detonation | Cinematic programming

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*****

Sog. Scenes: Brian De Palma. Wyog, scene: Brian De Palma. P: Vilmos Zigmund. M: Paul Hirsch. Scgf: Paul Silbert. Mus: Pino Donaggio. Int: John Travolta (Jack Terry), Nancy Allen (Sally), John Lithgow (Burke), Dennis Franz (Manny Karp), John Aquino (Detective Mackey), Peter Boyden (Sam), Curt May (Donahue). Producer: George Leto for Filmways Pictures, Cinema 77, Geria DCP. d: 108′. col. English copy / English copy. From: The Criterion Collection Courtesy of Park Circus

freak out It is the work of absolute pessimism that excludes nothing and no one. According to Brian De Palma himself, this was the aspect of the film closest to his heart: a “political thriller”, as he defined it, “an intellectual reflection on the Watergate affair”. From this point of view, the film can be compared to some of the works of the 70s, from The Three Days of the Condor by Sydney Pollack A Why kill Written by Alan J. Pakula, it focuses on the helplessness of the individual in the face of a corrupt political system. […] What these films have in common is thus a climate of paranoia, stemming from the feeling that the individual citizen is alone, lost in a hostile environment, where his every move is recorded and neutralized, where each friend can prove himself an emissary of ‘power’ or, worse, his crazy splinter. in freak out The argument finds its most complete expression on the subject of sound manipulation. […] All the murders in the film are associated with the need to silence someone, whether it be a politician with very liberal ideas, a weary witness, or a gossip whore. In such a society, dominated by a system of power aimed at silencing any form of dissent, a man like Jack—who ‘captures’ sounds and noises, preserves them, records them, and indexes them—necessarily becomes an uncomfortable figure, becoming harmless. , by loosening his weapons, or by making the scream of a woman about to be killed truly become a pure fantasy effect, fit for any horror movie. Also, we must not forget that the title echoes a famous film by Antonioni, Explodes. Obviously, the choice was not accidental: the director from Ferrara offered a suggestive reflection on the relationship between reality and its visual reproduction, and instead De Palma deals with the same subject starting from the perspective of sound, even if his film is less rarefied and more rooted to the socio-political dimension. Reality in De Palma is not far fetched per se, in a congenital way, but there are people who want to be the sole and exclusive rangers for reasons of power.

Leonardo Gandini Brian De PalmaGrimes, Rome 1996

*****

(repeat Sunday, June 25th at 21.30 Cinema Arlecino)

An evening promoted by Abruzzese e Associati