Dressed to Kill

DRESSED TO KILL (Brian De Palma, 1980)

Bringing up Alfred Hitchcock as an influence on Brian De Palma’s films is the most obvious way to start the discussion, yet in the case of DRESSED TO KILL it is virtually impossible to consider the thriller outside the context of a major shaping element. The film works on a fundamental level as lurid entertainment in which sex and murder intersect, yet the writer-director’s referencing of and conversation with Hitchcock’s films, one most significantly, is so intertwined in DRESSED TO KILL that to ignore it is like discounting DNA evidence. There may be another way to analyze what is presented, but the process is going to be far more difficult and suffer some inaccuracies.

To get specific about the plot is to spoil the surprises De Palma has in store for the audience. Suffice it to say that the film revolves around five characters in New York City. Housewife Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) seeks counsel from psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) for a solution to her unsatisfactory sex life with her husband. Her clever son Peter (Keith Gordon) puts his technological ingenuity to work to try and solve a homicide. Hooker Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) happens upon a murder scene in which she accidentally touches the razor used to butcher the victim, potentially implicating her in the crime and making her another target for the killer. Dr. Elliott is also linked to the killing when he learns his transsexual patient Bobbi, for whom he refuses to approve a sex change operation, stole his razor and used it as the murder weapon.

Hitchcock’s FRENZY provides an idea of how the content of his films might have become more graphic under a more permissive ratings system. With the shocking nature of the sex and violence in DRESSED TO KILL, particularly in the director’s preferred unrated cut, De Palma presents what such a hypothetical film might look like. Doubles and reflections figure prominently in De Palma’s visual strategy in his mirror version of a Hitchcock movie. For the characters in DRESSED TO KILL it is not enough just to see; they must be able to comprehend what is being seen. As the same applies to the audience, De Palma is being rather confrontational with the essence of cinema itself, requiring a voyeuristic look at the erotic and horrific and expecting them to be understood beyond prurient and savage curiosity.

Plot peevers will have a field day with the logical gaps in DRESSED TO KILL, but fantasy sequences, Pino Donaggio’s lush score, and the general air of unreality clearly point toward De Palma’s intention for the film to be enjoyed as amplified drama. It thrives on the excitement of flirting with the illicit, such as the bravura scene at the art museum when Kate follows a handsome stranger, pauses to rethink her actions, and then resumes her pursuit of him. Although the scene is nearly wordless, the passion driving it requires no dialogue. DRESSED TO KILL operates on the intuitive knowledge of acting on impulse.

As unnerving as parts of it can be, a wicked sense of humor runs through DRESSED TO KILL. A moan of pleasure mingles with a car horn. (There’s another tip of the hat to Hitchcock.) A frank description of a surgical procedure is overheard by a woman in the background, who displays a variety of appalled expressions as those in the foreground carry on as if it’s ordinary dinner banter. One of the biggest laughs comes from the close-up of a letter from the Department of Health. Especially as it becomes more apparent what film De Palma has essentially remade, the sheer audacity of the entire enterprise tickles.

Grade: B+

The Dark Knight Rises

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Christopher Nolan, 2012)

Picking up eight years after Batman (Christian Bale) takes the blame for district attorney Harvey Dent’s misdeeds, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES finds Gotham City free of organized crime.  Batman has vanished from the public eye.  Bruce Wayne has become a recluse in his stately manor.  

When a cat burglar posing as a server steals a pearl necklace and Bruce’s fingerprints from his supposedly uncrackable safe, he’s stirred from his self-imposed seclusion to learn more about and confront the thief named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).  She means him no harm.  Selina is in desperate need of having her identity cleared from all records and is assured she can get it for providing Bruce’s identifying marks.

Selina warns Bruce that bad times are on the horizon for Gotham City.  Indeed. Terrorist leader Bane (Tom Hardy), a beefy brute whose face is mostly covered with what looks like a high tech ball gag, is assembling a small but loyal underground army to foment a revolution that he promises will return the city to the people.  The time has come for Batman to resume his public service.   

Whether it’s the chronological reversal in MEMENTO, the artful trickery in THE PRESTIGE, or dream layering in INCEPTION, Christopher Nolan’s films boast complicated narrative architecture yet lay out detailed blueprints to follow.  The director, who co-wrote THE DARK KNIGHT RISES with brother Jonathan Nolan, is less successful navigating the way through his final Batman trilogy entry.  Perhaps all of the dots in the first two films connect in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, but grasping the totality of Nolan’s vision is a challenge short of rewatching BATMAN BEGINS, which receives numerous key callbacks.  As these comic book films become more intertwined, whether in their own dense mythology or across a series of franchise movies, the point has been reached where it would be helpful to get a footnote-intensive fact sheet along with the ticket.   

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES isn’t left wanting for ideas and artistic relevance to current events.  The 2008 financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street, government-sponsored torture, tribunals, the surveillance state, and the war on terror are referenced and mirrored in the film’s reality, but these subjects are commented on in such a muddled manner that their inclusions primarily amount to buzzword-dropping rather than cogent commentary. Post-9/11 conflicts are addressed most thoroughly, if unexceptionally.  Where prior Nolan films have resembled elegant mathematical proofs, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES looks like trial-and-error calculations scribbled on a scratch pad.  

Nolan makes the serious miscalculation of hiding the most expressive part of the villain’s face.  Whoever was following Heath Ledger’s Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT was liable to compare poorly among Batman nemeses, but Hardy, limited to his eyes, muscular torso, and voice, doesn’t have a chance to engage in a fair fight.

Hathaway’s Catwoman fares better in that she contributes a welcome dash of humor. As butler Alfred, Michael Caine’s watchful concern for Bruce brings the depth of feeling to an emotionally chilly film.  The opening sequence aboard a CIA extraction flight gone wrong as it attempts to leave Uzbekistan delivers a flashy action setpiece that the remainder of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, encumbered with scenes of talky exposition, fails to match.  

Shortcomings and all, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES remains a fascinating film, albeit one that suffers from an excess of ambition and deficiency in unifying its objectives with clarity.  Nolan and editor Lee Smith keep the proceedings moving even when it seems as though the film is bogged down in yet another plot payload transfer.  THE DARK KNIGHT RISES builds to a rousing concluding act without the safety net typically assumed with franchise pictures.  Considering its narrative and tonal risks, it’s just disappointing for a filmmaker of Nolan’s caliber to conclude the trilogy with what plays like a bloated middle installment.
 
Grade: C+