By Matt Zoller Seitz
After scrolling through the lively comments about Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, I figured it might be fun to post an assessment of De Palma by an authoritative source whose observations might stir the pot a little. By chance, the first reference book I pulled from my shelf was the 2002 edition of David Thomson's idiosyncratic, highly subjective reference tome The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. His entry on De Palma starts with this paragraph:
"There is a self-conscious cunning in De Palma's work, ready to control everything except his own cruelty and indifference. He is the epitome of mindless style and excitement swamping taste or character. Of course, he was a brilliant kid. But his usefulness in an historical survey is to point out the dangers of movies falling into the hands of such narrow-minded movie mania, such cold blooded prettification. I daresay there are no "ugly" shots in De Palma's films -- if you feel able to measure "beauty" merely in terms of graceful or hypnotic movement, vivid angles, lyrical color, and hysterical situation. But that is the set of criteria that makes Leni Riefenstahl a "great" director, rather than the victim of conflicting inspiration and decadence. De Palma's eye is cut off from conscience or compassion. He has contempt for his characters and his audience alike, and I suspect that he despises even his own immaculate skill. Our cultural weakness admits and rewards technique and impact bereft of moral sense. If the thing works, it has validity--the means justify the lack of an end. De Palma is a cynic, and not a feeble one; there are depths of misanthropy there."
Incredibly, I'd never read this particular entry before. I say "incredibly" because although there are hundreds of entries in A Biographical Dictionary, and I've flipped through this edition and previous editions countless times in search of information and inspiration and lines worth quoting, for some reason my eye never lingered on this one. He keeps rolling from there, slagging everything De Palma had made up through Carlito's Way (which Thomson says "examplif(ies) the nullity of movie genius when it has no ideas." Oddly, he likes Scarface, though you'd think that of De Palma's cultural touchstones, it would be the be the one that superficially came closest to justifying Thomson's ire. I should back up here and say that A Biographical Dictonary is an indispensible book, mixing surprising and original insights with the usual amount of bemused and sometimes flatulent Thomsonian pontificating. The entries on Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, for instance, are similarly wary and doubting. While admiring both directors' versatility and awesome skill, he thinks they amp up oncsreen passion to obscure the fact that they're actually rather cold directors who have few strong feelings about anything but films and filmmaking -- that they're lost in their own mental screening rooms and probably always will be. I disagree with the gist of those characterizations, but I can see why Thomson makes them, and there are parts of Spielberg and Scorsese's movies that appear to validate his accusations. Thomson is a lively, unique, often valuable critic, and I'm always interested to read what he has to say.
But I don't get where he's coming from in his characterization of De Palma. As I've said elsewhere, I am not a De Palma fanboy; I don't love everything he's done, and even in De Palma films I do love, there are images, scenes or performances that strike me as misjudged or bad. Still, I can't see anyone sitting through Carrie, The Fury, Blow Out, Carlito's Way and Casualties of War -- De Palma's most straighforwardly empathetic and/or moralistic films prior to Dahlia, in my opinion -- with open eyes and ears and then going home thinking De Palma a misanthrope, a cynic or a brilliantly cruel technician, and nothing more. But I'm reproducing Thomson's summary anyway because bits of it echo the many mixed to negative reviews of The Black Dahlia. Also, I'm cognizant of the fact that a lot of moviegoers -- perhaps a majority -- are inclined to agree with Thomson, even if they like some of De Palma's movies. If you fall into that camp, I encourage you to weigh in here as well.
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31 comments:
Thomson's value is mostly as an argument-starter -- a role he appears to be playing in this post. He writes beautifully and densely, but he's usually full of shit. One might argue that his sins are not dissimilar from those he ascribes to De Palma.
And I don't say that just because I disagree with him. He's dismissive to a fault, and black-hearted. Whatever you might think of Richard Donner, surely he deserves more of an assessment than this: "Mr. Donner has made several of the most successful and least interesting films of his age. And one doubts it's over yet." But that's all Thomson gives him.
The timing of your post is curious, given that Jim Emerson just yesterday took him down.
Culture snob: Wow, I hadn't seen that post, and I have yet to read the book. There must be something in the air.
