Friday 27 January 2012

Body Double
(1984)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:Cinema

Doppelgänger

Above-average Alfred Hitchcock homage from the Hitchcock-obsessed Brian De Palma; stealing ideas from Rear Window, Dial M for Murder and even Debbie does Dallas to strangely-resonant effect.

The suspense is well-handled and ably-supported by an admittedly sub-Bernard Herrmann musical score. Along with the characterization and careful - albeit somewhat unbelievable - plotting and its elaborate set-pieces. The emotional realism even extends to using the kind of shoddy back-projection for which Hitchcock was famed.

This is the story of a man obsessed with a beautiful woman who thus fails to see the wood for the trees - blinded by her good looks. As with all the best thrillers, nothing is what it seems, except the hero’s resulting claustrophobia - and our own.

Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 14:03
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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.



Albert Camus… (1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)