Body Double - 1984
Forget about all the homage talk, this straight up IS a Hitchcock film. My goodness. Body Double, taken in totality, really is a wonder to behold. It is such a fusion of so many distinct genres and sensibilities: A cat-and-mouse car chase a la Rear Window, a vertiginous tunnel sequence mirroring, well, Vertigo, the voyeuristic leanings of the former, a mashup of slasher and old horror tropes, and a visual aesthetic and dialogue which could rightly be at home in a 1940's pic. Truly, when you put this on and start viewing, you feel the need to Google what year it premiered. A dyslexic who mistakenly read "1948" would not be a whole lot off stylistically.
It mirrors the great director in other ways, as well. This film has a visual language which is striking. The dialogue is actually few and far between. Brain De Palma, like the master before him, used the camera, shot framing, and movement to tell the story rather than talking heads. This isn’t to say that the speaking parts are not well-penned. Indeed, it’s much of the writing and situational humor and drama surrounding Melanie Griffith’s Holly Body that garnered her a Golden Globe nomination. He also, as noted by several critics at the time, utilized an “every man” actor in Craig Wasson. Perhaps it is just a fortuitous accident of history, or maybe De Palma just knew that Wasson would never be big time. In any case, I do not recall seeing him in any other pictures save this one. This lends even more weight and credence to the contention that he is an everyday guy (with a slightly odd obsession) who gets swept up into a murder scandal.
Regardless, what is so significant is how airtight this all is. Sure, the director pushes the bounds of logic at various turns. The spinning 360 camera dervish around Wasson’s Jake Scully and Gloria Revelle’s (the lass he is following) passionate kisses and embrace moments after first meeting registers as a tad absurd. The interposition of a side plot with Scully playing a claustrophobic vampire in a B horror flick (where the director is playing a mock-up of De Palma himself, by the way) hits the same absurdist leanings. And YET, this thing hums right along. It’s always suspenseful and always cogent, even as the plot grows as serpentine as the avenue on the Hollywood Hills where the “Indian” picks up Ms. Body. For a film with so many plot twists, Body Double rather remarkably avoids all deus exmachina and the like.
I have, of course, to this point glossed over the big chunk of the film which is wholly unique from all that I’ve mentioned before. I am referring, as viewers are no doubt aware, to Scully’s descent into the pornographic underworld. Here we get not only one of the greatest character name/double entendres of all-time - Holly Body - but also, wait for it, an 80’s music video! Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood blares in our ears as Scully navigates a club scene as a nerdy actor cast in a porno. De Palma shot these amateur porn like sequences himself.
It’s all really terrific. Wasson’s conversations with Griffith give us hilariously tragic lines about the kinds of things she’ll do to get paid in one such production, and this little gem - “I’ve got a routine that is a sure 10 on the peter meter.” From Rear Window to Debbie Does Dallas knockoffs in a matter of minutes. No wonder this film garnered Globe noms alongside Razzies.
Now, it is just this kind of hodgepodge-ing and screwiness (sort of no pun intended) which may undo Body Double for some. It can be a touch hammy. Moreover, if you’re not really down for salacious content, for peeping toms who are nonetheless well-meaning, for subtle takedowns of everything from the entertainment industry to outdated stereotypes against Native Americans, then this one could lose you. It is tonally of a certain moment in time, and that time was NOT 1984. It glances backwards as it nestles in the present. It’s sinister, but in a gleefully macabre way. It’s leads are swinging for the fences, and completely invested in it all. Sex, voyeurism, suspense, exceptional visual craftmanship, violence, and a plot which is really topnotch for a thriller...one of the better Brian De Palma outings.
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