Domino (Brian De Palma, 2019)

[knives]

I like Snake Eyes. This still looks like crap though.

[KJones77]

re: R0lf,

Does this mean I’m alone (or nearly) in considering Snake Eyes one of De Palma’s masterpieces? But then, the only films of his that are complete failures in my eyes are Wiseguys and Get to Know Your Rabbit. Even Mission to Mars and Bonfire of the Vanities have at least enough technique to keep the viewer engaged. I’m intrigued by the idea of a De Palma/Alcaine collaboration, even if it’s on something of a failed film.

Definitely not. I love Snake Eyes. For me, it's his last absolutely great film.

Its been a while since I saw it, so this comment reminded that Snake Eyes is due for a rewatch.

[dda1996a]

Snake Eyes is great the first half and then loses itself when the tsunami starts overtaking the plot, but at least it doesn't feel Stoopid like so many De Palma films do (I like the guy but I'm still interested in finding out how he got such awful scripts bankrolled)

[colinr0380]

I assume with something like Snake Eyes that people knew that the style would more than make up for any script problems, especially that split screen sequence of characters in different parts of the stadium leading up to the shooting that recaptures a bit of the pizazz of Phantom of the Paradise's ticking time bomb scene. It also feels a little that some of the paranoiacally shifting character motivations and untrustworthy old friends turned authority figures in Snake Eyes could be like a hang over after Mission: Impossible. That makes the storm scene at the end the similarly over the top equivalent of the Channel Tunnel sequence, I suppose!

I mean logically it is crazy that none of the construction workers could see (or feel!) the object in the final shot of the film that plays out under the end credits, but for filmic impact its great (and its a romantic long goodbye to match the dancing at the end of Carlito's Way).

I keep hearing that Femme Fatale from 2002 is great, though I still have yet to sit down with it. I love 2007's Redacted though.

[R0lf]

If you’re a DePalma apologist (I’m one) you’ll enjoy DOMINO. DePalma certainly hasn’t gone backwards with this after PASSION. And it’s definitely not the fast cut with INCEPTION daaaaaaaangs movie of the trailer.

[RitrovataBlue]

I’m more than an apologist; I consider De Palma the best American filmmaker of the second half of the twentieth century (with the possible exception of Altman).

As for the Snake Eyes script, I’m fairly sure everyone involved was quite happy to be producing an original screenplay by the writer who adapted Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible into blockbusters. As for its floridity/silly twists/“cheesiness,” aren’t those critical elements of the De Palma aesthetic? If anything, the Snake Eyes script is perfectly suited to De Palma, maybe moreso than any other screenplay he didn’t write. From the “roving eye” camera to the blatant disgust with capitalism, nearly every detail of the script reflects its director’s point of view.

[Lost Highway]

I assume with something like Snake Eyes that people knew that the style would more than make up for any script problems, especially that split screen sequence of characters in different parts of the stadium leading up to the shooting that recaptures a bit of the pizazz of Phantom of the Paradise's ticking time bomb scene. It also feels a little that some of the paranoiacally shifting character motivations and untrustworthy old friends turned authority figures in Snake Eyes could be like a hang over after Mission: Impossible. That makes the storm scene at the end the similarly over the top equivalent of the Channel Tunnel sequence, I suppose!

I mean logically it is crazy that none of the construction workers could see (or feel!) the object in the final shot of the film that plays out under the end credits, but for filmic impact its great (and its a romantic long goodbye to match the dancing at the end of Carlito's Way).

I keep hearing that Femme Fatale from 2002 is great, though I still have yet to sit down with it. I love 2007's Redacted though.

I’m puzzled why anybody would chose a Snake Eyes over Femme Fatale, I think it’s one of De Palma’s best. I like Snake Eyes but it feels hampered by reshoots to change a last act it clearly moves towards. Femme Fatale is De Palma at his most baroque and it strikes me as a wonderful companion piece to Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. De Palma’s movies rarely get discussed in terms of performances but had the film been a financial success it should have made Rebecca Romijn a star, she is sensational.

[tenia]

I always found Femme fatale extremely vulgar and cheap looking. At least from a pure production design, Snake Eyes felt better to me. It's been a long tome since I last seen any of them, though, so that might be my memory speaking.

[Lost Highway]

I’ll take the small drawbacks of a lower budget in exchange for one of De Palma‘s most fully realised and flamboyantly daring movies over the drawbacks of endless studio compromises any day. To accuse De Palma of vulgarity is like accusing Bresson of restraint.

[R0lf]

That’s the great thing about DePalma because his movies are vulgar and cheap and obviously of their time the of-their-time-ness then becomes nostalgia and retro charm and being well put together that translates into their reappraisal for the next generation. The garish set pieces with the vulgar fashions and the current tech are so ubiquitous for us now but they’ll age quickly and will turn into ripe pickings.

