Tellingly, this documentary on the career in pictures of Brian De Palma began with an excerpt from Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Hitch is my favourite director, especially due to his visual mastery and as De Palma says himself near the end, he appears to be the only subsequent director to continue the dark practices of the Master.
He hasn't directed a feature since this filmed interview took place in 2015, which gives the piece an almost valedictory feel to it. Of course, he came through in the early mid-70's with his New Hollywood contemporaries and often good friends Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola and even if his films rarely achieved either the box-office, critical acclaim or Academy recognition that theirs did, I know whose name I'd prefer to see behind a film by any of them.
The idea here is simple and effective. Sit the subject down and encourage him to talk about all the movies he's made from start to finish. Back his conversation up with judiciously selected clips from his own movies and also those which inspired him and for a cine-buff like me, it's like the perfect "An Audience with..." only you're the whole audience. So, no irritating interviewer going off at tangents, no talking-head analysis by "experts" or even wheeled-out anecdotes from past collaborators, just De Palma talking about his movies, what a simple concept.
Funnily enough, the pared-back format reminds me most of the famous Hitchcock - Truffaut interview filmed in the 60's. With loads of insights into his craft, candid opinions on other actors and directors, all delivered in a manner-of-fact style, he owns up to enjoying filming women, often in a state of undress, even as he accepts that he often treated them terribly in his films.
I've seen a lot of his movies but was reminded here of a few that I haven't which came as a bonus to me and which you can bet I will go some way towards rectifying in the near future.
As for the makers of this film, wouldn't it be good if they could get the likes of Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese et. Al to talk us through their own back pages the way De Palma did so entertainingly here.
He hasn't directed a feature since this filmed interview took place in 2015, which gives the piece an almost valedictory feel to it. Of course, he came through in the early mid-70's with his New Hollywood contemporaries and often good friends Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola and even if his films rarely achieved either the box-office, critical acclaim or Academy recognition that theirs did, I know whose name I'd prefer to see behind a film by any of them.
The idea here is simple and effective. Sit the subject down and encourage him to talk about all the movies he's made from start to finish. Back his conversation up with judiciously selected clips from his own movies and also those which inspired him and for a cine-buff like me, it's like the perfect "An Audience with..." only you're the whole audience. So, no irritating interviewer going off at tangents, no talking-head analysis by "experts" or even wheeled-out anecdotes from past collaborators, just De Palma talking about his movies, what a simple concept.
Funnily enough, the pared-back format reminds me most of the famous Hitchcock - Truffaut interview filmed in the 60's. With loads of insights into his craft, candid opinions on other actors and directors, all delivered in a manner-of-fact style, he owns up to enjoying filming women, often in a state of undress, even as he accepts that he often treated them terribly in his films.
I've seen a lot of his movies but was reminded here of a few that I haven't which came as a bonus to me and which you can bet I will go some way towards rectifying in the near future.
As for the makers of this film, wouldn't it be good if they could get the likes of Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese et. Al to talk us through their own back pages the way De Palma did so entertainingly here.