David Konow Interview

Brian De Palma Deep Dive with Author David Konow!  | Interview

Join host Craig for a special episode of The Directors Chair Network featuring an in-depth interview with author David Konow! We explore Brian De Palma’s iconic career, from cult classics like Carrie and Phantom of the Paradise to blockbusters like The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible. David shares insights from his interview with De Palma and discusses the director’s unique style, influences, and lasting impact. 

Craig and David dive into De Palma’s diverse career, discussing his early cult films, mainstream successes, and signature techniques like split diopters and Hitchcock-inspired suspense. David recounts discovering De Palma via the Z Channel, his love for Carrie and Scarface, and De Palma’s own words on crafting suspense by “withholding information.” Plus, we touch on David’s books and De Palma’s influence on modern filmmaking.

Creators and Guests

Host

Craig Cohen

Guest

David Konow

What is The Director's Chair Network?

Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!

brian DeAlma Brian DeAlma's a Brian DeAlma film Hello and welcome And today
0:06
we're going to be doing something a little bit different than we've done on previous episodes This is going to be
0:11
more of a full-fledged interview and I'm very excited about it because I love these types of shows And I'm here with
0:18
author David Kano David welcome Yes And you pronounce it correctly How are you
0:24
excellent No I I very good thank you Yeah I'm I'm always super aware of how to pronounce people's names to a fault
0:31
sometimes I guess Um yeah So this is great David I know when I was starting to put this show together our mutual
0:37
friend DX had said "Hey you should reach out to David He'd be a perfect person to talk to for this show." Yeah Cool Yeah
0:44
DX is great And he's um he's done a lot of cool books and everything We've been friends for quite some time And um I
0:51
don't I'm I'm trying to recall how much him and I have discussed the Palma but you know I've been a big fan of his
0:57
actually since I was a kid practically Um I mean we'll we'll I'm sure we'll get to that in a minute but um yeah You know
1:05
excellent And we're going to have save some time for the end of the discussion to talk about your books but yeah So do
1:11
you want to sort of give me a little bit of your diploma history it sounds like if you discovered them when you were a
1:17
kid you've been uh you know on the diploma train for a while Yes Well when my family moved to
1:23
California we had uh the Z channel the late great Z channel and uh I remembered
1:29
seeing bits and flashes of Obsession and The Fury on the Z channel And even
1:35
though I didn't see the movies all the way through and saw a lot of weird stuff out of context I I found a lot of it to
1:42
be really fascinating And I I guess it's one of those film buff kind of things where like you know you see a movie you
1:49
really like and it's like oh what else has this person done i I don't think it was like that with me with the Palma as
1:55
much Um I I guess like a big moment for me was not not just seeing Scarface on
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on cable and being a huge fan of it ever since probably about a year or so after
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it came out in theaters But um seeing Carrie with a friend of mine when I was like oh god like 12 or 13 or something
2:15
like that when we rented it and we didn't see that ending time It it's fun to watch the uh reaction videos They
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that that gets them every time on YouTube Yeah Yeah So it's it's
2:27
interesting uh and and you mentioned like uh how you know sometimes you'll see a film by a filmmaker and it will
2:32
draw you to watch some of their other films And the interesting thing about DAMA is you mentioned Obsession and The
2:38
Fury And those are two movies where if you watched Obsession and said "Hey I want to see what what else this DAMA guy
2:45
is about." And then you know rented uh Body Double or Scarface or The
2:51
Untouchables you'd be like "Wow this is a little bit different than than than I was expecting." Yeah You know it's
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interesting because um when I worked for a magazine called Creative Screenwriting I actually uh had the chance to
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interview Brian Dealma and Oh wow Yeah that was really cool And what was one thing he mentioned about that was that
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as far as like doing the Untouchables or Mission Impossible uh you know he he said you know I have a
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style that I can go in and out of the mainstream I have a style that works in the mainstream but I can do my my work
3:24
as well So he was able to find a way that he could still bring his style
