Episode 151: The BRIAN DE PALMA FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY

The Wages of Cinema

What is an auteur? How do you define Cinematic "Style"? Is it a major problem to be excessive when making films? What about if one is "pushing the envelope" and going too far? Can a filmmaker be accused rightly of hating women in his movies? Brian De Palma has been a controversial figure for a long time, but more-so in the 1970's and 1980's - unfortunately for the world, he hasn't made a film in Hollywood in 20 years and has only had scattered success since his heyday peaked with Mission: Impossible. But when all is said and done with his career, he'll most likely be remembered, for better or worse (and we at the Wages of Cinema hope for the better) as a master craftsman of a particular brand of highly charged, often satirical and quite violent and sexual and psychologically perverse thrillers, and we decided as Quarantines continue throughout much of America and all you lovely listeners may be looking for something to listen to and to watch, we would do a DEEP dive into the work of one Brian De Palma. Spoilers abound, of course, so you've been warned. In order, here are the films we largely discuss here (with roughly the time-code so you can jump ahead if you'd like - some trailers and/or clips are featured for all): SISTERS (1973) at 24 mins in; PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974) 40 mins; DRESSED TO KILL (1980) 54 mins; BODY DOUBLE (1984) 1:24 mins; RAISING CAIN (1992) 1:41 mins; SNAKE EYES (1998) 1:56 mins; FEMME FATALE (2002) 2:10; The conversation goes off on some tangents here and there (I.e. Paradise vs Rocky Horror), Blow Out and Passion come up a little (Blow Out was discussed at length in a prior episode in 2016 however), and we try to break down what it was about his work that made it so talked about and whether or not De Palma was or still is an "artist" in cinema. Oh, and yes, the Boss does come up eventually (he did direct "Dancing in the Dark" you know...) [e-mail] (PS: Our apologies, we had some technical issues with the recording at points so if you hear background noise it was from a nearby air-conditioner... and an ice cream truck at one point, see if you can spot it)