It’s really baffling to think about how De Palma made films such as Body Double and then went on to make the first Mission: Impossible . ...
It’s really baffling to think about how De Palma made films such as Body Double and then went on to make the first Mission: Impossible. His style of filmmaking drastically changed for that one film: gone were the days when De Palma’s films were full of erotic imagery.
De Palma’s greatest achievement — for me, at least — is his string of three films from 1980 to 1984: Dressed to Kill, Body Double and Blow Out. De Palma, with these three films, basically reinvented the erotic thriller genre (though Blow Out cannot be considered an erotic thriller when put beside the other two films) and American remakes of beloved classics and international films. Two of these films — Dressed to Kill and Body Double — were inspired (though inspired is too insignificant a word for it) by two of Hitchcock’s most famous films: Psycho and Rear Window. De Palma, with his erotic thrillers, basically did what Hitchcock wanted to do all his life. De Palma carefully chose the film he would remake and then added the De Palma touch to it.
Dressed to Kill, for the entire first 34 minutes, feels like a pervert’s wet dream: we get innumerable lingering close-up shots of Angie Dickinson’s groin (that too in the first five minutes of the film). But underneath the B-movie erotica, it portrays itself as it is a fascinating film filled with motifs. One interesting thing I noticed on my re-watch of the film was that it was Michael Caine who was shaving in the first scene whilst Angie Dickinson bathed sensually — it feels like a scene from a vintage porno. There is one other really subtle instance in the film that tells us that Angie Dickinson’s character is attracted to her therapist, played by Michael Caine, when she asks him, and I quote, “Do you find me attractive?” There are a lot of subtle nuances in the film that may not be noticed on the first watch — Dressed to Kill is, after all, a masterclass in filmmaking and deserves to be studied.
The film is also especially transphobic (well, so was Hitchcock’s Psycho), but De Palma didn’t try to cover it up like Hitchcock did. De Palma’s films (of that era) usually opened with a shot — or sometimes, multiple shots — of naked women or girls; Carrie opened with a shot of the girls’ locker room, where the girls changed their clothes, and this opened with Angie Dickinson bathing sensually. That, according to my analysis, is to subvert the viewer’s expectations as to where the film is going to go since both the films I mentioned end rather violently. De Palma brilliantly subverts the viewer’s expectations (‘Wasn’t this supposed to be an erotica?’), and while doing so, his skill comes to life. He is, no doubt, an excessively talented filmmaker who may have fallen off his throne after the celluloid market started to go downhill. Roger Ebert, in his review for Dressed to Kill, said, ‘Dressed to Kill is an exercise in style, not narrative; it would rather look and feel like a thriller than make sense, but De Palma has so much fun with the conventions of the thriller that we forgive him and go along,’ and that is true: Dressed to Kill feels more like an exercise in style that it does a film, and isn’t that style excessively aesthetically pleasing? Dressed to Kill, for the most part, feels and is made like a B-movie — and it may very well even be that — but it’s the style that makes the film De Palma-esque. De Palma’s style is unparalleled.
Body Double, another Hitchcock remake, is a whole different film in terms of its themes from Dressed to Kill. It’s about perversion and voyeurism—something that feels rather self-reflective. The film, like all of De Palma’s films, is excellently shot and is excessively aesthetically pleasing in the way it plays with the lighting and the lenses. It’s less cynical than Dressed to Kill and Blow Out but is cynical in its own way. One thing that De Palma’s films have cemented is that men are perverts, and Body Double is no different. Voyeurism — which also played a large part in Hitchcock’s Rear Window — is doubled, rather tripled in this (like with all De Palma Hitchcock remakes), and is more thematically rich than the original film. It plays with every theme like it plays with the camera and lenses — subverting audience expectations much like all his films. Body Double is made like a B movie, but that’s more or less the charm of De Palma’s erotic thrillers: they feel trashy but are high-art. The film is tonally consistent and feels less like an exercise in style and more of an actual film. The film also features some really good performances (when compared to Dressed to Kill), which are really convincing. It’s also a commentary on B movies in general, and how life, more or less, is like a B movie. The main character is a B movie actor, in hopes of becoming a big-shot actor, but then he gets wrapped up in a kind of B movie scenario. The film, ultimately, amounts to nothing, adding an existential touch to it.
Body Double is a masterpiece and the most De Palma-esque film compared to all his erotic thrillers. The new 4k remaster truly brings forth the beauty of the film’s cinematography, which holds the viewers by their throats and doesn’t let go (see: mall sequence). The direction is absolutely splendid — De Palma, at the peak of his career, directed this.
Blow Out is my favourite De Palma film — no other film by the man comes close. It’s his most cynical, his most pessimistic, and it’s beautiful. The moodiest film out of the three, giving off a jazzy vibe filled with neon lights, and stylistically his best, Blow Out is an absolute masterpiece. Starring John Travolta and Nancy Allen, Blow Out is a remake of Antonioni's Blow Up — an existential masterpiece. De Palma followed Antonioni’s footsteps and incorporated so much existentialism in Blow Out that it almost feels philosophical at times. The least explicit film out of the three, De Palma proves his haters wrong who say, ‘He can’t make a film without nudity in it,’ granted the film has a couple of nude scenes, it feels different from all his other films. It’s not hypermasculine or even over-the-top; it’s really mellow, and subtle in it’s themes. The film is a love letter to B movies in every way possible. Easily De Palma’s most aesthetically pleasing film (that includes Carrie — another masterpiece), and his most aesthetic in its tone — a moody, jazzy, neon-filled tone. John Travolta gives an excellent performance, and Nancy Allen, as usual, is sub-par, but the person who really steals the show is John Lithgow, who’s as menacing as can be. Restored in 4k by Criterion, it’s a really beautiful film with breathtaking shots and sound design that needs to be seen by everybody for people to actually hail De Palma as a true master and not some copy artist. The film is also his most melancholic — it ends rather sadly: ‘That’s a good scream.’ Breathtaking camerawork elevates this film which would’ve been a masterpiece regardless of the camerawork. Easily De Palma’s best direction, this is his magnum opus.
(All three films talked about here are available in 4k now)
-By Ravit Mishra
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