Body Double [DVD]

Great film — but watch the version you buy. The one I ordered does NOT have the extras. Search closely and you'll find at least one version (the one in dual DVD/BluRay) that has three extras, including interviews with stars Deborah Shelton and Melanie Griffith, among others.Confusingly, the Amazon gremlins appear to have lumped together ALL reviews of ALL versions, creating the distinct possibility that, prompted by mention of the “extras” in a review under a non-extras version, you'll save a buck or two and NOT get the interviews for which you were hoping. The more expensive versions are going to cost you just €4 (£3.50) or so more, but are well worth it for insights into a much-misunderstood, utterly under-rated film.The most noteworthy performance is offered by non-star Craig Wasson (De Palma's Jimmy Stewart proxy), with his Mr Everyman face and his believable vulnerability. Watch out too for a superb Craig Henry as the villain, and a cameo by Dennis “Hill Street Blues” Franz as the schlock director.Also first-rate is the apparently nasty, but actually heroic David Haskell as the drama teacher who appears to bully our hero but whom we may, in the end, have to thank for saving him.Melanie Griffith in the title role sparked much controversy among PC types, but with long hindsight her efforts seem a little dry and wooden, with the blame resting less on her than her role, a “type” rather than a living character. Deborah Shelton, on the other hand, makes much more of far fewer lines and, with Wasson, is the beating heart of a story which, viewed with unprejudiced eyes, is surprisingly tender.Body Double, in addition to the main story, serves up many a movie-biz curiosity, tracing for example how quickly the “adult” side of the industry has developed — or rather mutated — with vast changes in distribution methods, format and, of course, degrees of explicitness. Indeed the picture represents the swan-song of blue movies, with a precipitate slide — from film to video, from theatres to PCs, from erotic stories to OB/GYN closeups — starting almost exactly at the moment the picture was released in the early 1980s.The most serious charge with which De Palma has had to contend (apart, of course, from the reflexive cry of “Misogynist!”) is that this film, like most if not all of his output, is a Hitchcock re-tread.Well, first, De Palma ably defends himself against this charge in the first-rate Noah Baumbach/Jake Paltrow documentary De Palma (which see).Second, there is not a scene in the picture, including the most obvious homages, in which the New Jersey-born director does not add his own sour, mournful view of human nature. If there is a Hitchockian scene, or style, or shot, then there is also a De Palma-esque equivalent and the two, while similar, are not the same. If Jake Scully spying is Hitchcockian (Rear Window: no marks for that), what he spies on is pure De Palma. Similarly, the schlock-horror with which the picture opens and closes is a wry comment on De Palma's own start in low-budget films: a very different world from that of Hitchcock's shabby-genteel beginnings.Watch out for Stephen Burum's superb camera. See for example his first and second driving scene with Wasson, one a clear process shot and the other more naturalistic — both linked to the moveable landscape wheeled into, then out of shot by two stagehands. Indeed throughout the picture, De Palma constantly references the illusion of film itself, both with play-within-a-play devices but also more subtly. Hitchcock's occasional references to his own art were much more oblique.De Palma came from the same generation as Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola but, at this stage, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that he'll gain anything like their measure of critical acclaim. That's a pity. All three are artists, and all three have their models and masters. (See Scorsese's eulogising of Hawks and Ford in his recent Dublin masterclass, for example.) Yes, De Palma's quotings are more obvious, but that only makes him more open to attack, not less original. There are a few seconds of Hitchcock in this picture, but nearly ninety minutes of pure De Palma. The director may share with Hitchcock a vision of the world heavily shadowed in religious guilt (Catholic in Hitch's case, bluenose/Quaker in De Palma's), but in De Palma's case redemption, if available at all, is always remote and elusive.

