SYNOPSICS
Body Double (1984) is a English movie. Brian De Palma has directed this movie. Craig Wasson,Melanie Griffith,Gregg Henry,Deborah Shelton are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1984. Body Double (1984) is considered one of the best Crime,Drama,Mystery,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
Jake Scully comes home to find his girlfriend with another man and has to find a new place. In between his acting workshops and his job in a vampire B-movie, he scans the paper looking for anything. He happens to meet Sam Bouchard, a fellow actor who needs a house sitter. Both are pleased with the arrangement that will have Jake staying in the house and for a sweetener, Sam shows him his favorite neighbor, a well-built woman who strips with her window open each night. Jake becomes obsessed with meeting her and is able to help recover her purse from a thief, but shows his own phobia, he is incapacitated by claustrophobia when the thief runs through a tunnel. When Jake witnesses a murder, he finds out that the police love to pin crimes on peeping Toms. Jake discovers that here are just too many coincidences but must hunt them down himself without the police.
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Body Double (1984) Reviews
a great movie, misunderstood by most
possible spoilers I'm pretty sure that Body Double is one of the most misunderstood movies of all time. Many people call it a tribute to Hitchcock, other people call it a rip-off of Hitchcock, some people think it's a parody.... I think it's more than any of those things, I think it's an analysis. A humorous, insightful essay on Hitchcock... Kind of like something Godard might do, which isn't surprising when you realize that Godard is also a big influence on De Palma. The distancing techniques employed in the film, the way he hams it up, the scenes where the internal logic breaks down in obvious ways, like the kissing scene near the tunnel, where the movie suddenly reenacts the famous hotel kiss from the second half of vertigo, at a very unexpected time with almost no set up to make the scene believable... All these things are intentional, designed to let the audience in on the fact that this is not just a straight forward movie (although it can be enjoyed that way). De Palma wants the audience to have some separation from the story so that they can look at the movie in a more critical way, and think about Hitchcock's movies from a different perspective. These distancing techniques also allow de Palma to get away with some pretty harsh/sleazy scenes, and that was necessary because the analysis wouldn't have worked any other way. This is basically De Palma saying, "what if Vertigo and Rear Window had a baby, but the baby was born in the 80's and raised by a prostitute and a murderous pimp." The result is a fascinating movie that stands up very well, as long as you understand the intentions. If you take it the right way, it's one of De Palma's very best movies. As a big fan of vertigo and rear window (vertigo is my favorite movie of all time), it was fascinating to me, to see De Palma, rework those story's, twine them together, and put them in a different context. I really enjoyed it both times I've watched it, and I'm pretty sure it's one of those movies that will just keep getting better with repeated viewing.
De Palma in his Hitchcock Phase
Sort of a cross between "Rear Window" and "Vertigo" but instead of James Stewart we get Craig Wasson as a struggling actor mixed in with some sly jokes at the film studios, actors, and adult films. Visually very stylish with hypnotic score. Bizarre music video sequence is well done to the tune of "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. If you can look past the plot holes, it's an entertaining over-the-top effort from De Palma.
Much better than expected
I admit when I rented this movie, I did so just to get some cheap thrills. I was aware of the negative reviews from uptight critics who dismissed it as sleaze, and to be honest, that's what I was in the mood for. Besides, my curiosity was aroused. (No cheap jokes, please!) To my surprise, this is actually a compelling, well-crafted thriller. Let me take it a step further. It's an improvement over DePalma's effective but overpraised "Dressed to Kill." "Body Double" is actually better-constructed and better-paced. Perhaps the extremes of the film's content turned off some members of the critical community. And keep in mind that many of these people loved Dressed. However, if you can stomach some of the content (it would certainly warrant an NC-17 in today's climate), there's much to like here. DePalma's approach might be manipulative, but when he does so this effectively, it's hard to complain. Technically, it's a marvel of film technique. Wasson's claustrophobic attacks are effectively conveyed to the viewer. When they hit him, they hit us just as hard. The very ending, which I wouldn't dream of giving away, is a work of pure genius. The infamous drill murder is a terrific setpiece. One aspect that interested me was its attitude towards porno. So-called "dirty movies" are not condemned, but treated as simply being another side of the film industry. It's not considered right or wrong; it's just there. Such a nonjudgmental outlook is refreshing after hearing the tiresome rants of self-appointed "moral watchdogs." Likewise, there is a loving tribute to B-movies during the opening and closing credits. "Body Double" isn't good art by any means, but it's good trash. Watch it, and you will behold DePalma at his sleazy best. He makes no apologies for what he does, nor would we want him to do so. ***1/2 (out of ****) Released by Columbia Pictures
hilarious exercise in style and murder mystery
I've been a fan of De Palma long time and I just saw this one this night. To my enjoyment, I had a few smiles, even laughters, intensity, involving to the storyline, getting that suspense that is needed. This movie is a perfect example to pull of what Hitchcock has done best in "Rear Window" and "Vertigo". De Palma set up those two basic ideas into a story that's really enjoyable and intense same time. Especially when you are in the knowledge of the movies of the 40s and 50s and the art of making a thriller you are just going to be pleased. My guess is that De Palma made this movie out of pure pleasure, doing all those great stuff with claustrophobia, sexual need, voyeurism, grotesque murder, and most of all terrifying suspense. The murder sequence was in my opinion of a well crafted exercise in suspense. You fear, then you hope, then you try to guess, it goes all right, then all wrong, the hero comes, it seems at right time, but still too late, it all goes on and on and you can't believe it happened. Loved and hated the sequence, for film-making and emotional purposes. Not the greatest, but definitely one of De Palmas best.