Hey-
I think that Thomson is dead-on right and insightful about most directors and actors (he loves Ophuls, Renoir, Mizoguchi, the whole canon, really). He likes Hawks a bit too much; John Ford and Julie Christie deserve better. But, in general, it's an amazing book, and certainly essential.
The thing about the book that people don't seem to realize is that a lot of the entries were written for the original edition in 1975, and though he adds onto them, he keeps the initial essay pretty much frozen. So most of his De Palma piece was probably written in reaction to Kael, about the 70's thrillers.
As far as the Kidman book goes, it's embarrassing sometimes (OK, alot of the time) but also audacious in parts, in much the way his Warren Beatty book was. When he writes in book-length, his writing becomes blurred. He's best with short pieces.
As in his famous takedown of Ford, I don't think his almost entirely negative De Palma entry holds water (or his Tarkovsky, or his Tati). But he's right about so much else that I really don't mind.
Dan: That's an interesting point about Thomson trying to be true to what he originally wrote in the 1975 edition (which was surely a response, or overreaction, to Kael's tub-thumping). But considering how varied De Palma's output would become, a complete rewrite was probably warranted, even though he still hadn't warmed to him. The two other director entries I cited, Spielberg and Scorsese, were substantially amended -- and the Spielberg one seemed to have been mostly rewritten, as a response to the gigantic cultural force Spielberg became in the ensuing years.
Robin Wood's Hitchcock writing took another tack -- reprinting 1960s essays more or less intact, but adding new essays, and extensive footnotes, allowing for areas where he realized he'd been wrong or shortsighted, and accounting for changes in his own life and philosophy that altered his POV on Hitchcock.
It's a conundrum, to be sure. How to account for one's personal evolution as a critic without rewriting one's past?
Robin Wood and David Thomson are surely two of the best film writers out there, and they both share the same problem: self-indulgence. It even takes the same form sometimes: sexual boasting/mortification. It's specifically English, I think---they are around the same age (and class?)
Wood's Hitch book is as canonical as Thomson's Dictionary, but by the time you get to the latest Wood preface, and he's going on for many, many pages about coming out of the closet, left trembling and bloody on the bed, etc., we have completely left Hitchcock behind. Often it's best to leave things alone. George Meredith re-wrote his old books and made them worse. Same with Auden's poems.
In Thomson's case, I'm sure he doesn't feel the need to re-think his De Palma position. It's too harsh, but it's meant to create a dialogue. To take another example, he upgrades his feelings on Robert Siodmak--with an additional paragraph.
Donner deserves what he gets---but it's probably better not to have included him at all. What isn't cool is the Naruse entry, which began as a prank and stays one in the new edition. That needs to be rectified. The Wes Anderson "prank" is also just lazy, not playful.
Matt, occasionally I find that the seemingly “misjudged or bad” images, scenes and performances often become expressive characteristics of De Palma’s work. Maybe I’m reaching, trying too hard to make an argument for De Palma as a great director, but I find that when, for example, one actor’s performance clashes against another actor’s such as Josh Hartnett’s attempt to keep Bucky grounded in a recognizable reality, while Aaron Eckhart takes his characterization off the deep end somewhere at the end of the first half hour, it serves only as a reminder of the range of De Palma’s palette. The Black Dahlia is not the first time De Palma has pitted different acting styles against each other—just look at Michael J. Fox’s portrayal of Erickson (albeit Fox is not the most imaginative of actors and is kind of always just Michael J.) and Sean Penn’s scenery chewing in Casualties of War, one of De Palma’s most carefully modulated films. De Palma doesn’t seem to mind mixing tonalities all within the same film and I for one get a giddy pleasure out of it. I know this can seem hypocritical, as I often accuse other films for having tonal problems, but I truly believe De Palma turns mixing tones into an art in and of itself.
