Synopsis
Naive young Karen wants to help her struggling amateur-filmmaker boyfriend Christopher raise enough money so he can divorce his wife. Meanwhile, jolly psycho prankster Otto stalks the building where Christopher is shooting a low-grade adult movie in order to keep himself afloat.Read More »
Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.Read More »
During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.Read More »
Masterclass Brian De Palma at Cinémathèque Française, 2 June 2018.Read More »
Quote:
Brian De Palma has often been accused of ripping off Hitchcock, the director he most admired as a young man. Nowhere is this influence more apparant than in Obsession which is so heavily inspired by Vertigo as to be suspiciously familiar. Having said that, De Palma’s film is very entertaining in its own right and full of technical virtuosity that serves the story as well as being impressive on a purely aesthetic level.
On a technical level, the film is astonishingly well made. It’s here that De Palma really demonstrates his imaginative brilliance as a director. This was present in large portions of Sisters and Phantom of The Paradise, and even in his early work like the obscure Get To Know Your Rabbit and the underrated Hi Mom, but it flowers in Obsession into a signature style that he has been using ever since.Read More »
Summary:
Loosely adapted by John Farris from his 1977 novel, the film opens on an Israeli beach, where retiring “government agent” Peter Sandza (Kirk Douglas) is enjoying an afternoon with son Robin (Andrew Stevens) and his partner in spying, Childress (John Cassavetes). In a conversation with his father, Robin shares his concerns about an unusual “talent” he possesses, which he fears will set him apart from his peers. (Can you guess what it is?) Peter assures him that everything will be fine once they’ve moved back to the U.S., where Robin will enroll at a Chicago psychic research center.Read More »
Quote:
Brian De Palma’s trickiest and most ambitious movies often earn the harshest reactions from audiences and critics. Many of the filmmaker’s most sophisticated acts of cinematic gamesmanship are seen by much of the populace, assuming they’re seen at all, as operating on an aesthetic plane that’s roughly equivalent to a fitfully amusing midnight Skinamax entry. Body Double, Femme Fatale’s cynical older cousin, weathered many of the usual accusations of the director’s unoriginality and misogyny.Read More »
A Vietnam vet moves into an apartment and views in other people’s windows across the street, meets one of the women, and discovers black theater.Read More »
This independent film was a joint effort by Sarah Lawrence theatre professor Wilford Leach and two of his students, protégé Brian De Palma and wealthy Cynthia Monroe, who bankrolled the project. The trio shared screen credit as writers, directors, and producers, although it is De Palma’s touch that is most evident in the film’s technical aspects, while Leach’s theatrical background suggests he was responsible for supervising the performances of the ensemble cast.
The film was made in 1963 but not released until six years later, after one of its supporting players, Robert De Niro, had begun to draw notice for his work in off-Broadway theatre and De Palma’s 1968 release Greetings. Also in the cast were Jennifer Salt and William Finley, both of whom were De Palma regulars, and fellow Sarah Lawrence student Jill Clayburgh as the bride-to-be.
(from wiki)Read More »