As Kate and the stranger play a cat-and-mouse game through the galleries, De Palma, a stickler for establishing spatial relationships, turns the museum into a dizzying maze of rooms that connect in multiple directions, which has the effect of amplifying her desire to a fever pitch. Kate’s sexual frustration is a primary topic of conversation with her therapist, Dr Elliott (Michael Caine), who has flatly confessed his own attraction to her, but at the museum, she finally seizes the opportunity to scratch the seven-year itch. On an afternoon visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kate enters into a wordless flirtation with a handsome stranger in dark glasses – and this being a De Palma film (and this being the world), there’s always the threat that such a casual erotic rendezvous could turn dangerous. The real world will soon turn this dark fantasy into reality.īut not before De Palma unleashes one of the great set pieces of his career. (The morning sex they have later is a dreary grind over the chatter of a clock radio.) The Norman Bates of this scenario is conjured entirely by her imagination, as if the pleasure she seeks is forbidden and worthy of punishment. The Janet Leigh of this scenario is Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), a middle-aged housewife whose husband shaves obliviously as she explores her own body in the bathroom. To watch it is to exist in a dual state of attraction and repulsion, which is completely apropos for a film of relentless doubling, centered on characters who are at war with themselves.įrom the very first scene, a deliciously pornographic riff on the shower scene in Psycho, De Palma is already setting Dressed to Kill on the razor’s edge between sexual desire and murderous violence.
Dressed to kill full#
For De Palma fans, it’s the most problematic fave in a career full of them, a provocation both deliberate and accidental, reflecting and challenging the cultural norms at the time.
But there’s really been no time in its 40-year history where controversy hasn’t trailed the film: it’s been called a high-toned slasher film, an expression of leering misogyny, and more recently, a prime example of on-screen transphobia. There’s no way to talk about Dressed to Kill without spoiling the twist a little – just mentioning Psycho gets us most of the way there – so proceed with that disclaimer in mind.
0 kommentar(er)