For example, I don’t think Thompson is far off when he says: “I suspect that [De Palma] despises even his own immaculate skill.” De Palma’s love-hate relationship to the movies is present through most of his work post-Obsession and I feel the inclusion of these feelings makes the works richer and the director’s personality more vibrant. De Palma’s films often seem sabotaged by their director’s own hands (for example Travolta’s jeep plowing through a parade at the end of, the up until that point most serious and ‘realistic’ film he had ever made, Blow Out, instantly making the audience question the logic of the film: ‘oh, that’s not believable’) and I think it is intentional and ties into the more subversive aspects of his work. It’s almost as if he is saying to the audience (and himself): “This is what you guys really want? So, fine, here you go.” You can go as far as calling it a Brechtian distancing device, but that’s tired thinking. I like to believe that it is the director’s conflicted feelings towards cinema coming through in scenes like the one in Blow Out, as he force feeds the audience a taste of their own medicine, so to speak. It becomes a meta-comment on technique being slaved to inanity, an attack directly on the type of cinema Thompson mistakenly accuses De Palma of making: movies made by movie genius’ without any real ideas.
Kemazi: "It’s almost as if he is saying to the audience (and himself): “This is what you guys really want? So, fine, here you go.” This is, quite incidentally, a cogent response to a point raised in the comments thread of my Black Dahlia review, where That Little Round-Headed Boy asks whether particular acts of graphic violence in De Palma's films are not necessary or otherwise misjudged. It sounds as if you're saying that De Palma swings for the fences every chance he gets, and makes movies in such a way as to engage in dialogue with the viewers as they watch the film. If so, I think I'm on the same page with you -- the elements of De Palma that I sometimes find jarring, wrongheaded or simply unsuccessful pale beside the totality and variety of what he does within a given film, and from film to film.
Matt: It’s interesting to read that you skipped over the De Palma entry in A Biographical Dictionary of Film, because when I bought this book, it was one of the first entries I looked up. I think Thomson has an excellent knowledge of film history, and that he can be an insightful writer on cinema. I also believe that it would make some sort of sense if Thomson wrote that – for whatever reason – he simply didn’t like or respond to De Palma’s technique. However, Thomson’s entry on De Palma strikes me as completely wrongheaded, in that he utterly fails to see what De Palma has being doing throughout his filmmaking career.
Recently, on the 24LiesASecond De Palma forum, I quoted a review of ‘The Black Dahlia’ from Empire Magazine in the UK (here’s the link: http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=9836), which bafflingly claimed that the film was let down by De Palma’s “…familiar uninterest in the humanity of his characters.” Based on the De Palma entry in A Biographical Dictionary of Film, it seems to me that Thomson’s criticism of De Palma echoes this sentiment from Empire. But I have to wonder if either Thomson or this Empire reviewer have watched – I mean, really watched – any of De Palma’s films? Can they honestly say that films such as ‘Blow Out’, ‘Casualties of War’, ‘Carlito’s Way’, and – in particular – ‘Mission To Mars’, have no interest in humanity?
I seem to recall that ‘Mission to Mars’ was ridiculed by some critics precisely because it didn’t conform to the cynical, despairing worldview that they believe De Palma holds, and instead was an unashamedly optimistic odyssey. Although many of De Palma’s films are set in a cold and cruel universe, there’s the sense that the director wishes things could be better, even if this wish seems utterly hopeless. De Palma’s protagonists often try to do the right thing (including the ruthless gangster, Tony Montana, in ‘Scarface’, who refuses to blow up a car when he sees that children are inside it) and they frequently end up being punished for it.
Would anyone watch the agonising and heartbreaking ‘Casualties of War’ and feel that, in Thomson’s words, “De Palma's eye is cut off from conscience or compassion.”? How can Thomson say that De Palma has “…technique and impact bereft of moral sense.”? And what about the comment that “De Palma is a cynic, and not a feeble one; there are depths of misanthropy there.”? Call me sentimental, but I always detected a romanticism swirling among the cynicism (which is clearly demonstrated in the circular shot at the prom in ‘Carrie’ and in a similar shot at the end of ‘Obsession’, where love is mixed with horror). And as for Thomson’s observation that De Palma “…is the epitome of mindless style and excitement swamping taste or character”, it’s simply a variation on the same old ‘all form and no content’ accusation that has constantly been hurled at De Palma’s films (and, judging by a number of ‘The Black Dahlia’ reviews, still is).
mdb: That's a pecularity of mine, I guess. I tend to read reference books in a scattershot way, turning to whatever entry I need to read at any given time. The upside is, it gives the book more long-term entertainment value than if I read the entire thing through chronologically. The downside is, sometimes I don't discover odd surprises until late in the game. For instance, it wasn't until last year that I looked up Sharon Stone and saw his one-line entry: "See Frances Farmer." How strange is that?
