Not every great director arrives on the scene fully formed with a wealth of great ideas- as this quasi-horror feature-length debut from Brian De Palma, shot with the help of his arty warehouse mates from the Lower East Side over a number of weeks in early 1968, proves.
OK, to be fair, it's not dreadful in the true sense of the word- but its blatant lifting of French New Wave techniques and experimental sub-Brakhage camera angles [sprinkled with the Hitch homages that would soon become his stock-in-trade, and garnished with a touch of Cormansploitation] can't disguise the fact that it really doesn't have much of a storyline to speak of. Though on the upside, at 77 minutes, at least it's relatively brief....
Apparently his next effort GREETINGS [1968] a college comedy starring some young naif called Bobby DeNiro, isn't that great either, but I'll have to wait until I've seen it to let you know: the same could also probably be said for his next three 'knockabout comedy' features, but come 1972, he would thankfully redeem himself almost overnight with the outstanding SISTERS, and a back-to-back run of nine more brilliant pictures [comprising one of THE most astoundingly consistent bodies of work in American cinema] would subsequently follow. Sadly, after BODY DOUBLE [1984] he tailed off again and didn't quite 'get it back' until RAISING CAIN in 1993, and his latterday output has been tepid-to-middling at best- but whatever your preference, if you're curious to see where it all began AND don't mind lowering your expectations a tad, start here. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
NB: Disappointingly, it also contains no actual Mods- although given that they were a strictly European phenomenon at the time [even in spite of their adoration of Black American jazz, soul and RnB] that's not really THAT surprising.
OK, to be fair, it's not dreadful in the true sense of the word- but its blatant lifting of French New Wave techniques and experimental sub-Brakhage camera angles [sprinkled with the Hitch homages that would soon become his stock-in-trade, and garnished with a touch of Cormansploitation] can't disguise the fact that it really doesn't have much of a storyline to speak of. Though on the upside, at 77 minutes, at least it's relatively brief....
Apparently his next effort GREETINGS [1968] a college comedy starring some young naif called Bobby DeNiro, isn't that great either, but I'll have to wait until I've seen it to let you know: the same could also probably be said for his next three 'knockabout comedy' features, but come 1972, he would thankfully redeem himself almost overnight with the outstanding SISTERS, and a back-to-back run of nine more brilliant pictures [comprising one of THE most astoundingly consistent bodies of work in American cinema] would subsequently follow. Sadly, after BODY DOUBLE [1984] he tailed off again and didn't quite 'get it back' until RAISING CAIN in 1993, and his latterday output has been tepid-to-middling at best- but whatever your preference, if you're curious to see where it all began AND don't mind lowering your expectations a tad, start here. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
NB: Disappointingly, it also contains no actual Mods- although given that they were a strictly European phenomenon at the time [even in spite of their adoration of Black American jazz, soul and RnB] that's not really THAT surprising.
statistics: Posted by Wyngarde — 11:47 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 0 — Views 66