Murder à la Mod

Brian De Palma – 1967 – USA

Though it made not a blip on the radar in its day, Murder à la Mod is a fascinating mission statement about the career that Brian De Palma was embarking on.  I would consider it his first film, because The Wedding Party – (released in 1969 but shot in 1963) – was merely a weak and uncharacteristic student film that he co-wrote and co-directed with others.  Not unlike other quasi-underground transgressive early works such as David Cronenberg’s Stereo (1969) or John Waters’ Multiple Maniacs (1970), Murder à la Mod anticipates its creator’s aesthetic in a remarkably clear and solid way.  The whole notion of De Palma building a style upon his wry interpretation of Hitchcock’s cinema starts in this film.  De Palma is not a Hitchcock copycat, as his critics often claim; he is profoundly energized and intrigued by the element of Hitchcock’s style that penetrated to the deepest mysteries of film itself.  Therefore De Palma’s films, (at least his most interesting ones), are really his visualized struggle to understand the potential of cinema by using Hitchcock as a guide.  The camera as a tool of voyeurism, artifice and empowerment is a vital, recurring theme in De Palma’s films.  This naturally lends itself to controversial sexual, lurid and morbid plot elements.  It’s all here in this debut feature.  A young filmmaker turns to shooting skin flicks to make ends meet.  His actress girlfriend tries to help him make money too; except for the purpose of divorcing his wife.  Meanwhile, a serial killer stalks the building they work out of.  De Palma boldly fractures the narrative by splitting up the film into segments depicting the same events from different angles.  As with his frequent signature split-screen and slow-motion techniques, he is intent on showing that cinematography is not an instrument of truth-finding but of perspectives.  Even when the perspective coincides with the filmmaker’s opinion, it is still not objective truth we see but merely one of innumerable possible points-of-view.  De Palma’s cinema is all about this conundrum.