[tenia]

I'll understand the point about vulgarity and DePalma, but I still seem to remember drawing some kind of line. I like some of his earlier movies (much more that I'd have expected, actually) like Phantom of the Paradise (a lot !), The Fury, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. But things like Scarface or Femme fatale, I just can't.

[Mr Sausage]

matrixschmatrix, I think in the 80's List thread, drew a line with Body Double and its big murder set piece. He found the vulgarity so extreme and offensive that it eroded his trust in de Palma and his methods and made him wonder if the good faith with which he had previously watched de Palma's films had been misplaced.

[Lost Highway]

Body Double was a deliberate act by De Palma to troll his critics. He stuffed everything in there they took offense to. With that in mind, you
either find the blatant provocations and “vulgar” excesses of the film hilarious or you reach for the smelling salt.

[tenia]

matrixschmatrix, I think in the 80's List thread, drew a line with Body Double and its big murder set piece. He found the vulgarity so extreme and offensive that it eroded his trust in de Palma and his methods and made him wonder if the good faith with which he had previously watched de Palma's films had been misplaced.

I'm not too far away from this, though I mostly laughed at Body Double grand-guignol style. However, I'm coming as someone who tended to dislike DePalma's movies younger, but rewatched them more recently and happened to reassess them positively. Except for Phantom which I always liked a lot, movies like the ones I wrote were movies I disliked. However, I found myself to like less and less Carrie, and always disliked Scarface and Obsession. That might not be where most people comes from about DePalma.

[dda1996a]

I still think Carrie is his best, basing it on a good script allowing De Palma to throw his grand style while having a good core. Body Double is just stupid. Has a lot of style but even not being taken seriously it is unbelievably stupid. I still think Hi Mom!'s second half is the best he's done though.

[Randall Maysin]

Are the two really unquestionably offensive and horrible things in De Palma's films for me that I can think of, the drill-rape-murder in Body Double (OK I haven't actually seen it) and the Angie Dickinson elevator slaughter in Dressed to Kill, really both genuine expression of something creepy and inhuman, or whatever, about De Palma himself, or are they just two big fat fu*king tone-deaf mistakes, that he can be "forgiven" for? What does he have to say about the controversy around these two set-pieces, and his intentions with them? Just curious.

[Mr Sausage]

matrixschmatrix, I think in the 80's List thread, drew a line with Body Double and its big murder set piece. He found the vulgarity so extreme and offensive that it eroded his trust in de Palma and his methods and made him wonder if the good faith with which he had previously watched de Palma's films had been misplaced.

I'm not too far away from this, though I mostly laughed at Body Double grand-guignol style. However, I'm coming as someone who tended to dislike DePalma's movies younger, but rewatched them more recently and happened to reassess them positively. Except for Phantom which I always liked a lot, movies like the ones I wrote were movies I disliked. However, I found myself to like less and less Carrie, and always disliked Scarface and Obsession. That might not be where most people comes from about DePalma.

I was mostly indifferent to Body Double. I'm lukewarm on De Palma in general, but actually rank Obsession and Carrie among his best (along with Carlito's Way). I've never liked Scarface either, nor understood the people who saw it as a criticism of anything.

[colinr0380]

Body Double is perhaps better than Vertigo! It certainly gets into the hero's flaws more! Though I think its important to see Body Double as the final part of a trilogy with Dressed To Kill and Blow Out, as well as the more 'synthetic' one with Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffiths as slightly too movie starry in the roles that really should be played by De Palma regulars Nancy Allen and William Finley. But I have come to feel that it is actually the point of the film, working as yet another set of 'body doubles'. Here's something I previously wrote about De Palma and Body Double in particular in the horror thread:

I love The Fury for its fusing of Carrie with the political thriller genre. Though I do concede that I saw it in my early teens where it perhaps had the most impact - I fell in love with all of the actresses in the film to a greater or lesser extent (the Pong playing, ice cream sundae building montage sequence sold me most on Hester though!), which only made the horrible (and horribly amusing!) deaths all the more shocking! I love the slow motion escape scene, the scene on the bus, the strange digressions with Kirk Douglas breaking into an elderly couple's apartment, and so on! Its all silly, extreme, operatic grand guignol but that worked very well, I thought, only highlighting the ridiculousness of convoluted and nebulous political conspiracy genre all the more! (Its like its taking the essential elements of a particular kind of film and pushing it to the limits to glory in the spectacle and emotion of it all) Plus the spinning death here works much better than the limp CGI recreated version that occurs in Mission To Mars.

