From Shelley Duvall’s traumatic experience shooting Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining to the infamous “curse” on the crew of The Exorcist, cinema is littered with behind-the-scenes horror stories, many of which haunt the best scary movies out there. But while truth can often be scarier than fiction, some truly unsettling horror movies have been based around the concept of making horror movies themselves. Mise en abyme (French for “placed into an abyss”) is a concept about images within images that dates all the way back to the early-modern period. But in terms of movie parlance, this means a film-within-a-film.
Movies of this kind are inherently meta, exploring the conventions of the genre or reimagining previous works from a different perspective. They may be works of fiction, but films of this kind provide fans with what is seen as a raw and unfiltered look at how the sausage is made.
Movies of this kind are inherently meta, exploring the conventions of the genre or reimagining previous works from a different perspective. They may be works of fiction, but films of this kind provide fans with what is seen as a raw and unfiltered look at how the sausage is made.
- 10/30/2022
- by John Saavedra
- Den of Geek
In Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, sound technician Jack Terry makes a film to seek the truth. By splicing together a series of photos of a political assassination, and syncing them with his own audio recordings captured on location, he reveals a disguised gunshot immediately preceding the moment of a fatal tire blowout. Terry’s detective work is often read as a metaphor for filmmaking, and how films fashion meaning from disparate sources of information. But there is another way to view him—not as a filmmaker, but a forensic specialist. A flashback reveals that Terry once worked on a government commission against police corruption, bugging agents for sting operations. His use of film technology to expose crimes has little to do with the creative process: this is filmmaking not as artistic ideation, but as applied technique. Where is the line between art and research? Between creating narratives and creating evidence?...
- 5/11/2021
- MUBI
In a career fixated on the machinations of filmmaking presented through both a carnal and political eye, Brian De Palma’s fascinations converged idyllically with Blow Out. In his ode to the conceit of Blow Up — Michelangelo Antonioni’s deeply influential English-language debut, released 15 years prior — as well as the aural intrigue of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, De Palma constructs a conspiracy thriller as euphorically entertaining as it is devastatingly bleak.
In a fake-out opening — shot by Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown — that combines the voyeurism, nudity, and threat of murder that are De Palma’s calling cards, we see Coed Frenzy, the fifth movie in two years that sound technician Jack Terry (John Travolta) has done for the shlock director employing him. By showing the artifice of the B-movie, this film-in-a-film positions Blow Out as a more mature offering from the filmmaker, explicitly foreshadowed during the split-screen opening...
In a fake-out opening — shot by Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown — that combines the voyeurism, nudity, and threat of murder that are De Palma’s calling cards, we see Coed Frenzy, the fifth movie in two years that sound technician Jack Terry (John Travolta) has done for the shlock director employing him. By showing the artifice of the B-movie, this film-in-a-film positions Blow Out as a more mature offering from the filmmaker, explicitly foreshadowed during the split-screen opening...
- 7/13/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Streaming services are a crucial addition to modern civilization, but only in December do they become a truly indispensible survival tool. Whether curled around your laptop in order to keep warm or retreating to your favorites queue in a desperate attempt to hide from your loved ones, this is the season when having something good to watch can mean the difference between life and death.
Fortunately for us, Netflix, Hulu, and the other major hubs have busted out the big guns just in time. From indisputable classics to contemporary gems,...
Fortunately for us, Netflix, Hulu, and the other major hubs have busted out the big guns just in time. From indisputable classics to contemporary gems,...
- 11/30/2015
- Rollingstone.com
Brian De Palma has become the directorial litmus test of cinephiles everywhere. To supporters, he stands as a startling visual genius with a penchant for set pieces and lurid subject matter. To naysayers, he remains a lowbrow imitator who spends his studio budgets chasing the ghosts of Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard. Great director or high class hack? Inconsistent misogynist or Master of the Macabre? Much like his fractured narratives, the answer is never an easy one to attain.
