It’s always been a convenient avenue for critical dismissal to view Brian De Palma’s films as impersonal. As the director says himself in Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s eponymous documentary opening this week, he makes films from the outside in — beginning with the visual lexicon of the narrative, then connecting that architecture with living characters and scenes. Some struggle to defend their affinity for his films. The targets are legion. One is the voyeur’s presence in most of them — almost always misconstrued by detractors and, if only in the most fleeting moments, pegged as either contrivance, obsession, or […]
by Evan Louison on Jun 7, 2016Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma is a fans-only interview session with the director. Straightforward, even staid in its construction, it consists almost entirely of two shots of a seated De Palma — one in medium close-up, the other presumably punched-in in post — and appositely illustrative clips and stills. The film currently only has two credits: the opening all-caps title “DE PALMA” scrolling left to right in lurid red, and a closing copyright credit (hard-working editors will, presumably, be thanked at a later date). Interlocutors Baumbach and Paltrow are never heard; according to this useful interview, they never even considered […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 30, 2015