Also, I agree with your statement, "Although many of De Palma’s films are set in a cold and cruel universe, there’s the sense that the director wishes things could be better, even if this wish seems utterly hopeless." I think Kubrick and Altman have the same attitude, and they are also often accused of cynicism and misanthropy.
Matt: The Biographical Dictionary of Film is one of those books I dip into periodically, but I also read reference books quite randomly. One entry I remember quite well is the one on Tom Cruise, with Thomson comparing Cruise's film career to Clark Gable's. Although this sounds absurd, Thomson actually writes a pretty insightful piece on Cruise (and whatever one thinks of Cruise, there seems to very little intelligent writing on him as an actor).
The De Palma entry is one of the ones I remember vividly though, because, with a few exceptions, it's mostly full of sarcasm and cynicism. As hitchdan said, Thomson probably wrote the De Palma entry as a response to Kael's admiration for De Palma - I imagine her ecstatic endorsement of 'The Fury' may well have been the reason he wrote the De Palma entry in the style that he did.
This is how Thomson finishes his entry on De Palma: "I'd be surprised if De Palma still has followers enough to argue against the proposition that his three most recent pictures [presumably 'Snake Eyes', 'Mission to Mars' and 'Femme Fatale'] have to be included with his worst." Well, I'm sure if he read a few reviews of these films, he'd discover that the latter two have been critically acclaimed as masterpieces on more than one occasion.
While I wouldn't claim that 'Mission to Mars' is a masterpiece, it's a film I return to fairly regularly, and it's easily one of the most beautifully shot films of recent years. As for 'Femme Fatale', I think it's one of De Palma's best films; a marvellously inventive work made by a filmmaker who clearly loves his craft (and so, when Thomson says that De Palma "...despises even his own immaculate skill", I’m frankly baffled).
Hitchdan:
Of course, your right about Donner. What's the point of including him at all?
For those who don't own the book, the entirety of the Wes Anderson entry: "Watch this space. What does that mean? That he might be something one day."
Oy! I really do know the difference between "your" and "you're."
mdb:
"Although many of De Palma’s films are set in a cold and cruel universe, there’s the sense that the director wishes things could be better, even if this wish seems utterly hopeless."
That's quintessential De Palma. Thomson calls De Palma a "cynic," and that's a pretty fair description, but behind the cynic is a disappointed idealist. De Palma has learned to deal with life's failures by turning them into something graceful, or, if that doesn't work, satire. This is why De Palma loves tragedy. The man is a romantic nihilist working on moral outrage. If you look at his films from a coldhearted standpoint, they don't work. Enter Thomson...
Though I usually dislike Thomson immensely (which we can get into later), this time he's actually right.
The problem is that, yes, De Palma is openly misanthropic for much of his career. I can see where he's attempting to build actual characters in the handful of his best movies - but largely, he fails when he does try(I don't even consider Carlito a fully successful character on the level that a really first-class director should be able to create in perhaps his best movie). Outside of the leads in his few best movies, he doesn't even bother. Small parts are nearly always throw-away cliches for De Palma.
Lots of the time, he clearly simply doesn't care. Considering the characters as real people is often too easily and quickly dropped in favor of cliches and one-dimensional characterizations.
"but behind the cynic is a disappointed idealist. De Palma has learned to deal with life's failures by turning them into something graceful, or, if that doesn't work, satire. This is why De Palma loves tragedy. The man is a romantic nihilist working on moral outrage."
