To clarify, this is the 2015 documentary from directors Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow, the De Palma in question of course being the great director & personal favorite Brian.
Holy mackerel, I could have watched two more hours of Brian De Palma discussing his films. This documentary was actually seen on HBO Max when I was still in Kansas one afternoon but there was a delay in writing the review until today. I’ve only seen about a quarter of the director’s movies yet that covers most of the heavy hitters and everything has been at least good, with some great pictures along the way.
The presentation is stunningly straightforward: De Palma sits in front of the camera and with prompting from an unseen and unheard interviewer, discusses his life from childhood to college, then continues on to all the films he directed, in chronological order, as various clips are shown. For all fans like me, they should be fascinated with all the information presented and the candid comments, whether positive or negative. The last few movies he did at the time weren’t discussed as much… then again, we tend to do the same with those ourselves.
A key aspect to note is that everything is edited together rather well; I wanted more info yet that may have messed up the pacing and as is the flow is usually impeccable & how it transitions between films can be rather creative at times. Believe it or not, this is my first Noah Baumbach; I’ve never been too interested in the pictures he directed on his own but there’s a great idea to compare & contrast Marriage Story to the similar Bergman theatrical version of Scenes from a Marriage. Anyhow, this also inspires me to check out something from De Palma, which should be the next review I do.
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