3:30
technique artistic vision whatever you want to call it to you know more mainstream films like you know again
3:36
like the Untouchables or uh you know there there's still a lot of Brian Dealma in The Untouchables It's it's a
3:42
fairly bloody violent movie Oh absolutely And you get a lot of his techniques you get the split diopter you
3:49
know you get a lot of the really you know sort of um advanced camera techniques and things like that And I
3:55
would even say that for Mission Impossible David if you go and watch Mission Impossible it's a very very it
4:03
it's very clearly a a deama movie in the way it looks and also in the sort of the
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way the story is executed Yeah Yeah I mean I haven't seen the Untouchables in a bit or Mission
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Impossible in a bit I saw it when it came out But yeah absolutely And there's also the homage cuz he has uh the homage
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to the Odessa steps in in the untouchables He did a great job with that Yeah Well and and that's another
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thing that I really really sort of love about Deama David is that he doesn't shy
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away from blatantly wearing his influences on his sleeves And if he thinks a filmmaker did something that
4:42
was cool he's going to try it But he's going to try it the Brian De Palama way Yeah Yeah And he's gotten some flack for
4:49
that But he always said you know I was I've always have been very open about my influences And when I spoke to him he
4:57
said you know all the ground rules of suspenser and Hitchcock's work and if you watch it it's all there you know And
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he actually gave me a very good to to any screenwriters or budding filmmakers out there I once asked him he gave me a
5:11
really good answer too about what what do you think is one of the the big keys to suspense he gave me a very good
5:17
two-word answer withholding information So well that's interesting too because I
5:23
kind of know that like Hitchcock's theory on thrillers was you know uh what
5:29
suspense not surprise and you know the idea that either we know something the
5:35
audience doesn't know or vice versa So that's that's really interesting and and I'm glad you sort of passed that along
5:42
because it'll help understand the way that Depalama frames certain things in
5:47
in some of his um more suspenseful movies So let's go a little
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bit back to you know those days where you kind of saw him on the Z channel and then rented Carrie Um and then like you
6:00
said Scarface was kind of a staple Like at what point did you become aware that like the Palama was doing something that
6:09
was different enough for you to take notice of and sort of go along for the ride yeah You know it's hard to pinpoint
6:16
with him There's other directors that I can remember it a little more clearly You know when I became a big
6:22
horror movie fan in the 80s you know you you saw a lot of crap like slasher films
6:28
but you would also go back to things like Sisters and things like that cuz I remembered my mother seeing that when it came out and she could still remember
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how scary it was And I don't know at what point I got into like Phantom of the Paradise and things like that I
6:41
probably did from uh the Danny Perryi books if you remember the books cult movies you know cuz that one's in there
6:49
Uh the quite a few Dealma films are in there because a lot of his early stuff are kind of cult films And it's it's
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interesting because Phantom of the Paradise is now getting a bit of a revival with rock and roll guys Um
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there's a guy named uh Justin Hawkins who's the uh the darkness of the band The Darkness and he did a whole episode
7:07
on YouTube He had just discovered Phantom of the Paradise and loves it and talked about "Oh the music on this is so
7:14
great and blah blah blah." It's kind of like you know where's this movie been all my life yeah And it's funny too because it's like for years and years
7:21
and years people have right rightfully talked about you know how great the Rocky Horror Picture Show is but Phantom
7:27
of the Paradise was the rock and roll midnight movie before Rocky Horror Yeah
7:33
And I think it's interesting cuz with some of the rock and roll films and and many of the great ones like that one and
7:40
Rocky Horror and Spinal Tap those for some reason those always become cult films they're not like big hits right
7:47
away but I think in the case of those three movies that I just mentioned I I
7:52
think they were a little ahead of their time I think Spinal Tap it was right in there when Heavy Metal was becoming big