I don't see it. I don't even see much of "life's failures" in his movies. Where is there actual life in a De Palma movie? Sorry, actual life usually does not revolve around serial killers, multiple personalities, jewelry robbers, drug magnates, kidnapping real estate tycoons or Al Capone. The only time when De Palma attempts to depict people that one would actually encounter is Casualties of War (of the De Palma films I've seen). Ok, maybe Jake Scully in Body Double, too, though that normal character goes straight out the window when he becomes a porn star.
alex: I can understand if you don’t like the way De Palma uses actors or creates characters in his films, but I don’t see how this proves that De Palma is a misanthrope, or understand why you think he’s a misanthrope. Are you saying that De Palma doesn’t care enough about the acting or filmmaking process, or that he lacks the skill to elicit a good performance from an actor (or create a memorable character) in his films?
If this is so, I really don’t agree with you, as there are some De Palma films where a number of actors (such as John Travolta and Michael J. Fox) have given what are arguably their best big screen performances. Even if De Palma uses one-dimensional characterisations (and I agree with you that some of his characters have been one-dimensional), I still don’t see how this makes De Palma a misanthrope or a poor filmmaker.
Of course, it’s fair enough if Thomson, you or anyone else doesn’t like the way in which De Palma makes films: either you respond to De Palma’s filmmaking style, or you don’t; or you like the way he handles themes, narratives, etc. in his films, or you don’t. That would be understandable and perfectly justifiable. But what surprised me about Thomson’s entry on De Palma is that Thomson seems to see little or no evidence of humanity in De Palma's characters, or see the pleasure that De Palma clearly gets out of filmmaking.
Thomson: De Palma is a cynic, and not a feeble one; there are depths of misanthropy there.
I think one could make an interesting case for this statement, not that Thomson does. Matt mentions that Kubrick is also considered a cold, misanthropic manipulator -- and there's truth to that. (I'd hasten to add that Hitchock is also seen the same way by many.) But it's only one facet of De Palma's work, and far from the most important or interesting one. Plus there are so many counter-examples, especially with his female characters: Margo Kidder in "Sisters"; Carrie and Betty Buckley's coach in "Carrie"; Amy Irving and Carrie Snodgress in "The Fury"; Nancy Allen in "Blow Out"... and so on. Most of them are tragic figures -- and certainly sympathetic ones. De Palma is not indifferent or scornful about their fates.
I value Thomson's contributions to a lively discussion of film, but when he's dismissive without bothering to make a substantive argument (what does he say about Wes Anderson -- something like "Watch this space," and that's all?), he debases the standards of argument.
Thomson has huge blind spots -- much bigger than Kael's, and at least she admitted to hers (Fassbinder, Tarkovsky) -- and De Palma is obviously one. How one can ascribe "indifference" and lack of conscience to De Palma is beyond me. That devastating image you supply from CASUALTIES OF WAR pretty much destroys Thomson's argument, just by itself (thanks!).
As MDB suggests, Thomson may be
(over)reacting to Kael's wild endorsements of De Palma in the '70s. Upon her death, I remember reading an account by him of them seeing THE FURY together. She loved it, needless to say, and he was baffled by her reaction. He presents the story as de facto evidence that she could be totally wrong about movies. It was a very peculiar anecdote to relate about someone who had just passed away -- it wasn't amusing, or respectful, or elegaic, it was just meant to show how wrong she could be. I was never sure why he related it, but I wonder if her enthusiasm didn't have something to do with his loathing of De Palma.
Steve W: "That devastating image you supply from CASUALTIES OF WAR pretty much destroys Thomson's argument, just by itself (thanks!)."
Yeah, you caught me. I wanted to be as evenhanded as possible, to stimulate discussion here, but in choosing art, I naturally gravitated toward the editorial choice.
