Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Mr. Beaks has got to just be miserable overall today. First someone sees SOLARIS before him. Now another look at FEMME FATALE comes in, and he still hasn’t seen it himself.
Poor, poor Mr. Beaks...
FEMME FATALE
Only a book can truly explain why Brian De Palma must be regarded as on of the greatest auteurs. Ever. This is why his importance is delivered as axiomatic value as we tackle FEMME FATALE.
In 1995 De Palma stumbled into the ranks of high-concept Hollywood production. He always used to express himself in order to create while other authors usually choose the other way. Seemingly, this league allowed him to do what he wanted, create. See, esotherics like De Palma can rely on visual elements and their attitude doesn't need direct shape of plot or poignant subject matter. De Palma did this kind of movies while yearning to be American Godard, after he started pursuing Hitchcock, the termite writings inhabited his work. However, after several years of deliberate lowering of audience expectations, Hollywood jeopardized even the creation itself. Industry realized that McTiernan, Cameron and Verhoeven can commercially be replaced by Rob Cohen or Peter Hyams who bring low budgetary demands, even lower criteria, absolutely no intention of pushing the envelope and the painful absence of intellectual ambition as they tackle genre cinema.
De Palma's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE was undoubted introduction into the new era of techno spinning inside the superagent mythology. That film was a hack-job. And a high-caliber success which proves that genius remains great even when hacking. SNAKE EYES was more of an auteur fare but it proved that Hollywood no longer has the hardware to support the aristocratic approach. MISSION TO MARS is an unexplainable misstep. The shadow of all these movies that map De Palma's demise is NAZI GOLD, probably the ultimate heist movie to end them all that was being built aroung Jay Cocks' script for MGM. It's probably the only film he wanted to make in the last seven years.
FEMME FATALE is the return of the great genius. Movie opens with the scene where the title character watches the quintessential femme fatale noir in history of cinema Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMINITY. This frequency may be the proper channel for biting into this juicy movie. Immortal elements of Wilder's masterpiece are passion, crime, punishment and style. De Palma takes these elements into the new millennium, into the sequel of our lives, after the failed apocalypse (or did it fail?). And he does the stuff that should be done. He uses the fundamental dramatic tensions and integrates them with style and the technology of the 21st century.
By stripping the key elements, De Palma supresses the realistic context and goes for purely cinematic interpretation of crime nad passion. However, the structure which denies storytelling uncovers the main attributes of De Palma's weltamschaung. See, passion and crime are pieces of film reality for De Palma. Without style they make no sense. And it's not just that feverish routine of overhyping Hitchcock's influence but it's the celebration of Argento's style - the style which drowns the whole by turning the film into a dark dream done through a number of transcendent set-pieces. And death in sleep can be more horrifying, painful and aestehetically relevant than the real one. Like life itself, De Palma's and Argento's films are collections of moments that have no need of connecting into a whole. These make sense as they last. While we live through them. They don't need any sense when compiled. Because when completed they are gone. This is why FEMME FATALE isn't compact like DOUBLE INDEMNITY. And it doesn't have to be. Because here it isn't the question of what HAPPENED. It's the question of what HAPPENS. And how.
De Palma's puppets this time Rebecca Romijn - Stamos and Antonio Banderas. Geek community mostly refers to Stamos as the X-MEN chick but there she plays a blue-skinned mutant, you barely see her. Her pivotal role is Aurora in McTiernan's ROLLERBALL, the film no weaker than XXX. In FEMME FATALE, Stamos is shaped into one of the most lucious babes of contemporary cinema. She is as relaxed as Asia Argento. And a couple of times closer to the ideal blonde from Hitchcock's Technicolor phase.
Antonio Banderas cannot truly be linked with Fred MacMurray who converted the insuarnce investigator into the genre myth but he can be compared to Peter Berg in LAST SEDUCTION. And he is better as much as De Palma is better than Dahl and is worse as much as he can`t adapt.
European beginning is marked with new associates. Instead of longtime DP Stephen H. Burum, the film was shot by Besson regular Thierry Arbogast who brings his typical illumination into the process. Still, it doesn’t offend the Burum-De palma chemistry but works on its` own.
FEMME FATALE is vintage De palma. If Gilles Mimouni`s L`APPARETEMENT was VERTIGO-inspired new millennium movie, then FEMME FATALE is the new millennium VERTIGO. Literally. Mimouni`s masterpiece respected Hitchcock. While De Palma cannot relate to Hitchcock anymore. He remains De Palma, but still he is the organic part of the late Alfred. And it`s not just because of his obssessions but also because of his attitude towards cinema. De Palma is the greatest because he was the only one who truly dug Hitchcock`s conception of cinema.
FEMME FATALE is not an uncommercial movie, even though Warner Brothers were step behind when it came to acquiring rights for American release. It`s the auteurist movie that is commercial in a healthy way. It is bankable but it remains a film not an ad. That is the point. It`s so rare to find the prioducer who really understands the spirit of the product. De Palma found such backer, his own Lew Wasserman, in Tarek Ben Ammaru. And Ben Ammar is the search light who lures great American authors into Europe like Wasserman used Siegel and Hitchcock to attract young directors under the Universal globe.
This film bears the historical title. And it ought to be included into history. This title is an obligation. Today, only De Palma has the right to use it. Great German expressionists are dead. Long live the German producers who fund new projects by John McTiernan, Kathryn Bigelow and Renny Harlin.
God bless,
Ethan
And before you start crapping on the guy for literacy, English obviously isn’t his first language. What comes through loud and clear is a love of this director, something I share, and I’m jazzed to see if he took a script I could barely finish and turned it into a film that really smokes onscreen.
"Moriarty" out.