7:58
again but it was a little bit ahead of its time at at the same time as well And I think Phantom of the Paradise might
8:04
have been it It was on time but it was also a little bit ahead of its time because it's interesting because it came in the time when the music business had
8:11
exploded And I think at that point that was the first time the music business had made over a billion dollars or
8:16
something like that And like bands were finally headlining stadiums and all that And Brian De Palma very clearly saw in
8:23
the rock and roll world how over the top it it is and how it's all about like blow yourself up and do it again do it
8:30
more you know that kind of thing So he he caught on to that right away I don't I'm so I'm not sure why it wasn't a hit
8:36
at the time but of course it's become a cult film and now even today people are rediscover I mean that's an interesting
8:42
thing too with the Palmas He's had quite a few films like that that keep getting rediscovered like that Even the ones
8:48
that were hits like Carrie I mean I think you know the hell of high school
8:54
is something that's always going to be with us And if you show that to any high school kid that doesn't fit in or
8:59
doesn't belong they can relate to that film You know stuff like Scarface that's that's been the theme of so many movies
9:06
about you know for what profit a man who gains the world and loses his soul and becomes so obsessed with power that he
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loses sight of everything else I mean I think these are universal themes that are always going to be with us No
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absolutely Absolutely And to sort of get back to you know movies that are sort of ahead of their time I think it is true
9:26
that there are movies that it just takes a while for audiences to catch up You know we famously had the summer of 82
9:33
where we had ET which was this huge commercial sort of phenomenon But then that summer we also got Bladeunner and
9:39
The Thing two movies that are very highly regarded now that it took a really long time for people you know a
9:45
lot of you know the mainstream to get on board with And I think the other thing about cult films David is a lot of times
9:54
they initially appeal to the weirdos in the world and I'm saying this as a weirdo I'm a self-professed you know
10:01
weirdo I'm not ashamed to admit it but I think a lot of times weirdos get on the ground floor with lots of things that go
10:06
on to be loved and respected Yeah Yeah I'm not sure And also um uh Tron in 82
10:14
It's hard to believe this A lot of people don't realize that was a big flop when it came out Now it's a
10:19
revered film from 82 as well So yeah I I mean it's it's a weird thing cuz I
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remembered reading I think it was in Jerry Winrop's book he talked about uh the movie Cruising which was way too
10:32
dark of a movie to ever become a hit but he talked about how we were very ahead of our time with that film And he said
10:39
you know we were ahead of our time It wasn't a hit He said "It's always better to be too late than too early." Yeah
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absolutely Am I incorrect in thinking that at some point Deama was potentially
10:50
attached to that movie um maybe I don't know I mean that that's something that could be up his alley but I think Freed
10:57
can kind of develop that himself if I'm not mistaken I'd have to look into that but I I wouldn't be surprised if he was
11:03
up for it I mean a lot of dark gritty New York films I think he would be one of the first people you would you would
11:09
have on a short list to do something like that He may have been I'm not sure But yeah it's the one thing with doing
11:16
this podcast David is I've read and watched a lot of DAM stuff So uh I don't
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I'm not great at keeping track of where I' i've read things And also I'm sure that Frein was also
11:27
probably offered things that Deama ended up doing So I did want to talk a little bit about you had mentioned carry and I
11:35
want to sort of get your take on things because for me I think you know Deama's
11:40
career can really be looked at you know sort of pre- carry and post carry and I was curious what your feelings were on
11:49
you know the the stuff he did prior to Carrie because he he did a lot of you know um he did a you know the sisters
11:54
which we mentioned but he did a lot of you know you know kind of small quirky comedies and then after Carrie he kind
12:01
of focused a little bit more and and I think it's almost like a phase one and phase two part of a career Yeah I mean
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that definitely took him to another level and it's an interesting thing because you know I've talked to people who worked on Carrie and United Artists
12:15