Back to what Jim, Peet, mdb and others were getting at: I think there's a difference between misanthropy/cynicism and a naturally pessimistic mindset. De Palma, Kubrick, Altman, Bunuel and a lot of other substantial and influential filmmakers have no illusions about the depths to which human beings will sink; they seem to share Noah Cross' opinion in Chinatown that in the right time and place, people are capable of just about anything. (See Jeremiah Kipp's article Evil Under the Sun.) They are pessimistic, generally, about humankind -- a one step foward, one (or two) steps back mentality. But that's different from cynicism or misanthropy. When I watch Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket or Barry Lyndon, for example, I feel like I'm standing on the shoulder of an all-powerful God looking down on humankind. But there's not just condemnation and/or bemusement there; I also sense a great sadness that has settled and become as dense as concrete. Kubrick doesn't think human beings are shits; he thinks they often are shits, but are capable of much better; he wishes they would rise to the heights of which they are capable, but he knows they rarely do, and he's not going to sugarcoat us for it. De Palma's in that same camp, more or less; the examples are too numerous to cite here (because I feel carpal tunnel coming on and I need to play it safe), but the finales of Carrie, The Fury, Blow Out and Casualties of War -- and all of The Black Dahlia -- confirm this, I think. Mdb's point about De Palma's romanticism (see above) really nails it. It's a doom spiral romanticism, practically Byronic in its passionate sadness. De Palma's tastes don't run towards the classics of Western lit, but I sometimes wish they did; what a Wuthering Heights he'd make!
PS -- I'm in LA over the weekend, cooling my heels, and I intend to see The Black Dahlia again while I'm out here. Any suggestions as to the ideal venue would be much appreciated. I am thinking it should be the oldest theater in town that's playing it.
Matt, you and MDB are dead-on about the doomed romanticism. "Cynical" was never a label that fit De Palma in my mind--satirical definitely, in much of his work, but there was always too much intensity and passion there for something as world-weary as cynicism.
There's a De Palma retrospective playing at the LA County Museum of Art -- Carrie and Dressed to Kill Friday, Blow Out and Untouchables Saturday. If you want to catch any of these classics on the big screen...
Steve W: Damn you. By posting that screening information, you make it impossible for me to duck out of previous engagements on the grounds of not feeling well. I haven't seen Blow Out on a big screen since I snuck into it in sixth grade, so that's definitely on the agenda.
The revised agenda: I'm definitely seeing Carrie on Friday, and maybe Dressed to Kill as well, if I have the stamina. Blow Out on Saturday is a possibility as well.
How to spot me: I'm the mopey-looking late 30s guy with the salt and pepper goatee and glasses, probably wearing a black shirt, who laughs in affirmation at interesting camera angles. (Or does that describe half the Gen X white guys in Los Angeles?)
I'll definitely be at Blow Out. Wish I could see the ones tonight. I'm a tall balding blond guy with glasses--Matt, if I see you I'll say "hi"
Given Thompson's evaluative and subjective entries, "biographical dictionary" is a misnomer on several levels. A dictionary provides the meaning, pronunciation, and etymology of words, not works of art or artists. And the contents of its entries are based on the accumulation of a long history of usage by millions of people, not a single voice revising itself in the last 30 years.
“Biographical” refers to he facts or events in a person’s life, and in the context of artists, to help us understand the origins of their aesthetic and motivations for their work. Thompson does supply some tidbits here and there, but hardly enough to compose an adequate life story of his subjects. Instead, he uses them to support his own aesthetic evaluation.
Am I quibbling? Perhaps. Nevertheless, Thompson’s title bothers me, because it helps disguise his personal rants and raves as something more objective than they are. Indeed, one can find his tome in the reference section of libraries. Where my former film students would often discover his preferences and quote them in term papers as if they were citing Webster—as if they were reciting an “official” and canonical series of “factual knowledge” about directors.
I question his “authority.” More importantly, I question the value of forking out money for his book. Is there any reason I should take Thompson any more seriously than the many intelligent, talented writers blogging all over the Internet? He’s just one voice among the millions. But he has managed to put himself on a pedestal by the residual power of almighty print.
Thomson's book is the one book I would recommend to anyone who wants to read a little bit more about movies than what one finds with Google or IMDb. Not because he is always right, accurate, or honest, but because he is a passionate and intelligent writer. On many subjects I wholeheartedly disagree with him, but it never bothers me, because he writes elegant, profound essays. Most movie blogs I read are simple reviews, rants or biographies, and I rarely get the feeling that these bloggers have a truly developed opinion on moviemaking — or writing. (This blog being an exception, needless to say...) Thomson is no film critic, he's a writer. And, incidentally, he writes about film. And does a heck of a job.
"It's a doom spiral romanticism, practically Byronic in its passionate sadness."
