De Palma a la Mod

Friday, May 27, 2022

'PHANTOM' TO CLOSE ATHENS FEST JUNE 15
CORRECTION: THIS "RESTORED VERSION" WILL BE THE STANDARD DCP OF THE FILM WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE

https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/athensfest2022.jpg

A restored version of Brian De Palma's Phantom Of The Paradise will be the closing film of the 12th Athens Avant Garde Film Festival, which opened yesterday (Thursday, May 26th). Phantom Of The Paradise will screen on Wednesday June 15th, closing the festival as part of its "Restored & Beautiful" section. Here's the description from the festival press release:

One of the very first rock operas, based on the novel The Phantom of the Opera, which tells the story of a young and gifted composer; who when a diabolical producer steals his music, transforms himself into a masked phantom, haunting the theatre of his nemesis. De Palma asked Paul Williams to score the film—giving him the necessary freedom, to allow for his talents to unfold through all kinds of popular music, influenced from the 1950s to 1970s.
The opening and closing ceremony will be directed by awarded short film director Thanasis Neofotistos.

And also in the program is a brief bio of De Palma:

Brian De Palma (1940), after studying physics, studied theater and in the 60's lived in the artsy Greenwich Village, cradle of the Fluxus movement. He became the author of a political and critical cinema at the very heart of Hollywood and post-Vietnam America, with films like Obsession (1976), Carrie (1976), Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987), Outrage (1989). His work is both dark and spectacular, referential to Hitchcock in particular, and constantly inventive. Nowadays, Brian De Palma is still an active filmmaker and writer.

Posted by Geoff at 11:56 PM CDT
Updated: Thursday, June 9, 2022 10:34 PM CDT
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Saturday, May 28, 2022 - 1:38 PM CDT

Name: "Bahram"

Any updates/news of De Palma in 2022? Any interviews he might do? It bothers me that I literally hear about every director of his generation but him. They really did him dirty after Domino and it seems like he has completely lost his appetite for filmmaking.

I remember back in 2018, the French producer Said Ben Said tweeted an image of 'Predator' screeplay with the caption "Work in progress". The guy has never replied to my comments when I ask him if it is still in progress in the past 4 years.

And when De Palma does an interview, people ask about things he has already answered in the past 55 years.

In March 2020, De Palma said that he was going to start filming his new project in August. Obviously that was not possible. Yet it has been two years since that interview. I really wish he was active.

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Saturday, May 28, 2022 - 2:36 PM CDT

Name: "Geoff"
Home Page: http://https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/blog

If there was any updated news or interviews with Brian De Palma out there, you would be sure to see it here. Regarding any project in 2020, it is safe to say that the pandemic made any potential film project problematic, to say the least. Even the films that have gone forward since then have had to adopt new safety measures, and we can only guess how De Palma might feel about all of it, being in his 80s now. As for Catch And Kill, the new times we live in would make that an even more challenging prospect, since De Palma had wanted to film a large part of it during an actual film festival such as TIFF. In 2020, every film festival was touch-and-go as far as planning, even without the prospect of a fiction feature filming as part of it. We are still seeing some of those types of growing pains today, even though the festivals are picking things back up of late.

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Wednesday, June 1, 2022 - 9:40 PM CDT

Name: "Bahram"

I do agree with your points Geoff. I guess the lack of news or interviews asking him if he is still considering doing the project annoys me. As I said in all the interviews, he is asked about his experinece on M.I. Scarface or The Untouchables and he gives the same answers. I hope someone interviews him and asks him if he still has plans to shoot this film or any other film or how much it is likely for him to do that French series adaptation.

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