thought it was going to be their big movie that season Um they actually thought that was going to be their big
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hit and then this little movie called Rocky comes out of nowhere Although Carrie did just fine It did very well I
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mean Dealama felt they undersold it He he thought well you know horror films were always treated like you know
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mentally challenged stepchildren or whatever the phrase was But um but yeah
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I think that was um I I guess it's kind of like when Roman Palansky did Rosemary's Baby I think he
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said words to the effect of like I've been waiting for Rosemary's Baby my entire career and like this is like the
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perfect movie for me I think you know a lot of movies that become successful it's kind of like a perfect storm where
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it's like you got the right director the right material you know it's first Stephen King adaptation you know the
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Palma was you know the perfect guy to do that and also you had a young cast of a
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lot of people you know that were on the verge of breaking out like a lot of films in the 70s then so again it it's
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one of those things where the elements really came together like you look at Silence of the Lambs I mean every element on that movie came together That
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was absolutely a perfect storm And good luck repeating that you know Yeah Well
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and not to get and I and I mean I'm I'm I'm fine going down this road with you because you're an author that has you
13:34
know written about horror films but one thing that's always funny to me David is how everybody gave The Silence of the
13:39
Lambs a pass You know they they they fell over themselves to say it wasn't a horror movie Yeah Well that's and a lot
13:47
of times they didn't use that term Kind of like when they were making Star Wars Nobody dared say the term science
13:53
fiction cuz that was death in those days Um nobody working on The Exorcist considered it a horror film Nobody dared
13:59
say the h word on that film And a lot of people were like if if it was pitched to
14:04
us as a horror film we wouldn't have done it That kind of thing So I I think a lot of the really great stuff kind of
14:11
transcends the genre in a way Like you look at Jaws I mean I I consider it a horror film but it's also action there's
14:18
comedy drama it it encompasses a lot of things and kind of escapes genre But yeah I mean it's like horror films have
14:24
always been kind of considered like low rent or that kind of thing but um somebody who worked at United Artist
14:30
said to me it's it's really a movie about teen angst Mhm So I mean you can look at it however you want to but uh
14:37
but it it is a horror film I mean Yeah So I've said on this show before that
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one of my my the biggest things I love about Dama is his ability to sort of work and master multiple
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genres Do you think the fact that Carrie wasn't branded like a for lack of a
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better word a hard hardcore horror film that it allowed to not get stuck making
15:03
horror movies for the rest of his career um I'm not I'm not so sure about that I
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mean I I mean one thing that I remembered reading u they they did a really good oral history of Carrie and
15:15
premieres written by a guy named Josh Rottenberg who I think wrote for the LA Times for a while He's he's done a lot
15:21
of um he's worked for a lot of different places and if I remember correctly because back in those days you know
15:28
everybody knew everybody like the Palama and Lucas were friends This is before everybody blew up and became huge and
15:35
American Graffiti had come out and that was a big hit and the Palma was like you know that's not how I remember high
15:40
school I want to do something a little more like that But I I I would think it could have very easily have trapped him
15:46
in that genre And in fact the Fury was in a very similar vein to Carrie He
15:51
could have been stuck in that And how he was able to move beyond that I'm not sure I mean he's actually pretty good at
15:57
comedy too I mean I haven't seen uh what was a Wise Guys in forever I liked it when I was a kid I watched it about two
16:03
weeks ago and it it is a very good comedy Yeah Yeah So I mean he's actually pretty adept at comedy as well So yeah I
16:10
