The world is currently enjoying a bit of a Brian De Palma moment. Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s new documentary on the 75-year-old Newark-born filmmaker has been getting rave reviews and is stirring up renewed interest in his 29-feature-deep filmography. Some cinema fans, though, have been living in a Brian De Palma moment for most of their lives.
One such person is French film blogger Romain Desbiens, who recently put his obsession with De Palma’s films to good use by meticulously editing some of the more distinctive images, elements, and themes from the divisive iconoclast’s four-decade-plus career into one gorgeous retrospective. Filmmaker/writer Brian Holcomb aptly describes it as a collection of “split diopters, split screens, split personalities, telekinesis, satire, phantoms, slow motion falls, chases, subjective pov, sex, showers, [and] voyeurs.” You know, everything that makes a De Palma film De Palma-esque. Be forewarned, though: due to the source material, there’s a bit of nudity, so it’s mildly NSFW.
Who feels like watching a De Palma film or 12 now?
And, just because, here’s De Palma and some friend of his named Marty Scorsese or something being interviewed by Dick Cavett back in 1978: