Press Play features my De Palma video w/ Kevin B. Lee interview

My video essay (the online work I'm proudest of in any form) "directed by De Palma", featuring clips from Hi Mom, Carrie and Scarface, has just been highlighted on the video essay site Press Play. It's accompanied by an interview with me, conducted by the great video essayist Kevin B. Lee (fair warning: the video contains strong violent and sexual imagery from Brian De Palma's work, and is NSFW).

Below I've reproduced both the interview and the video, which can also be found on PressPlay.

Pray For Us Sinners 1974 - 1976 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 22

Twenty-second chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films

(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)


View "Chapter 22: Pray For Us Sinners"

Pray For Us Sinners

The social spillover from the sixties continued into the mid-seventies. Whereas initially the frustration and alienation had been countered by a sense of excitement and community, by this time it just felt like rot. Watergate exemplified the United States' disillusionment with itself and its institutions, yet perhaps the country's misfortune was the cinema's good fortune. After focusing on Europe and Asia for several entries, today we return to America; for the first time in ten chapters, Hollywood films dominate the selections. But what a difference! If in 1959 the clips seemed to be quietly escalating their style and tiptoeing toward a more adult content, fifteen years later the American cinema has passed completely into a dark, radical maturity (fair warning: much of today's chapter is not safe for work).

(continued below, along with NSFW & spoiler warnings)