Ok, we're talking about a director who:
a. has his hero become a Peeping Tom and then a porn star, as well as featuring Melanie Griffith masturbating (Body Double)
b. build a movie around humping your daughter only partially accidentally (Obsession).
c. simulated sex on a public pool table (Femme Fatale) in a seedy bar.
d. totally gratutious repeated breast shots (Blow Out and Body Double).
I'm not saying any of that's bad perse, but a romantic this guy ain't. De Palma is quite willing to use women's bodies as merely things or objects for men's sexual use, for just one. (It's true that the movies do generally undercut that by having the women's bodies being displayed or sold by total sleazebags ......but De Palma still shows us the goods, so to speak.)
I don't see sadness in the vast majority of De Palma movies. I'm just not seeing it. Take Blow Out versus The Conversation - essentially the same plot setup. Take a look at how much shallower De Palma's Jack Terry is versus Coppola's Harry Caul. At the end of Blow Out, Terry is sad that his potential girlfriend got killed when he might have stopped it. Not a particularly deep characterization. I assume he's also sad that politics can be corrupt. Again, not very deep. Blow Out is simply not a very penetrating examination of political corruption. In general, Terry did a reasonably good job at fighting (and beating) the bad guy and even protecting the girl to some extent. She did get killed, but in general Terry did the right things, used his skills to help society and so on. Terry's own self-image ( and our image of him)is largely preserved.
At the end of The Conversation, we confront a Harry Caul who has had every preconception shattered - existentially, personally, politically, you name it. His skills destroy other people and himself. That's real sadness, not a superficial sadness about a lay you didn't get.
Jeroip:
I appreciate the distinction you make. It is all too obvious that the democracy of the Internet has made no guarantees that writing about film will be intelligent or pleasurable. Thompson is a superb writer, no question.
But I am a De Palma fan—no, let me put it more succinctly. I am a De Palma scholar, someone who has taken the time (more than I should, probably) to appreciate his work to the point that Thompson’s caricature of De Palma is not only simplistic, it is offensive to academic scholarship.
I do agree with you that the piece Thomson wrote on De Palma is a bit over the top. Taking Thomson's writing literally, you might start thinking he's the antichrist. But I have to agree with his observation that De Palma has a misanthropic streak. Which seems to rule out empathy, in his opinion. And that's where I disagree with him. The issue with his writing is that he seems unable to question his own opinions once he has formulated them. Thomson has a knack to present his personal preferences as theory or insight. And once he has formulated a theory he seems to have forgotten by then that it started out as an expression of personal taste. In this instance, his vision of De Palma as a misanthrope obviously amuses him, so he elaborates on the theme. But some of De Palma's films do not really fit into Thomson's misanthropic topology, so he has to force his rhetoric into weird constructions, which I think is highly entertaining.
It is obvious that De Palma has a heart. Thomson is overreacting, that's for sure. But he does have a point. Carrie is not a film that makes me root for an insecure, disturbed little girl. It's a freak show. Scarface does not show me the rise and fall of a great man who chose the wrong line of business. No, he's a smuck, and his death scene brought me a sense of relief. De Palma looks down on his subjects, with pity maybe, which is some kind of empathy, but not enough to convince me to love his characters. And Casualties of War felt like exploitative to me, as if he had made the deliberate choice to push all the emotional buttons he could find. These things bother me in Oliver Stone's pictures as well, but De Palma has annoyed me to such an extent, that it took me years before I could finally convince myself to take a look at Scarface — and I found out it is a great film, because De Palma put his misanthropy in it.
Alex: While I disagree with your comments about De Palma not being a romantic, I feel that you have at least, unlike Thomson, presented a sensible argument as to why you feel the way you do about some aspects of De Palma’s work. In my opinion, this is precisely what Thomson doesn’t do when he discusses – or should I simply say ‘lambastes’ – De Palma in his ‘Biographical Dictionary of Film’. However, I feel that De Palma is a romantic in all of the films you cite, and I’d like to address, one by one, the comments you made about ‘Body Double’, ‘Obsession’, ‘Femme Fatale’ and ‘Blow Out’ in your earlier post.