mean he can he can do a lot of different stuff with his style He even did as we all know a music video you know Yeah
16:16
Yeah Dancing in the dark Yeah Also he kind of brought in the world of MTV a little bit in Body Double where all of a
16:22
sudden the movie becomes a music video with Frankie goes to Hollywood which was kind of an interesting little idea in
16:28
there So yeah David I have to say that in the past probably month and a half
16:35
Body Double has shot up really really high on my list of favorite Talama films
16:42
Yeah I still can't get past The Scene with The Drill though Oh yeah even by Dama standards that's pretty rough stuff
16:49
I have to say I if I read correctly I think when it world premiered I think that scene got booed Really yeah that
16:57
that was a big turd in the punch bowl with that that with that one But there's
17:02
good stuff in it And again I thought it was really interesting how and that was in ' 84 when MTV was really really big
17:09
That was the peak of it So that was kind of interesting how he took that was also when you know porno was really big and
17:16
everybody was renting it So that was kind of an interesting little you know how he was
17:21
able to incorporate those two elements together That was kind of an interesting experiment as well Yeah Well and it and
17:26
it's funny because you know I I for some reason I group Dress to Kill and Body Double sort of together I guess because
17:33
they're both you know you know they both involve women being
17:39
murdered But um for the longest time I I thought Dress to Kill was the superior movie And they both have a very similar
17:45
sequence where we're tracking uh a female protagonist And I just think the
17:51
sequence in Body Double is is is executed better Yeah I mean yeah Dress Kell is a really
17:58
good movie too And it's something that completely flew over my head until somebody pointed out to me is the Arento
18:04
influence on that I was a big duh Why didn't I like with the elevator scene about how that was kind of like him
18:11
doing his take on Arento which I didn't catch on to for a while Yeah Yeah Yeah
18:18
No I mean there there's definitely u similarities you can see in their in their film making
18:23
styles overall Is there a an opinion of where Deama sort of ended up after
18:32
let's say fem fatal do you think he got tired of sort of the the Hollywood game
18:38
or or did Hollywood get tired of Brian Dealma i'm not sure You know I mean it's
18:44
like the last Depalma film that I really liked that I thought was really well done was Caro's Way Um did Raising Kane
18:52
come after that no it was before Okay And Raising Kane it wasn't the greatest but it was still fine and an enjoyable
18:58
watch Um I don't know I mean there sometimes it just comes a point with a lot of directors where I guess they just
19:04
don't have it anymore or they're I don't know if that they're tired or whatever but you know I I would like to think
19:11
that even if I haven't liked anything he's done since Caro's Way he's still had a hell of a a track record in my
19:18
opinion I mean I would say he's made at least 10 very very good very solid
19:23
movies and some genuine masterpieces And I think any director would kill for that you know and it's all about your batting
19:30
average because nobody's filmography is perfect Everybody's going to have a bomb or a failure you know that's always
19:35
going to be Oh no Absolutely And I mean the the whole premise of this podcast is I consider the Palama the greatest
19:40
American director So um you don't have to convince me but I would say yeah that that 10 number is is pretty good out of
19:47
out of what almost 30 films Yeah And I think you keyed in on the fact that he's
19:53
made multiple masterpieces Most filmmakers are considered great if they have one masterpiece And again the thing
19:59
that I really really love and appreciate and sort of would argue for DAMA is is
20:04
that those masterpieces are in genres that are completely different from each other I mean Carito's Way is a
20:11
masterpiece I would say it's one of the best films of the '9s but then he also makes a movie like Blowout which they're
20:17
very very two different you know kinds of films Yeah And in fact um I forget
20:22
the woman's name but there's a there's a film buff on YouTube um from Texas with
20:28
brown hair Her name escapes me right now but she did a a thing on Blowout She actually considers it the Palmer's
20:34
Masterpiece and that's a film that um you know I still think to this day hasn't totally gotten its due you know
20:41
and that's that's overdue to be rediscovered as well And unfortunately you know that was when Filmways was
20:47
going out of business and all that I'm not sure why it didn't connect but um
20:52
you know Travolta said I think he said it in his Playboy interview or something like that he ran into Barry Diller who
20:58
ran Paramount and he said "If we released that movie it would have been a hit."
