“De Palma” is a deceptively simple documentary film: Director Brian De Palma sits in front of a fireplace for nearly two hours and talks about his life and career.
If you love movies, it’s time well spent.
De Palma has had his share of hits: “Carrie,” “Dressed to Kill,” “Body Double,” “Scarface,” “The Untouchables” and more. Along with pals George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese he was part of the New Hollywood that managed to make art while operating under the studio system, a circumstance De Palma acknowledges will never happen again.
He’s also had some big flops; “The Bonfire of the Vanities” bombed so badly it serves as a stand-in for the rest. (It even inspired a book, “The Devil’s Candy,” whose subtitle is “The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco,” if that tells you anything; it comes up for discussion as well.) The director would not disagree with the assessment of the film, though he might on the details of why.
Through good times and bad, De Palma has always been recognized as a director with a distinctive, vivid visual style — and called out for stylized, almost fetishistic violence, particularly against women.
Whatever problems these dichotomies may have created in De Palma’s life and work, they make “De Palma” that much better as a film. He doesn’t shy away from talking about his flops or his critics, or anything else, really. And he is a man of conviction. With a straight face he will say that the killer in “Body Double” had to use a gigantic drill bit to kill the woman, because he needed the bit to pass through her body and through the floor into the ceiling of the room below, dripping blood. See? Makes perfect sense to him. Your opinions may vary, but your attention will not wane.
Directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, friends and colleagues of De Palma, direct the documentary. They never appear on-screen and we never hear them, but De Palma is obviously comfortable talking to them. Or maybe he just can’t help himself. Whatever the case, the audience is the winner, because the man has been around, and he isn’t afraid to name names. (He also seems to remember, to the penny, how much each film cost to make, and how much the studio wanted to spend.)
For instance, he has no problem talking about Cliff Robertson being jealous of Geneviéve Bujold’s powerful work in “Obsession.” The actor tried to derail her performance, De Palma says, giving her little to work with. In “Casualties of War” Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox’s characters are at odds, so Penn, method actor that he is, was belligerent toward Fox during shooting. Was it to coax a reaction from Fox, or is that just Penn? Who knows, but at one point he walked past the sitcom-famous Fox and whispered “TV actor” to get a rise out of him.
Baumbach and Paltrow include well-chosen clips from De Palma’s films to illustrate his stories; they also include clips from films that influenced him, particularly Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” Anyone who has seen a De Palma film knows of Hitchcock’s influence on his style. De Palma not only does not deny this, he embraces it, thinking of himself as Hitchcock’s one true heir in terms of visual storytelling.
There are worse influences.
The hidden magic in “De Palma” is Baumbach and Paltrow’s editing. The pacing is just right, and the stories flow, one from another. Sit back, relax, watch, listen and learn. It’s a good time at the movies.
★★★1⁄2
A24 presents a documentary directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. Rated R (for violent images, graphic nudity, sexual content and some language). Running time: 107 minutes. Opens Friday at the Music Box Theater.