De Palma's lurid and outrageous thriller hits all the right marks as more of a satire or parody than a full-on thriller, and magnificently so
With Body Double, Brian De Palma has another of his "Hitchcock rip-offs", but in quotes as it's the easy critical thing that's already been said by others. The film is really a lot more cunning than that, and has a level of cunning wit that one could more associate with De Palma's early comedies that felt very much about skewering the style being homaged as opposed to incurious methods. If one looks at it as much as a big wink and a nod to films like Rear Window and especially Vertigo, with a lot of direct jabs at Hollywood and the whole method of acting and pretending, there's a lot on the table. It's also tasteless in its outrageous depictions of sensuality and seduction, not just sex which gets a lot of wicked moments that veer almost totally into what's being made fun of, and has a huge "gotcha" ending that works specifically for its shock value. It's own self-consciousness is a huge asset, as when De Palma is at his best or at least most assertive, in this case pushing the taboo of mixing regular dramatic fiction with soft-core porno to a limit with glee. It's not even that one can't take it sort of seriously as a work of kind-of pop-art, as in taking in the outlandish brilliance of a much better-than-average paperback book, because De Palma is on his toes the whole time in crafting a melodramatic thriller. There's even an experiment in tension which starts as an long homage to the 'following' sequences in Vertigo, but then building to a high crescendo and then to another. In fact, Body Double is silent for a lot of the time, but as something that is worked into the main character. Craig Wasson is a perfect foil for the events that unfold around him as the "witness" to all that comes before his watchful eye in a befriended man's apartment. In what is, to be sure, fairly typical material for the director with the basics of the substance, the story calling back to Hi, Mom and Sisters especially (hence as well the connection to the knowing dips into comedy, of which both of those could be considered as), though this time the 'hero' is a of weakling with panic attacks at the moment to act, albeit already an actor. A murder is witnessed following a pivotal plot point and high-flying moment of romance (again, calling attention to its over-length), then the dive into porno comes around. It's trashy, sure, but why shouldn't that make it more enjoyable if one's to get the kidding and sharp sensibility after a while? Wasson, looking a bit like a double of Bill Maher sometimes, has the expression of terror in his eyes, and a kind of strange guts needed to pull off a hilariously flawed pawn. De Palma also intentionally casts to type with both women and the villains, one for each being more deceptive (i.e. Henry's Brouchard and Shelton's Gloria, who are very much like "movie" caricatures from the craftiest and most seductive of film-noir), and with one 'villain' called the Indian, donning a face that's a riot just to look at, who at one point engages in a murder including the most blatant phallic imagery in any murder scene from the filmmaker. But, again, it all works exceptionally for rhythm and a sort of momentum build into even the smaller moments. As cheesily 80's as it is, I loved the whole music video Relax, where occasionally as De Palma almost makes us forget that a movie is being shot within this scene, the camera shooting Wasson and Griffith comes into view in a mirror. But that's just a sly joke, as opposed to the scenes where suspense and humor get the back and forth treatment, where you aren't sure whether to laugh or cringe or look at the screen through closed fingers peeking out. I can actually understand some of the negative criticisms of Body Double. I probably wouldn't be so forgiving of it being so proudly 'B-movie' while appearing to be a big Hollywood crime-drama, if I wasn't at least intrigued on the outset from the sensibility behind it all. 'Guilty Pleasure' comes to mind as a defense, but I should digress into what it really comes down to- either you'll go along for a De Palma atmosphere that is wild and cynical and full of rough-edges, or you won't. In other instances with the director I've gone for the latter, but this isn't one of them. One of the best of 1984.