21:03
Yeah Well and I mean historically I would say that had Travolta not done
21:09
Blowout he wouldn't have been in Pulp Fiction and then his career would have been very very different Yeah I think
21:16
from what I remembered hearing or reading I think that was a big reason why he cast it was because of his role
21:22
in Blowout And it's funny because um you know Sue Mangers the famous um talent agent said "Oh Paul Fixer was great I
21:29
mean who would have thought to hire John Travolta playing in a punk killer while the Palma did you
21:34
know i mean you know not like he he hired him to play a punk and Carrie and he killed the pig but you know I mean
21:40
it's like you know he's done those kind of even though he's he he has that that real big screen charisma and that huge
21:47
smile and those big blue eyes I mean he can play bad characters too you know so so it it wasn't totally without
21:54
precedent Yeah And well it just took a filmmaker like I think Quenton Tarantino to be
21:59
like I don't care where this guy's career is now He's good for the role And I mean something similar happened with
22:04
Robert Forester for Jackie Brown Yes Or even you could even say Pam Greer I mean just because an actor isn't you know
22:11
sort of in favor right now doesn't mean that they're still not the best person for the role Yeah Yeah Yeah And it's interesting because I think Travolta had
22:18
enough goodwill with audiences and fans that when he was finally in the right movie again you know they were there
22:25
I've often I I mean I know we're veering off topic a little bit I'm a huge John Belalushi fan and I was of the opinion
22:31
that you know I mean I was a little kid when he died and I was still a huge fan of his but I was and what do I know but
22:38
I was of the opinion that if he was in another big funny comedy again I think the audience would have been there for
22:44
him you I mean we hadn't given up on him yet We were just waiting for him to be in another funny movie again you know
22:49
Yeah It's it's interesting I've actually done a lot of John Belalushi watching in the last 6 months Uh I've read a couple
22:56
of books and uh yeah it's it's interesting to think where his his career would have gone because it seemed
23:03
like he was you know sort of venturing away from comedy a little bit But I'd imagine that you have to take those
23:10
journeys away from your you know your bread and butter you know to you know before you can come back and sort of
23:16
appreciate and excel what you did I'm of the opinion David that there's a there's
23:22
going to be a time and a place I don't know when it's going to be but we're going to get a complete reassessment of
23:30
Dan Akroyd and uh and how profound of a talent he was Oh yeah Yeah I mean Howard
23:36
Stern thought he was a genius comedian I mean yes absolutely Yeah I would agree with that Okay Yeah
23:42
That's the hard thing too is it's hard to you know it's very easy to get pigeonholed into things and that and I
23:48
think this is where Diploma got very lucky was he was able to you know branch out and show to
23:54
Hollywood he could do big blockbuster movies Although again you know like Carrie did fine and made made a lot of
23:59
money but he showed that you know he could do stuff like the Untouchables and Mission Impossible A lot of times when
24:06
you have a hit movie everyone just wants more of the same and it's hard to break out of that
24:12
Yeah Yeah I mean it's definitely interesting to see how he's he was able to sort of you know play in in different
24:17
worlds So David I want to make sure that we leave enough time to talk about your books and I think this was a great
24:23
discussion about DAMA and I would love to continue talking with you about DAMA
24:29
and maybe uh in the future we can have another extended discussion But I do know that you have a couple of books out
24:35
there Do you want to talk a little bit about real terror yeah sure on In fact I
24:41
believe maybe not an entire chapter but I do have a chapter on Carrie and um The
24:46
Palm is in the book quite a bit Obviously I wrote a book called Real Terror Uh came out 2012 St Martins's
24:52
Press and it's a history of the modern horror film and diplom in there along
24:57
with John Carpenter Toby Hooper you know round up the usual suspects for movies
25:02
you know everything from you know no feratu up to um I think I touched on
25:09
torture porn briefly and that's probably all it deserves but you know like that
25:14
you know George Romero all that stuff and and there's a whole thing in there with Carrie where you know I I did rely
25:20
quite a bit on the premiere article on Carrie but I also found people who worked on it and had good stories to
25:26
tell and all of that And um you know one thing one of my favorite stories that was in the Josh Rottenberg article that
25:31
I included in the book was about how George Lucas thought the ending of Carrie was brilliant because you know we
25:37
didn't have the multiplexes in those days So everyone's waiting outside for this movie to to let out and all of a
