Talking Comics/movies Podcast 05/07/14

Lenny,

Why did you have to get me started again on Brian "Master of Suspense" DePalma; I've just calmed down from Tuesday's recording! What irks me about him is that he's a cinematic magpie, stealing shiny bits from other movies, but never acknowledging that they're not his creation! His constant "homages" to Hitchcock ("Sisters", "Dressed to Kill", "Obsession"), or his "Blow Out" which is a mash-up of Antonioni's "Blow-up" and Coppola's "The Conversation", or the "nod" to the Odessa Steps sequence from "Battleship Potemkin" in the train depot scene in "The Untouchables". (At least Quentin Tarrantino tells you to go watch old Kung Fu flicks and "spaghetti westerns", or when he's borrowed from DePalma, as in "Kill Bill #1"!) The nadir might be his 15-minute opening tracking shot for "Snake Eyes", where he was claiming it was one uninterrupted take, until a reviewer pointed out that there were two splices in it, and then Mr. DePalma recanted saying, "Oh well, there is a cut there"; sad, because it is a great sequence either way, just own up to it, for Pete's sake.

You want to see great tracking shots? Check out the opening to Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil", as well as the later interrogation scene at the suspect's apartment, where not only does the camera move, but Mr. Welles had the set constructed so that could move the walls of the apartment around while they were filming so that he could get the angles he wanted!