#5 BODY DOUBLE (Dave's Choice)

Dave is on a Brian De Palma kick lately.  On his own time he's been watching Sisters and Carrie, so as soon as I got caught up with this blog, he bumped Body Double up to the top of his list.  We settled in to watch last Sunday after a Non-Father's Father's Day that felt like we'd been on really great day trip. As I've said before, the timing and the mood I'm in before I watch a movie is just as important (if not more important) to me than the movie itself.  Unlike Black Book, the events surrounding BD have turned the film an emotional bookmark in my mind that I will flip back to for years to come anytime I hear any mentioning of Brian De Palma.  As for my opinion on the movie itself, wellllllllllll...

First let's start off with Netflix's description:

In a nasty double-whammy, struggling actor Jake Sculley (Craig Wasson) loses his girlfriend and then witnesses a brutal murder in a neighbor's apartment. When a young porn actress (Melanie Griffith) befriends Jack, the two join forces to find the killer. Feeding his seemingly unquenchable appetite for gore and violence, Brian De Palma directed this Hitchcock-inspired thriller, which earned Griffith a Golden Globe nomination.

Dave first described this movie to me as a combination of Hitchcock's Rear Window and Vertigo, (two films I've enjoyed) only with a few gory scenes. **Rewind** On one of our first dates, I asked Dave if he wanted to see Drag Me To Hell. I knew that it was a horror film and that I was the same person who got nightmares for a year seeing Beetlejuice, but I wanted an excuse to see him.  I thought that suggesting a Sam Raimi horror flick as a date movie would make me seem like a cool chick. What it actually did was introduce Dave to what would soon be his role in our relationship: Guy Who Tells Me When It's Okay To Stop Covering My Eyes During A Violent/Gory/Scary/Rapey/Bloody Scene In Any TV Show Or Movie. So, he knew good and well going into Body Double that my face might be buried in his shoulder for a portion of the film. I like to think that even after a year of dating, that that's why he did it.

Body Double reminded me a lot of film school, more specifically the kinds of movies we had to watch in film school. The kind where I wasn't sure if I was too stupid to "get" it, or whether my fellow students just pretended to like and "get" a film because this way they seemed cool. Dave and I are both film grads with two completely different experiences. Dave went to Central Michigan with the hopes of spending as much time as possible working for the college's TV station and as little time as possible being distracted with any other subject outside of his major. I, on the other hand, went to NYU (or as my mother likes to tell people "Tisch Shool Of The Arts at NYU for Film").  What I really learned in film school was that I didn't want to be a director or even work in film, I just really liked pop culture. I think this decision was helped by the fact that I was in class with a lot of pretentious jerks who hated anything I ever made. And after several semesters of off again on again depression, I also learned I have Seasonal Affective Disorder so I spent more time in the Barnes and Noble self-help section than in our school's library (which, incidentally had not one, but two suicides while I was enrolled there).

Like film school screening classes, I spent most of BD like David After Dentist. "Is this real life?" What's going on?  For this reason, and for the fact that the film takes place in an old dated L.A. that I can't even relate to, the film reminded me a lot of Mulholland Drive (a movie a lot of film buffs like but that I can't stand). Unlike David Lynch, De Palma was able to actually have a plot that ended at a place that felt intentional. And any movie with a Keyser Soze twist gets a gold star in my book.

And while my feelings about Body Double may be mixed, what I loved was actually the conversations I had with my dad surrounding that book ended the movie. As I mentioned earlier it was Father's Day. While waiting to watch BD, I decided to call my dad in Florida one more time since I couldn't be there to celebrate with him. I mentioned the movie Dave and I were about to watch and he said, "Oh, I think we saw that a long time ago. Is that the one where---" "Stop! Dad! I want to be surprised!" "Okay." I then watched a film where Melanie Griffith shows her boobs multiple times with the thought that my dad, when he was not much older than I am now, had seen this movie—probably with my mother who probably hated it.

I'm not sure whether my dad timed this out to come in when the movie was over, but just as the final credits were rolling I got an email on my phone from him that read,

 Did the guy with the drill scare you?

Yes.  Yes he did.  Or at least I think he did.  I'm not really sure, because this was the part in the movie where I buried myself into what was probably Dave's armpit.  But I laughed out loud.  It was so (for lack of a better explanation) "my dad". And that's what I love about movies and pop culture; though thousands of miles away I can still share a joke, an experience, a chuckle with my dad.  I'll always think of Father's Day and my dad when I think of Body Double which is weird, but the truth.  I think that's also why I started this project, not for the movies I'd get to watch; but for the stories that would come along with it.

Now for the real body doubles in this movie:

Craig Wasson and Bill Maher (someone already beat me to the punch with this one):

Melanie Griffith and 80s era Brigitte Nielsen:

"The Indian" and Salute Your Shorts' Zeke The Plumber:

And I couldn't end this post without the Frankie Goes To Hollywood scene: