
- Walt Disney's Peter Pan (1953).
One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.
De Palma generates "pity" or sympathy by devoting special care to the love story between Carlito and Gail. Critic Janet Maslin termed it "grandiose romanticism." And Zach Campbell at Slant Magazine noted that "the scenes between Carlito (Al Pacino) and Gail (Penelope Ann Miller) are touching and expertly calculated illustrations of deep-seated romantic feeling: rainy streets, late night coffee shops, dim apartments." In other words, we are meant to feel that this is more than a simple romance, but a love story for the ages. The love story befitting a "great person" like Carlito, king of thieves, and, in his own words, "The Last of the Mohicans."
The "fear" part of this Tragedy equation arrives in what is surely the greatest climactic set-piece of any De Palma film (and that's saying something, given the Odessa Steps in The Untouchables or the split-screen Prom massacre in Carrie [1976]). To the tune of "Lady Marmalade" first, -- and then some anxiety-provoking follow-up compositions from Patrick Doyle -- De Palma arranges a sustained, fever-pitched chase sequence. This set-piece takes Carlito from his bar to a train, to Grand Central Station, down an escalator, and onto a train platform.
During this sequence, the camera is continually in motion, Carlito is constantly in motion, and even the trains are in continuous motion. Carlito grapples with the Taglialuccis, Saso's surprise theft of his money, a betrayal by Pachanga, and even an obese mafioso who functions as a kind of wild card; always lagging behind the other crooks as an unwitting but dangerous rear guard.
Carlito attempts to elude his enemies at the train station, and De Palma artfully takes up his hero's stance with the camera: dodging, lunging, retreating, trailing, and cornering in what amounts to a breathless, nail-biting race. Carlito informs the audience in his voice over narration that he "is angling all over," and the same is undeniably true of De Palma's direction:.it is sterling, gorgeous and, indeed, fear-provoking. It's angling all over, lifting us like a tide into waves of tension and suspension.
This electrifying denouement is so brilliantly staged that, at first, we don't even recognize the looming danger (Benny Blanco) until it's too late. Like Carlito, we're sprinting to that finish line...to Gail -- in the distance -- waiting by the train. The first time we watch the film, we don't even notice that danger (Blanco...) runs hand-in-hand with Carlito right up until shots are fired. And again, this is form deliberately echoing content. Carlito's tragic mistake was writing off Blanco; was not seeing and sensing the danger the young hood represented. De Palma grants us a deliberate visualization of that mistake in the seconds leading up to Carlito's shooting.
In the end, after Carlito is shot, Gail's prophecy of doom is proved accurate, but in his dying instants, Carlito finds some small peace; the catharsis or cleansing of Aristotle's definition. A son (or daughter) will succeed Carlito, and -- hell -- he lasted longer than any of his colleagues thought possible. In this fateful moment, De Palma allows Carlito (and the audience), to catch a small glimpse of that evasive, elusive paradise: a travel poster hanging on the wall of Grand Central Station. The poster reads "Escape in Paradise" and it is the only image in the frame to be shot in living, vibrant color. Everything else is gloomy black and white.
Suddenly, the dancer rendered on that travel poster becomes Gail -- in Carlito's eyes -- and begins to spin...free. She starts to dance. A gorgeous sunset looms behind her...and as the movie ends, the lovers' theme song ("You Are So Beautiful") underscores the feeling that all is not lost, or hopeless. Gail (and her child) will go on with the $75,000.00 dollars. Carlito didn't escape the streets, but his child will. The cycle of poverty and violence that gave rise to Carlito and his mistakes will, finally, be shattered, in his progeny.
Didn't You Ever Have a Dream? If You Can't Get In, You Don't Get In...
De Palma provides us a number of visual indicators that Carlito dwells in a different world than the criminal associates who interact with him.
For instance, as Carlito confronts the corrupt Saso early in the film, we see Carlito framed inside a mirror. And when Carlito deals with the treacherous Lalin (Viggo Mortensen) in his office -- again -- we see Carlito positioned inside the confines of mirror. This is a pervasive visual indicator that Carlito is "through walking on the wild side," just as he claims; that he is different from those men he still associates with. He is noble...they are not.
Finally, when Carlito allows his sense of "debt" to Kleinfeld to get the better of him, we again view Carlito framed in the mirror -- alongside Gail -- staring at himself. Angry over Gail's prediction of doom, he shatters the mirror with his fist. Carlito's destruction of the mirror (and his reflected image there) suggests that Carlito is no longer separate from the corruption of the Street (and from men like Lalin and Saso); that this venture with David (a prison break involving the Taglialucci's) will make him, again, a criminal. It will be his undoing.
In other words, the "mirror" image represents the good world -- the place Carlito wishes to dwell...but can't. When Carlito visits Gail in her apartment, he gazes at her -- the madonna -- in a mirror too, meaning that she is part and parcel of that world he can't attain or keep. He is separated from Gail and that world, incidentally, by a door and a chain too...another obstacle blocking his entry to "paradise."
Carlito's Way is dominated by brilliant and subtle visual touches such as these. For instance, on your next viewing pay attention to Benny Blanco's wardrobe and the way in which it changes and evolves each time he re-appears. At first, Benny seems a pretentious, unimportant clown (especially with the alliteration of his name: Benny Blanco from the Bronx!). Later, his wardrobe grows serious...as his threat to Carlito turns serious. And I also admire the way the film sets up Kleinfeld and Carlito on opposite/mirrr reflection paths. Carlito is the gangster trying to go straight; Kleinfeld is the "straight" man (an attorney) becoming a gangster.
It's impossible not to be swept away in Carlito's tragedy. Even though his fateful ending is a foregone conclusion, you still find yourself rooting for his success. The most admirable quality about Carlito, perhaps, is that he never stops reaching for that better life. Unlike Montana or Corleone, Carlito's "way" doesn't involve killing people, peddling drugs or broaching robbery. His "way" to a better future is closer to our way -- keeping his nose clean, minding his own business and working hard. That's the American dream and that Carlito's dream. In the end, that dream is something he's denied, and one composition in the film captures that failure. It features Carlito at war with gangsters, the American flag perched behind him on the wall. A study in contrasts: violence in the foreground; beauty and liberty in the background.
I suppose I identify with Carlito because he doesn't seek fame or power...he just wants to pursue personal happiness. De Palma's success in Carlito's Way is that he makes the audience identify with this gangster and his dream in a way uncommon for the bloody genre. Even Carlito's death brings about the pity of Aristotle's tragedy. "Sorry boys," Carlito tells the paramedics (in his mind), "all the stitches in the world can't sew me together again. Lay down... lay down."
And then, finally, Carlito contemplates Gail, the woman left behind. "No room in this city for big hearts like hers... Sorry baby, I tried the best I could, honest... Can't come with me on this trip."
It seems to me that carping movie critics could have made room in this city for a De Palma film like Carlito's Way.
One with a big heart.
As critic Andrew Kopkina wrote in The Nation, De Palma's Body Double boasts "clearly ironic intent" in that it's a movie "about the culture of sex and violence rather than about the awful events of the plot." (November 24, 1984, page 562). That's a distinction worth noting, I submit.
Because I believe that De Palma's ironic intent goes a very long way towards defusing the charges of misogyny perennially lodged at Body Double.
Clearly, however, not everybody concurs with that assessment. Entertainment Weekly's Ty Burr called the film "the most unbearably cruel of De Palma's Hitch rips" and pointed out that "the scene of a helpless woman (Deborah Shelton) getting power-drilled to death is too viciously gloating to forgive." (January 15, 1993, pages 56-47).
Reviewer David Sterritt at The Christian Science Monitor noted De Palma's skill in crafting Body Double, but derided the "sleazy material he's peddling, which feeds largely on a vision of women as objects to be ogled or butchered." (November 13, 1984, page 52).
So again, we're back to that point of demarcation with director De Palma. This is the elephant in the room. De Palma is either ironically commenting on the state of movie-dom and 1980s Hollywood; or just cravenly "peddling" viciousness and misogyny. He's either rewriting the language of contemporary film (not to mention Hitchcock thrillers...) to satirize other movies, or contributing to the crisis of a crass, lurid pop culture. Or perhaps, he's doing both simultaneously.
It won't surprise you to learn that I don't consider De Palma a misogynist, even in Body Double. For one thing, his violence is directed at men and women here; Scully is paralyzed with fear and nearly buried alive at one point....which is pretty sadistic.
For another thing, De Palma's intent to parody Hollywood's ongoing obsession with on-screen violence has very real antecedents, as I noted above. In the aforementioned Slumber Party Massacre -- a film directed by a woman, Amy Jones -- a male killer with a drill goes around homicidally "screwing" women in a fashion not at all unlike Body Double's killer. Is she a misogynist too? Or is violence against women acceptable (and not anti-woman in nature) when orchestrated by a female director?