In ‘Body Double’, the protagonist, Jake, is clearly romantically obsessed with the woman he spies on and follows. However, his romantic illusions are shattered by subsequent events in the film, and he’s embarrassed by the adult film world that he finds himself attracted to, and later participating in. And as for Melanie Griffith, for me, she’s in the tradition of strong and sexual De Palma women. In this film, Griffith is comfortable with her line of work in the adult film industry and has no hang-ups about sex. This is in contrast to Jake, the supposed hero of the film, who is one of the many gullible De Palma protagonists who are suckered into a complicated scheme and ruthlessly exploited.
Moving on to ‘Obsession’, I for one am fascinated by the troubling questions it raises about blind romantic obsession. It’s a pity that – apparently – the distributors forced De Palma to tone down some aspects of the story and suggest that certain events in the latter half of the film were just a dream, thereby blunting the impact of the final scene (which, nevertheless, remains troubling). And the character of Laure in ‘Femme Fatale’ is clearly not only comfortable with sex, but knows how to use it to get what she wants (for example, posing as an unhappy wife in order to set up Antonio Banderas’s character as a blackmailer).
As for the gratuitous breast shots in ‘Blow Out’ and ‘Body Double’, I am curious to know which scenes you are referring to. In the case of ‘Body Double’, surely a film that is partially set in the adult film industry is going to feature at least some female nudity? And in ‘Blow Out’, off the top of my head, the only nudity I recall was, firstly, the moment where John Travolta’s character, Jack Terry, finds topless photographs of Nancy Allen’s character, Sally (a moment that isn’t presented salaciously), and secondly, the shower scene clips from a cheesy horror movie that Jack is working on, which feature a topless woman in peril (a movie that Jack clearly has contempt for – at one point he even jokes about the producer’s comment that the actresses are only being hired because of their breasts).
What fascinates me about De Palma is that he clearly finds women attractive and likes to put attractive women in his films (something that he’s not shy about admitting, which is extremely rare for any filmmaker), but at the same time he shows how women are exploited by men, particularly filmmakers. Clearly (as you suggested in your post), this is going to create conflicting impulses in his movies: for instance, although De Palma may comment on how films exploit women, his films also present some female characters in a context that could be seen as being exploitative. This tug-of-war between the intellectual, analytical response to images of women and the instinctive, impulsive response, is one of the most interesting things about De Palma’s films for me. In this respect, I think that ‘The Black Dahlia’ is a step forward for De Palma, focusing as it does on a real woman who was exploited by people in Hollywood and then brutally murdered.
Regarding your comparison between ‘The Conversation’ and ‘Blow Out’, I think there’s much more to Jack Terry’s character than solely being a man who failed to save a girl that he loved. As the flashback to Jack’s disastrous police undercover operation proved, he is tormented with guilt because he tried to do the right thing but failed, which led to a man’s gruesome death. It’s interesting that you compare ‘Blow Out’ and ‘The Conversation’, because I feel that both films go beyond the political into the personal.
In ‘The Conversation’, Harry Caul is a romantic, and Jack Terry is also a classic De Palma romantic hero. Jack is clearly interested in Sally and enjoys her company, but his idealised image of her is shattered when he sees the aforementioned topless photos. The ending of ‘Blow Out’ is one of the saddest that De Palma has ever crafted, and is reminiscent of ‘Casualties of War’, another De Palma film that is suffused with sadness. De Palma may be cynical, but when I watch a number of his films, I get the sense that he would love to see the fleeting romantic dream triumph over the frequently pessimistic reality. ‘Carlito’s Way’, ‘Mission: Impossible’ and ‘The Black Dahlia’ all present us with romantic protagonists who wish for a better life and the perfect woman; sentiments which can cloud their judgement and ultimately lead to tragedy.
Re: the image of Casualties of War --
I saw its screenshot on another blog, clicked, clicked, followed, finally gave up and googled until I found this post. I wanted to see what was being illustrated by that pic, since in my experience when people talk about Vietnam films, Casualties of War is never mentioned, and yet I found it unforgettable. Maybe I'm not talking to the right people? Anyway --
I'm glad it led me here.
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