Brian De Palma…with “little friend”
“DE PALMA” My rating: B (Now on DVD)
107 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Is Brian DePalma a giant of American filmmaking? Or just a moderately successful journeyman?
It’s pretty clear from their documentary “DePalma” that filmmakers Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow believe in the first analysis.
In this two-hour journey through the director’s mind and career we mostly get the 75-year-old DePalma seated in front of a camera and in more or less chronological order discussing the films he has made over more than a half century.
These range from the off-the-cuff craziness of “Greetings” to boxoffice champs like the first “Mission: Impossible” and “The Untouchables” to genuinely provocative works like “Scarface,” “Carrie,” “Casualties of War” and “Carlito’s Way.”
Of course there are flops, too: “Bonfire of the Vanities” (he maintains that if no one had read the book they’d like the film), “Mission to Mars” (he was a last-minute replacement who joined a production that already had left the station) and the politically-drenched war-on-terror spasm “Redacted.”
The film makes extensive use of film clips, not only from DePalma’s resume but from other filmmakers who have influenced him (Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” is a major touchstone).
Butler's Cinema Scene 