good , no matte r which way yo u think abo ut it). feels it's be tte r, less te rrifying, if you ca n e m p ty that Marcia Pally's inte rview in the last issue revea ls D e matte r out and get a look at what's insid e. 1 he te nsion on the surface of everyone's skin is such, in a De Palma to be what I would have expected : we ll awa re Palma image, that I suspect everyone in the th ea te r, of whe re his tale nt lies, sharp as a tack whe n it co mes male and fe male, feels a certain re li ef w he n someone to himself and what inte rests him . But he's the sexist fin ally tests thi s boundary with a knife , w he n the long he says he isn' t, and the libe ral he pre te nds not to be, fea red explosion or implosion of fl esh fin ally arri ves. wafflin g around in the received bl acks and whites of (This is th e lite ral scenario at th e e nd of The Fury.) De the Cold War, aesthetic freedom versus \" Russia\" (with Palma sca res you out of your senses; th e erotic is a way freedom winning); then , late r, hypoc ritica lly, \" profit\" stati on but not hi s real des tination-which is the is a dirty word . In gene ral, a not unusual me ntal blood itself. morass. Once he's off hi s subj ect, the re's no more reason to liste n to him than to th e bl eeps of a com- Ofcourse I reserve m y critic's ri ght to be rea ll y nasty pute r ga me. about D e Palma whe n I wa nt to be. T ake hi s new Body Double, which I' ve not ye t see n. Maybe I'll just His movies, though. I' ve always liked the m. Even hate it, as increas ingly I hate d the self-co ngratu latory though they' re a tad too scary for my fea r thres hold ; excesses of Scaiface. a bloa ted mov ie which fin all y eve n though they' re full of me n cuttin g up wome n. left me bore d. Some how D e Palm a has given me more th an he's take n away. I' ve lea rned from him -a bout male fea r, I find D e Palm a's path ology intri guing, cin e mati- about a ce rtain familiar hys te ria about bound ari es cally co mpe lling, but make no grande r cl aim for him. amo ng me n th e mselves and be twee n me n and In fact, misogyny is probably a kind of ro t th at ca n wome n. De Palma's phobic attraction-re pulsion toward make bad inroads into a big tale nt. De Palm a had his female icons feels, at moments, mythic. Women be tte r wa tch o ut: Sexual viole nce is a dangero us glitte r and corusca te on his screen; whe n th e ir high the me beca use it is so charged for everyone. If he heels hit th e gro und , it hurts. Beca use D e Palma is shame less about his love/hate, and beca use he has th e doesn' t kee p making discove ries about hi s obsessions conce ntrated powe r with a ca me ra to pe rsuade us that (as his me ntor Hitchcock always did ), his painfully his fantasies have the ir allure, he suggests the con- suggesti ve bloodlettings will become me re special tours of viole nt fantasy as none of the ploddin g studies effec ts. A successful sexpl oitation di rector ca n coast by psyc hologists or sociologists begin to do. on received ideas about what was once hi s own nasty, inte resting so ul and stop te llin g us anything about the I can hea r th e outraged voices from the anti -porn og- nas tiness, th e so ul , or th e pl ace whe re they mee t. raphy moveme nt: For this you need Brian D e Palma? You have to sit and watch viole nt sexual fantas ies to It's inte resting to re me m be r that in D e Pa lm a's furth e r re fin e your unde rstandin g of th e obvious, of ea rl y stuff, he co nce ntrated on male vulne rab ili ty. just how much, and in what ways, me n hate and fea r Maybe The Phantom of the Paradise was hi s hi ghest wome n? point. T he re paranoia was not ge n<:\\e red and me n we re the ruin ed, threa te ned , impri soned, sex uall y L e t me defe nd myself: My answe r is yes. Iffilm is a va ndalized ones. Nothing was safe. T hi s is what De way of knowing- and it is-De Palma has e mbodied Palm a makes mov ies about- th e thin fl es h vve' ve all things for me I know be tte r now, for having known got and his hideous, wo man-obsessed fea r of this fac t. him and hi s narrow, crazy, lurid horror show. Maybe in someone already so inclined, a D e Palm a scene could T he re just mi ght be a thread of justice in the laws of be lite rall y suggesti ve of acts to be pe rform ed on th e aes th e tics, which call th e mindless ly furi ous, th e de- actual bodies of women , but this wo uld be a rare case. structi ve ly fea rful , the co mpul sive bloodl e tte rs - H e is such a ph antaste; his film s are so tinted and the ir howeve r tale nte d - to acco unt. ( D e batabl e, and threat so primal that th e e ffect he is far mo re like ly to much de bated , thi s.) In any case, it is to such judg- produce is one of e motional de ple tion, te rrifie d avoid- me nts th at we m ust leave D e Palm a. No lite rall egisla- ance, eve n, pe rhaps, catharsis. tion I can imagine could poss ibly have a bea ring on the difficulti es of his \"case.\" Bannin g is too negati ve a In D e Palma, women's bodies are translucent bags that can barely keep in a wealth of inte rior matte r. H e - -power for feminist purposes. What we need is more power to make mov ies. 49
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by Marcia Pally new styles used in the old way; it misses enough, the voiceover explains that the shift of their role in film . These new dance is one of our most primitive arts For 50 years of cinema, hoofin', tap- styles have come to signify personal just as the camera cuts to black Africans pin', chorines, and jazz were distractions heroism. performing tribal rituals. Ouch . After from \" the story\" -though these distrac- shots of folk dances the world over, the tions may have contained the only mem- For its clips, however, That's Dancing! sequence ends on a glittery Hollywood orable footage. Even in Oklahoma!, so is a lift. You can never really overdose on set with the dancers clicking away- well-known for its integration of dance Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell , or Cyd exporting tap as the white man's bur- and plot, the musical sequences en- Charisse-the revival houses never den. Offsetting these bloopers some- hanced the tale without being essential show them enough. Jack Haley, J r. , what is Sammy Davis, Jr.'s appearance to it. But since film started jumping on A Gene Kelly, and David Niven, Jr., the as one ofthe film's narrators, and clips of Chorus Line's bandwagon, dancers have producers of this compilation, made an Bojangles and the Nicholas Brothers. moved to the foreground as leading char- effort to be thorough in their selections, Yet the script would have would've been acters. Their efforts to make it in disco , beginning with the flickers and going more provocative had it mentioned that ballet, or show biz is the story; and the right through MTV, including occasional black numbers were cut from films for dancing itself, no longer embroidery, comments on developments in choreog- southern distribution, and that miscege- has become a metaphor for struggle. raphy and cinematography and a section nation was such a hot potato during the on ballet and modern dance. This last Hays Code that Ava Gardner was cast as MGM's That's Dancing! ,which goes boasts turn-of-the-century footage of Show Boat's Julie over Lena Horne. into long-awaited release in January, Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller which Latins fare worse: one mention of Chita hasn't quite caught on to the change. is honest enough to admit that ballet Rivera, none of Carmen Miranda. With a That's Entertainment! format, it's dancers often considered show and film an exercise in nostalgia for the days dancing trash. • when dance was simply entertaining. It includes footage of contemporary forms Some of their attempts to be edifying, Racial issues aren ' t the only thorn ; in like disco and breakdancing, but only as however, go awry; the most painful is spite of That's Dancing! 's range, certain the opening sequence. As if a speech omissions needle: no Rita Hayworth about our primal Urge to Dance weren't clips and too much Astaire-Kelly em- 51
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