Both sides provide ample support for their case. De Palma’s resume is riddled with enough hollow imitations (Sisters [1973], Raising Cain [1992]) and bloated commercial flops (The Bonfire of the Vanities [1990], The Black Dahlia [2006]) to sink any director. But even in misfires such as these, an undeniable attention to detail remains.
The split screen cover-up of Sisters or the heartbreaking screen tests of The Black Dahlia are breathtaking in scope and execution,...
Both sides provide ample support for their case. De Palma’s resume is riddled with enough hollow imitations (Sisters [1973], Raising Cain [1992]) and bloated commercial flops (The Bonfire of the Vanities [1990], The Black Dahlia [2006]) to sink any director. But even in misfires such as these, an undeniable attention to detail remains.
The split screen cover-up of Sisters or the heartbreaking screen tests of The Black Dahlia are breathtaking in scope and execution,...
- 11/13/2015
- by Danilo Castro
- CinemaNerdz
By Todd Garbarini
I have been a fan of the Italian giallo subgenre for 30 years since my initiation into it was precipitated by my first viewing of Creepers (1985), the severely cut version of Dario Argento’s Phenomena, my personal favorite film of his. Subsequent viewings of films by both Mr. Argento and his mentor, Mario Bava, as well as Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava, Luigi Cozzi, and Michele Soavi solidified a love for the putrid and the fantastic, and anyone who has seen these movies knows how delightfully entertaining they are: off-kilter camera angles, ludicrous dialogue, and what writer Todd French referred to as “a maddening narrative looseness” are present in these films in a way that they are absent in other genres. There is just nothing like an Italian giallo film. With all of the mock horror films that have been made going back to 1981’s Student Bodies and the later,...
I have been a fan of the Italian giallo subgenre for 30 years since my initiation into it was precipitated by my first viewing of Creepers (1985), the severely cut version of Dario Argento’s Phenomena, my personal favorite film of his. Subsequent viewings of films by both Mr. Argento and his mentor, Mario Bava, as well as Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava, Luigi Cozzi, and Michele Soavi solidified a love for the putrid and the fantastic, and anyone who has seen these movies knows how delightfully entertaining they are: off-kilter camera angles, ludicrous dialogue, and what writer Todd French referred to as “a maddening narrative looseness” are present in these films in a way that they are absent in other genres. There is just nothing like an Italian giallo film. With all of the mock horror films that have been made going back to 1981’s Student Bodies and the later,...
- 9/22/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Please note that the following piece contains spoilers for the final act of Blow Out.
Taken at face value Blow Out, Brian De Palma’s 1981 film, is a nifty and tightly wound little thriller. It starts to run into some trouble, however, when compared to Michelangelo Antonioni’s seminal counter culture classic Blowup (1966), the film that most inspired it; there is arguably more artistic impact to Antonioni’s film. It helps when the viewer realizes that Blow Out isn’t a full-on remake, and it would be wrong to describe it as such; rather, it is an alternative interpretation of Blowup‘s major concerns. Both films have their merits and both films have become classics in their own right.
Blowup is the story of a frivolous fashion photographer (David Hemmings) in 1960s London, who believes he may have unwittingly photographed a murder while taking pictures of lovers in a park.
Taken at face value Blow Out, Brian De Palma’s 1981 film, is a nifty and tightly wound little thriller. It starts to run into some trouble, however, when compared to Michelangelo Antonioni’s seminal counter culture classic Blowup (1966), the film that most inspired it; there is arguably more artistic impact to Antonioni’s film. It helps when the viewer realizes that Blow Out isn’t a full-on remake, and it would be wrong to describe it as such; rather, it is an alternative interpretation of Blowup‘s major concerns. Both films have their merits and both films have become classics in their own right.
Blowup is the story of a frivolous fashion photographer (David Hemmings) in 1960s London, who believes he may have unwittingly photographed a murder while taking pictures of lovers in a park.
- 5/6/2014
- by Tressa
- SoundOnSight
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