I want-a go ta Toronta: Lecture film series on Forbidden Desire pairing Hitch and DePalma

Critic, broadcaster and lecturer Kevin Courrier has returned to the cinema for a four-part summer lecture series in July and August. The second session is Monday, July 25, at 7 p.m.His topic: Forbidden Desires: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma. Those attending his last Film Noir lecture in May chose the topic from a field of four. The Revue is fortunate once again to present the series in partnership with Ryerson University's Chang School of Continuing Education. Big Daddy's DVD Shop at 3044 Dundas St. W. in The Junction is sponsoring the series. On July 25, he'll be discussing the two films Psycho and Dressed to Kill.

For our friends in and around Toronto, here is more information on the series from its curator, Kevin Courrier:

Voyeurism has always been an integral part of the appeal of motion pictures. However, over the years, the taboo of watching and staring into the lives of others was made largely acceptable by movies that didn't implicate us in our peeping. But Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma changed all that. They turned that taboo of staring and watching into a dramatic strategy where both directors forced us to face our own perverse fantasies and forbidden desires . . .

I first set out to examine this theme in a course I taught last winter at Ryerson University through the LIFE Institute. Partly, the idea for the series was due to my interest in both directors. Their films not only shaped my fascination as a moviegoer, but their work also implicitly led to my eventually wanting to be a critic. Being a critic then showed me that there were are also significant differences in their respective strategies. Where Hitchcock set out to become a master entertainer of exciting spy thrillers and dramas, De Palma questioned with ironic humour the very nature of what makesexciting drama. If Hitchcock desired (and won) a mass audience that made him one of the most highly regarded and respected commercial directors, De Palma became the opposite. He would often alienate audiences because of his ironic desire to treat movie conventions and storytelling in an irreverent way. In doing so, he deliberately (and cheerfully) undermined our desire for a happy resolution to the picture. Hitchcock may have been a genius at manipulating our responses by pulling the rug out from under our expectations in his dramas; but De Palma, in borrowing some of Hitchcock’s cinematic language (as well as the language of Buñuel, Polanski and Godard), used conventional drama to take us deeper and further into more contemporary issues of sexual fear and political unrest. In Forbidden Desires: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma, I decided to pair films from their body of work that I felt best mirrored the different ways they work with voyeurism. The series continues tomorrow night at the Revue Cinema.
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The playing-out of sordid private thoughts is the true common link between Psycho and Dressed to Kill. But where Psycho operates within the boundaries of genre convention, Dressed to Kill reaches out to society at large; a society where movies have a way of shaping a whole way of seeing, feeling and fantasizing.
– Kevin Courrier is a writer/broadcaster, film critic, teacher and author. His forthcoming book is Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors: American Movies and the Politics of Idealism. His four-part lecture series,Forbidden Desires: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma continues at the Revue Cinema tomorrow at 7pm with a look at Psycho and Dressed to Kill. You can listen to Kevin interviewed about the series on CBC Radio's Fresh Air which is linked here.