I kind of think of Body Double as pure De Palma - its the one that you'll either love or hate because it pushes his style, the sex and violence and some of the things that people find casually cruel and flippant about the filmmaker to its absolute limits. But that's part of what makes it amazing, I think! Its a film I find difficult to recommend outside of somewhere like this forum, as I think people would be appalled at my taste and for having recommended it to them (I think I've moved a bit beyond worrying too much about expressing my bizarre opinions on the forum at this point!), but its endlessly fascinating. And its also a film that seems completely aimless and pointless for about three quarters of its running time unless you pick up on the Vertigo and general Hitchcock angle (which I completely missed on my first viewing! It kind of turns into a completely different film when the audience approaches it with that information!)

Plus also Body Double turns into a porn film/music video to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax (NSFW) at the mid-way mark that is brilliantly audacious and the (literal!) climax of the Vertigo allusions.

Blow Out, Dressed to Kill and Body Double strike me as the perfect trilogy as they feel very much of the same aesthetic and dealing with the same themes, just weighting them differently (much as Carrie and The Fury are a good pairing, or Scarface and Carlito's Way work well together). Within their similarities Blow Out strikes me as the more emotional and dramatic film, Dressed to Kill is the best genre thriller and Body Double is the best metatextual, layers of film referencing one interested in fantasy and reality being mixed up. Though of course all three feature all of those elements to a greater or lesser extent!

There is a scene in Body Double very similar to the Psycho-style lift scene in Dressed To Kill. And I think Melanie Griffiths here, as the nice-but-dim adult film actress is very much in the vein of Nancy Allen's character from Blow Out, albeit even more pushed into being a bit irritating! So much so that I wonder if De Palma was originally intending for Nancy Allen to play the part. And the film within a film that begins Blow Out gets hugely expanded in Body Double into bookending stagefright scenes but also our main character being a frustrated and literally cuckolded out of work actor, rather than the private investigator of Vertigo!

And here's a bit more on Body Double:

It’s a very voyeuristic film and very much the ‘male gaze’ companion piece to Dressed to Kill, which felt as if it was privileging the viewpoint of the female characters more (to such an extent that Dressed To Kill resulted in the killer only being able to give licence to their urges Psycho-style by unleashing his repressed female side! It makes Nancy Allen’s attempted seduction scene in retrospect seem almost a taunting of the killer by true femininity!).

Its also a kind of veiled critique of masculinity in the sense that our hero is regularly failing to ‘perform’ in all areas of his life! (Its why I kind of identify with the character!). He’s sort of paralysed by his voyeuristic tendencies in all sorts of ways from his stagefright paralysis in his auditions to literally seeing his girlfriend in bed with someone else, to eventually finding himself in the too good to be true situation of housesitting across from an uninhibited neighbour with a handy telescope to hand! (In some ways the scene in Carlito's Way of spying on the object of affection also bears a lot of comparison to Body Double. They are both scenes couched in a kind of glossy objectifiying and glorifying point of view of the unattainable female figure)

It might be a blunt metaphor but the early adultery scene and the mid-point murder itself are kind of putting our hero into a passive spectatorship role to watch a more masculine figure ‘take’ the woman he cares for in front of his eyes. The failed attempt to save the woman (itself like the climax of Blow Out) isn’t just a way of drawing out the horror but a more concerted attempt of our hero to actually try and become the hero of his own narrative, to save the girl and the day and get a kiss, much as he falteringly had first tried to do with the mugger on the beach.

His failure pushes him back (after admonishment from the tough guy cop types, less interested in catching the phallic power drill wielding killer than being disgusted at our lead character’s creepy, stalkerish behaviour!) into the voyeuristic role, abandoned by the narrative much as Scottie in Vertigo is left in limbo after the initial suicide. But rather than abandoning his passive skills of observation, that is the aspect that he uses to solve the mystery.

The second half of the film from the murder on is about our lead learning to put his ‘unique set of talents’ to effective use, from putting the clues together, to convincingly acting the part of ‘The Nerd’ in the film within the film, to confronting his fear of enclosed spaces, saving the girl (who is amusingly played by Melanie Griffiths as someone who really doesn’t like being used either in a murder plot or as part of our hero’s self actualisation process!), and overcoming the dominant masculine figure who has been pulling all the strings behind the scenes in the way that Scottie in Vertigo singularly failed to do!

Really the whole film is kind of its bookending performance scenes with the opening of our lead being humiliated by his gruff director, played by Dennis Franz, and seemingly fired for his panic attack. Then the final scene is him back on set as one of your confident and sexy Twilight-anticipating vampires, extremely comfortable in confronting a lady in her shower stall, while the director (and his new self assured manager-style girlfriend) watch on approvingly.

