24fps, Godard and de Palma

[Johnny Marr]

This is a really good documentary, even for somebody who isn't a De Palma
devotee

He's very lucid in describing his artistic axioms and working routines, and
while you could accuse him of lacking a bit of modesty he is able to
acknowledge when some of his directing backfires (overuse of split screen
sometimes inadvertently deflates tension), and has a clearly defined sense
of pure cinema - film-specific artistry.
A handful of throwaway biographical details accrue to explain a great deal
about his films - he was a schoolboy science prodigy (he proudly points out
the scientific accuracy of many of his works to this day - his crowd scenes
are very precise in terms of movement and composition, and pistols are
always fired from the exact right location in De Palma's films). His father
was a surgeon who let him sit in on operations when he was a child, which
explains a lack squeamishness regarding gore; but he also spied on his
father when he learned of his affair, which portays some of the more
voyeuristic De Palma films in an *interesting *light.

Also - as Pynchonists will nod along with - he takes contemporary reviews
with a pinch of slat as so often "you're being criticised against the
fashion of th day"

Recommended for film lovers, although if you're allergic to De Palma's
style (and he isn't for everyone) you might feel like an atheist listening
to a sermon. As something of an agnostic I left without undergoing a full
conversion, but with a higher opinion of his oeuvre.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

>
> "They went looking for trouble, they found it, they filmed it, and then
> quickly got the record of their witness someplace safe. They particularly
> believed in the ability of close-ups to reveal and devastate. When power
> corrupts, it keeps a log of its progress, written into that most sensitive
> memory device, the human face. Who could withstand the light? What viewer
> could believe in the war, the system, the countless lies about American
> freedom, looking into these mug shots of the bought and sold?"
>
> Vineland, p. 195
>
> > “I always said that film lies 24 times a second,” he says. “That’s the
> antithesis of what Jean-Luc Godard said, that it’s truth 24 per second.
> That’s nonsense! Film lies all of the time.” <
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/07/brian-de-
> palma-carrie-scarface-retrospective-documentary
>
>
>
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