10 June 2008

Body Double

I waited for several years to see this film. The only DVD I could ever located as "panned and scanned" and appeared to have been mastered for VHS shortly after the film was made in the 1980s.

Recently I was able to see an OAR HD showing of the film and found it infuriating -- as I do so often when watching DePalma's work.

On the one hand, there is a deft and beguiling updating of some key Hitchcock riffs -- largely from Vertigo, but also from Rear Window -- transplanted to a b-movie milieu of Hollywood and related locales in the 1980s. If that were all it was, it would be a timeless variation not unlike the best that been done by some French Hitchcock acolytes. But for some reason -- which I would attribute to studio or producer pressure to be commercial, or similarly to compromises to achieve funding for the film as a whole -- DePalma throws in some very silly, quickly dated moments.

An examples: The "masturbation dance" scenes, while important to the plot, suffer from a problem not too dissimilar from the shower scenes with Angie Dickinson in another DePalma almost-classic, Dressed to Kill: They are far more silly than sexy. Contrast, for example, with the Molly Parker masturbation scene in The Center of the World. Heck, contrast, for example, with Meg Ryan performing a fake orgasm in a deli in When Harry Met Sally.

It's bit and pieces like this (other examples include the quite forced foray of our hero into the adult film business) where DePalma's reach exceeds his grasp, that one wants to cringe because what we have is a terribly interesting, at times very good, but at times very silly, film, that COULD have been an unequivocal classic.

08 June 2008

The Out of Towners (1970) and Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

Anyone who has recently suffered at the hands of the travel -- especially airline -- industry via long waits, canceled flights, high prices, or poor service may take a modicum of comfort from queuing up these two films, chosen almost at random. Who knew that 40 years ago, one could get delayed and diverted and end up a situation not too different from 20 years ago, when Steve Martin made it so famously "funny". Cringe humor as comfort (as in misery loves company) at its best.