It sort of suggests that the film is also a kind of a veiled take on ‘method acting’ with the actor unsure of how to play a scene and paralysed by fear at first drawing on his ‘real life’ experiences to give him the confidence to tackle his role.

This perhaps leads me to one of my few qualms about the film, though its not a deal breaking one. Much as I think Melanie Griffiths’ part feels like a Nancy Allen one, I get the impression that Craig Wasson’s lead role should very much be seen as a William Finley-styled one. In some ways Wasson is too handsome for the part of a bullied nerd lusting after and stalking a woman out of his league, before eventually saving the day. Just imagining William Finley in the lead role (as he was in Phantom of the Paradise) suddenly made a lot of the intent of the film click into place for me. Although in some ways that re-casting, doubling (crudening? remaking?) itself feels like it adds another intriguing metatextual element to the film. It sort of emphasises that synthetic quality even further.

[dda1996a]

Saying it's better than Vertigo is just plain madness. It's not the violence or sexism that bothered me really. Just how stupid it all works out, and how some scenes are just cliched and staged badly (like the whole tunnel chase, and the last part in the cemetery). I don't hate the film, as I've long considered D-P a brilliant stylist. It's a shame a lot of his scripts aren't even C grade schlock.

[knives]

I am with Colin though I have been a little mad.

[colinr0380]

I suppose Vertigo might be a little better! The comments should be taken with the pinch of salt that I pretty much like every De Palma film other than Mission To Mars, which felt disappointing because of how it seemed like the space setting stifled the style somewhat, making it fall in between the stools of either hard sci-fi or baroque and operatic excessiveness. Though I probably should revisit it at some point to see if I have mellowed towards it.

[whaleallright]

some scenes are just cliched and staged badly

That's the thing for me... Even in many of De Palma's best films, outside of the sometimes fabulous and much-remarked-upon set pieces, there are stretches of scenes—just plain expository dialogue scenes, and sometimes action scenes—that are almost incompetently made, tedious and strained. Blow Up is another good example... the stuff on the bridge is plenty exciting as a stylistic tour de force, but then there are long conversation scenes with Nancy Allen in which everything (line readings, camera placement...) just seems totally indifferent, and then the climactic car chase seems mostly bungled to me--though I guess some could invert that valuation by calling it fabulously over-the-top or something like that.

There are only a tiny handful of De Palma films I've seen where he seems to be firing on most (not all) cylinders for most of the picture. I have to admit that one of his least "personal" films, Mission: Impossible, seems to me to be one of his most fully achieved.

It seems to me that younger cinephiles (Gen X and especially millennials, I guess) seem more willing to accept De Palma as he is, as a kind of carnival-ride auteur, rather than have the long fights that older (Boomer) critics seemed to have over his work, debating whether it was shlock or art. Maybe the distance of years, both from De Palma's early films and from the Hitchcock films he so gleefully ripped off/paid homage to, has burnished the former a little bit, made the accusations of plagiarism and such seem a little besides the point.... But personally I have a hard time accepting him as any kind of great director. At best, a maker of great moments.

[knives]

I literally don't see what you are talking about at all with the Allen scenes. Also if John Waters has taught us anything it's art is schlock.

[Lost Highway]

I don’t get the complaints about poor staging in between the set pieces in Blow Out either. De Palma is well aware of that and he does some interesting stuff with the flashbacks. Even Hitchcock struggled with making exposition interesting, like the information dump at the end of Psycho. At least De Palma set his version of that scene in the World Trade Center and turned it into dark comedy in Dressed to Kill. He then made a more elaborate joke of the obligatory exposition sequence with that endless tracking shot in Raising Cain where Frances Sternhagen explains the plot.

[Cold Bishop]

Dressed to Kill is interesting precisely because he seems to throw some wrench into every exposition scene to make it more interesting, be it the surveillance in the precinct; the layered scene with the tv-interview further layered with split screen; or the gallow humor of the ending explanation, mirrored by the sickened reactions of the extras. It’s not my favorite De Palma, but it’s one of the more successful in trying to make every scene interesting.

I have to agree that the chase leading up to the fireworks in Blow Up is bizarrely limp; the biggest crime is that he has a brilliant idea that he lets go to waste:

SpoilerShow

I always thought the notion of a chase scene where the pursuer has only sound to go by – trying to match precise sound to a deluge of imprecise images – to be a great (not to mention thoroughly De Palma) conceit that the film just blows past

It could have been the opening of The Conversation reimagined as an action scene, and De Palma does nothing with it. If I ever wrote a thriller, I’d find a way to redo that scene.