As a Brian De Palma fan, I usually find things to enjoy - even admire in his movies, but "Body Double" counts as one of the weakest. The Alfred Hitchcock references are more blatant here than in any other De Palma movies - and in Body Double we get two Hitchcock's - "Rear Window" and "Vertigo". But more of that later.The plot, well it's hard to describe without spoilers, but I'll try. Failed actor Jake (Craig Wasson) loses a role due to his phobia of confined spaces, and to cheer him up, a friend loans him a swanky apartment with an amazing view and a telescope. Jake spends his evenings spying through the telescope at a sultry neighbour who likes to dance erotically in her bedroom window at night (as you do), but as well as this, he also spies a less pleasant character who seems to also be watching the sexy lady, but in a more menacing fashion. Thus begins a tanged web of stalking and murder and ...yes I'll say it - twists in the tale.So forgiving the Hitchcock parallels for a moment, does the film still entertain? Well, no it doesn't. The story is ludicrous. Jake follows the sexy neighbour around in the worst attempt at stalking ever committed to film. One of the poorest scenes in the film is when the sexy neighbour pops into an up-market lingerie store and tries on a pair of knickers. The store seems to have a policy of putting its changing rooms directly in the huge front window and customers are perfectly at liberty to slip off their own underwear first and try on the intimate garments (urgh!), without even closing the curtains, so any passer by can cop an eyeful.The acting of both Wasson and Deborah Shelton (who plays the sexy neighbour) is not very good, especially Shelton, who speaks like she can't understand her own lines, either that or her voice is dubbed by someone else. Things don't improve much when the plot takes a switch and suddenly Jake is seeking out a sexy porno star actress Holly Body (played by Melanie Griffith in an early but very explicit role). He soon gets close enough to her to be cast in her latest movie, and in a very bizarre scene, the shooting of the porn movie is present as a "faux musical interlude" which is really bizarre. Things get worse and worse until the movie supposedly plays it's trump card ( a very boring twist ending) and limps to a boring close.As I've described above, the film does not stand out, but back the the Hitchcock elements, these are shockingly and slavishly copied. Jake's "phobia experiences" are played out using one of those same squeezing zoom shots (I don't know the name) that were used in "Vertigo", and as in that film, they happen just when the plot needs them to. We actually get two plot devices lifted directly from "Vertigo" but in case you do want to enjoy "Body Double", I won't spoil it for you by explaining the second one. The telescope peeping across to another house uses the exact same "upstairs and downstairs" tension as in "Rear Window", and there isn't any attempt to add a new dimension to it (no need as it was such a good idea the first time around).As I said I am a De Palma fan. "Carrie" counts as one of the best horror films of the 1970s, "Sisters", "Dressed to Kill" and "The Fury" all show similar style and panache. So why does "Body Double" seem like such a waste of film? I don't know... I guess everyone has bad days. And this movie is that day for Brian De Palma.

An excellent representation of a movie that,as it goes with much of De Palma's best work, is either misinterpreted or is at best judged as a nice thriller. People don't understand a thing of modernity, and how De Palma starts from Hitchcock whom he adores only to depart to a higher sphere of thinking and constructing his visions. Here we deal with perhaps the most complex and interesting investigation of the function of regard in the history of cinema. That doesn't mean we are dealing with a cold movie;contrawise, it's a very personal film, rich in emotions, which you must dig beneath the surface to discover;but that's the way modern cinema works, whether one wants it or not:not with the traditional identification through the drama, as in classic theater and literature, but through the experience that cinema provides in its unique way, and few directors understand that-and teach us about it-so well as De Palma. The booklet that accompanies this edition(I am fond of booklets) unfortunately focuses much on the controversy that characterised the critical apprehension of the film, with lots of pages filled with a stupid interview where De Palma has to defend himself against accusations of pornography (nothing could be sillier than that as the film is a study on impotence, focusing on the mechanisms of voyeurism, without letting the spectator sit back and joy, and so it is exactly anti-pornographic in the strictest sense). At the end, we also have a negative review, full of stupid comments. I'm sure there could be better things to be said about the movie but never mind, the film is there to watch in perfect form, one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of cinema, for whoever can understand what it's all about.

Watched this when it came out many years ago and really liked it. I wasn't sure I still would after so many years, but was not disappointed.

muy buena actuación de actores y actrices

Aspettavo da tempo un buon prezzo per acquistarlo. Thriller puri anni '80.

Es una película muy bien realizada por Brian de Palma

Livré en 4 jours (3 jours annoncés) en état neuf. Je trouve ça rapide sachant que le produit venait d'Italie. J'ai adoré le film (en version restaurée 4K) ! Le début est un peu long mais vraiment génial dés que l'intrigue se lance vraiment. Intriguant et drôle ! Un film de De Palma à voir absolument, alors que partout le film n'apparaît pas comme le mieux classé de la filmographie du réalisateur. Je n'ai pas regretté, au contraire. C'est un blu-ray que je vais garder et un film que je vais conseiller. (boitier de blu-ray classique pour cette version 4K avec menu proposant version originale sous-titrée français ou doublée en français, au choix).