25:44
sudden the audience screams and then the movie lets out So everyone's like someone's like "What's coming at the end
25:50
of this movie that we have to be on guard for?" You know oh yeah And it's funny Anna I I did a previous episode on
25:58
Carrie and we talked about how like that ending I mean it was pretty much
26:03
wholesale ripped off for the the jump scare at the end of Friday the 13th and has sort of become a staple of horror
26:09
films Well and the funny thing is is um that was also inspired by Deliverance
26:14
Yeah With the hand coming out of the out of the river and the story went that the Palma went to go see Deliverance and
26:20
walking I said I can do that so much better Yeah So um and and Stephen King told the
26:26
story I think it was in Fangoria I he went to a preview of Carrie where it's playing on a double bill with Norman Is
26:34
that you the the Red Fox comedy Um did you know that movie uh just by name Yeah
26:40
It's it's a comedy where Red Fox has to come to terms with his son being gay or something like that Okay Yeah Directed
26:47
by George Slaughter So it's playing on the double bill with that And I remember Stephen King said there were these two
26:53
big African-American guys sitting right in front of him You'd think would be scared of nothing And then you know the
26:58
hand comes out of the grave and they both grab each other Oh my god But I'm saying she ain't never going
27:05
to be right She ain't never going to be right Meaning the Amy Irving character Yeah So uh Real Terror Basically you
27:13
break down the history of of horror over the last hundred years And then you also wrote a book Bang Your Head right about
27:19
heavy metal about heavy metal bands Yes Um there's nothing in there about Phantom of the Paradise but there is a
27:24
section on Spinal Tap which it is crucial to the the history of heavy metal whether heavy metal musicians want
27:31
to acknowledge that or not But yeah no I'm I'm a big metal fan and actually a
27:37
lot of my offline discussions uh with DX have revolved around music and and
27:42
heavier music I'll include links where people can find out more about you David and your books And I I want to thank you
27:49
so much for taking the time out to to to have this discussion And I think uh it's going to be a really really great
27:56
episode because in previous episodes we've kind of focused on you know very scene specific moments in his
28:02
filmography and I think it was great to sort of talk about Deama's career overall Yeah And one last thing I can
28:09
mention and this is something I was thinking about as well There's a lot of things that have popped up with me when
28:15
I've watched his work Um like in Carrie like the bucket of blood Um I don't know
28:20
if this ever you've ever thought this but that's the bomb theory that how Hitchcock came up with except it was up
28:26
in the rafters instead under the table Yeah Yeah I didn't realize that but it's
28:31
like oh that's what this is But you know an interesting thing about Scarface as well because Oliver Stone wrote the
28:37
screenplay and it's very much an Oliver Stone story even though it's a remake of a classic 30s film but it's very much
28:44
his theme of um the American dream really being the American nightmare but
28:50
it also you know there's a big deala theme in it and it didn't dawn on me but you know a big theme in deba's work is
28:56
no good deed goes unpunished right and that's how Tony Montana dies He does the
29:01
right And I remembered asking Oliver Stone about that in creative screenwriting I said you know he does
29:06
all these horrible things Nothing bad happens to him but when he tries to do the right thing that's what ends up
29:11
getting him killed And I said was that intentional he said yeah it was That's excellent Um I'm a I'm a big uh fan of
29:18
Oliver Stone's work And I think his work from the mid80s to the mid90s does not
29:27
get the credit it deserves for how it altered the way people shot film I mean his use of different stocks and
29:33
different media It's really underappreciated now And and it it's a shame that people don't respect the
29:40
filmmaker that Oliver Stone was for Yeah No I I agree I think it's because he's just so over the top and so nuts and
29:46
everything like that But there there is a real filmmaker there and a real and a very good screenwriter working there as
29:51
well you know i mean it's uh Yeah I mean it's and it's I think it's like what Lawrence Grebell once said when he
29:57
interviewed Oliver Stone for either Playboy or Movie Line or something like that Love him or hate him You can't
30:02
ignore him you know Yeah that's excellent And I think the same thing could be said for Deama David Uh this
30:08
was such an excellent discussion and I had a a blast and again I look forward to hopefully speaking to you uh to you
30:15
again and yeah now that we have the technical problems just we'll just go through Gmail from here on out and we're
30:20
we're good to go anytime Absolutely Thanks again My pleasure Thank you