Furthermore, when Jones has a woman with a machete chop off the killer's drill/phallus, -- thus metaphorically castrating him -- in Slumber Party Massacre, is she being anti-man? I haven't heard any cries of misanthropy there, and nor should I. Jones, like De Palma, transgresses in order to make a point; she utilizes symbolism (the drill, the machete, etc) to craft points about the nature of violence; about male power; about female vengeance, etc.
Is Gloria in Body Double "objectified?" Undoubtedly. Scully is drawn to her because of her nude dance...because of her sexy body. That's the lure to spring Sam's trap, but it's more an indictment of Scully's character (and a comment on men in general), then it is a fault of Gloria "as a woman." Also, we should ask: are women's bodies objectified in Hollywood outside the world of De Palma? In porno movies? In mainstream movies? If you think the answer is "yes," then again, De Palma ought to get a pass: he's noting (and commenting) on a real life context; not crafting some personal vision of hatred towards women.
Perhaps more specificity is required here. Body Double is charged with misogyny particularly because of a murder scene in which Gloria is drilled (bloodily) to death. Indeed, we witness the murder in graphic terms. There's a shot of the drill whirring, coming down between the (male) killer's legs -- like a giant cock -- as it penetrates the helpless, supine female.
Okay. This is undoubtedly excessive. But excessive doesn't equal misogyny, necessarily. Let's recall that Body Double was created in the decade of excess, the 1980s, and the whole film practically explodes with excess. It isn't merely romantic...it's melodramatically, balls-to-the-walls over-romantic, with De Palma's tongue-in-cheek camera spinning in a frenzy as Scully and Gloria share a first kiss and the soundtrack swoons. The film isn't merely sexually provocative, either, it takes us head-first, blunt-faced into the sleazy world of pornography, culminating with a complaint (from a production assistant) that the director didn't get a needed cum shot. Indeed, this scene became such a touchstone that it was mirrored and "homaged" in Boogie Nights in 1997.
Given the excessive nature of the entire film, I suggest that the drill kill isn't really misogynist...just intentionally and willfully over the top. I judge this by the nature of the film, but also from De Palma's cinematic work, taken in totality. Femme Fatale (2002) is the opposite of misogynist, since the main character resists the "dream" that types her as Barbara Stanwyck. Raising Cain (1992) is also rather pro-woman, since the only "heroic" personality in Carter's mad brain is a female, Margo. And sure, Nancy Allen in Dressed to Kill (1980) is a hooker...but she's taken the profession back for women; much more a savvy Wall Street investor than a victimized damsel-in-distress. I can't always adjudge deep complexity to De Palma's females. Indeed, he often goes for the Madonna or Whore thing (Ness's wife in The Untouchables is an example of the former...) but again, that's not misogynist...just archetypal. And very, very Catholic.
This is a personal assessment, but for me misogyny doesn't enter the picture until we hit a few specific points. For one, there has to be some form of "blame" cast on the women for their own murders. In other words, the movie or moviemaker must make clear...it's their fault the bad things that happen to them. And the other side of the coin is that the men have to come off as blameless and superior.
Not to upset anybody here, but the most blatantly misogynist story I can recall arises from the Old Testament: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That blasted, curious, grasping woman, Eve seduces innocent Adam right out of Paradise, and -- the poor guy! -- he suffers the consequences for Eternity! In Body Double, by point of contrast, Gloria doesn't do anything to earn her gruesome fate, save marry the wrong husband. And her husband, Sam, is defined in terms of pure evil...hardly let off the hook. He's clearly the movie's villain; not someone we feel sorry for or identify with.
I think critics cry "misogynist" because De Palma is never satisfied until he nudges his films over the precipice of good taste. That's the mission of great horror movies: to shatter decorum and transgress societal standards. So De Palma adds the sexual component to the drill kill and it instantly becomes far more memorable (not to mention disturbing). If the director had simply removed the shot of the drill going down between the man's legs, I don't think anyone could rightly complain that Body Double's major set-piece is any more misogynist than Marion's murder in the shower in Psycho; or Tippi Hedren's attack by sparrows in The Birds. But Body Double is about excess, and so the sexual twist on the murder certainly fits the tenor of the film.
Porno, Politics and Moving Pictures
I'll be a guest at Monsterama - "Sinbad and the Eye of the Monsterama" -- this coming October! The convention is in Atlanta, a...