pre-dated Blow-Up, to which they were already regarded as deriving from.
The film is pretty much without a story and it's many episodes range from the excruciatingly embarrassing to the fascinatingly dated via some good humorous elements and a bit of social history. The nutter in a book-shop whose conversation leads inexorably to the logical conclusion that he was going to be "next" is genuinely clever. Overall, however, this film would not have fore-warned me of some of the super work that De Palma would yet make. It feels amateurish. A student quality piece.