De Palma  

Directors: Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow

A fascinating and by no means entirely hagiographic week of recording the master filmmaker – he wore the same shirt throughout shooting, for continuity’s sake – of the some-say misogynistic but suspense-drenched filmmaker.

Speaking directly to the camera, the genial, occasionally self-mocking De Palma discusses his methodology, why he chooses certain tracking angles, why specific actors are caught from various heights and distances, and in general gives a chewy, nutritious take on his trademark process, a privileged behind-the-scenes look at an avatar of a certain generation of great lensers, up there with Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, and our other faves.

De P delights in talking about the young De Niro and Pacino, whom he discovered in his own early filmmaking and school.  De Palma unabashedly honors Hitchcock in camera setups, plotting, framing, suspense sequences, and so forth.  Provocative, tantalizing excerpts of his many iconic and still virulent films include Sisters; Obsession, loosely inspired by Hitchcock’s Vertigo; Dressed to Kill and the taut G-man drama Untouchables; high school nightmare Carrie; nose-candy Scarface; and illegal eagle skeeves Carlito’s Way.

There is much adult content, violence, and sudden gore, which cut into the overall enjoyment, as did scenes involving women not being treated all that chivalrously.  De Palma’s recollections and powerful opinions about his film, and others’ filmmaking, are worth the discomfort.  No one is forcing anyone to see those films that handle women as props for bloodletting and screams.

As a doc, it ranks up there with the recent Brando on Brando – almost must-viewing for aficionados of the genre.

Life, Animated

Director: Roger Ross Williams

Someone commented at the screening that this was a good title.  Ron Suskind, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, and his wife noticed, early on, that their younger son was not functioning to age level and seemed to be blocked off from normal routes of communication and interaction.

Owen Suskind, the subject of this immersive family saga that reads larger than one family’s herculean effort to rescue their child from the closed prison of autism, is a good-looking, active boy until autism makes its appearance at 3.  The remarkable aspect of this family and boy’s fight to become an integrated person holding a job, able to interact, and capable of reasonable assisted function for most intents and purposes as non-challenged youth do, is the magic.  Obsessively watching beloved Disney cartoon figures, how they speak, walk, handle crises, enabled Owen to cross-link life with how the Disney animated characters in all these much loved films portrayed life and interactions.

Other needed skills accreted, with showings and work with professionals and those amazing, loving parents.  Disney became the tool of choice for dozens of autistic youth, presided over by a thrilled Owen in home and institutional showings.

Remarkably, across the country, the same phenomenon has been noted, with youth of both genders being roused by the empathic characters in these moral tales of animals and humans.

Autism used to be a relatively rare disorder.  It has become ever more prevalent in our society, now closing on one autistic child in under 100.  For most, there is no cure.  Its etiology and sometimes its course are still not well understood, though progress is being made.  Slowly.

We were initially leery of seeing the film, but by the end, there was an audience full of smiling, delighted viewers, whose enthusiasm was heightened even more by the thrill of meeting the late-20s Owen and his loving, persevering family, and some of the doc film principals.  Even without the vivacious Owen and company, the sentient adult cannot help but admire this rather amazing trajectory from darkness and shutdown to swimmingly present and functional.

And the film reminds us all how fraught with adversity, crisis, and obstacles everyday life is.  Owen is not alone in wishing, along with Peter Pan, that he could live forever in the protected cocoon of childhood.