Brian De Palma is an extraordinarily adept filmmaker, who has been criticized for his adherence to what has been perceived in some circles as genre trash. He has always been attracted to suspense and crime thrillers, usually of a particularly violent nature, many of them tinged with horror.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Hallowe’en right around the corner, we’ll hear music from four of De Palma’s films.
It’s hardly surprising that such an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock would also hire Hitchcock’s signature composer. Bernard Herrmann scored two films for De Palma – the first, “Sisters,” in 1973, and the second, “Obsession,” in 1976.
“Obsession” is a spin on Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” with a botched rescue attempt resulting in the death of a businessman’s kidnapped wife, and a seemingly chance encounter, years later, with a woman who is her doppelganger. The film stars Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow, and a very tan Cliff Roberston.
“The Fury,” from 1978, based on the novel by John Farris, is a supernatural thriller about two teenagers, endowed with the powers of telekinesis and extra-sensory perception, and the researchers who plan to use them for their own nefarious ends. For a time, Kirk Douglas has fun as a former CIA agent, and John Cassavetes is a particularly slimy villain. Cassavetes’ comeuppance makes for one of the most memorable movie endings of its era – and we’ll leave it at that!
Critic Pauline Kael praised the music, which is by none other than John Williams – hot off his third Academy Award, for “Star Wars” – characterizing it as “as elegant and delicately varied a score as any horror film has ever had.”
Of course, “The Fury” was not the first De Palma film to deal with telekinesis. His adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie,” from 1976, became one the decade’s landmark horror films. It broadened the popularity of King, whose first novel “Carrie” was, and propelled De Palma into the A-list of Hollywood directors. It also essentially launched the careers of Amy Irving, John Travolta, and Nancy Allen, among others. Sissy Spacek was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the title role, as was Piper Laurie as Carrie’s fundamentalist mother.
The music was by Pino Donaggio. The director had wanted to continue his collaboration with Herrmann, but the composer died before the film could be completed. Donaggio, though classically trained, made his fortune writing popular songs. His biggest hit was “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” as it is known in English. It was recorded by Dusty Springfield, with a well-known cover by Elvis Presley. Donnagio went on to become a regular De Palma collaborator, providing the music for seven of his films.
Finally, we’ll turn our back on horror, to listen to music from a successful period crime thriller, loosely based on the real-life exploits of Eliot Ness and his fellow prohibition agents, “The Untouchables,” from 1987. Kevin Costner plays the by-the-book FBI agent who is given a valuable lesson in street smarts by an Irish beat cop played by Academy Award winning Sean Connery. (“He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get Capone.”) Capone is played, incidentally, by a baseball bat wielding Robert De Niro.
The score is by Ennio Morricone. Morricone, of course, was propelled to fame through his work on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. He applies some of that same mythmaking skill to this big screen adaptation, which had previously been published as a memoir and developed into a popular television series starring Robert Stack. The high point of the film must be the director’s nail-biting homage to Sergei Eisenstein, a slow motion shoot-out around a baby carriage as it teeters down the steps of Chicago Union Station.
I hope you’ll join me for music from the films of Brian De Palma, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
