For those looking to have fun, a game I consider playing sometimes is to judge an actor’s career by their first three credits. This idea was largely inspired by James Dean, whose short-lived portfolio still would have him as one of the greatest actors of the 1950s. The same could be said for John Cazale’s slightly beefier output a few decades later. While most performers would develop an impressive collection of titles, I have to ask you… are the first three among them? Would they hold up to the lucky standards of Dean and Cazale, or would they suggest that, like most actors, they’re not yet developed into their greater potential?
Up until this past week, I hadn’t really considered what early Robert De Niro looks like. In my mind, he came out relatively formed, especially upon teaming with Martin Scorsese for a string of 1970s films that defined his acting style and ended with the phenomenal transformation in Raging Bull (1980). You could argue there were duds along the way, but his output has some of the most significant late-20th century acting of his generation. With my personal favorite being Taxi Driver (1976), it’s easy to assume that he was always this unhinged and socially isolated persona who eventually began doing juvenile comedies to combat the overexertion.
That is why it’s fascinating to look at his first three films, specifically the last of the group, Greetings (1968). It was his first lead role and found him teaming up with another name that would only become more prominent in the decades to come. I’m not personally someone who sits at the altar of Brian De Palma, but the more that I’ve seen of his early work, the more I’ve appreciated his perversity and willingness to go into dark corners. I had always assumed he was the master of the Alfred Hitchcock pastiche, but watching Greetings and its sequel, Hi, Mom! (1970), I found myself going down a different path. What if he had never become the horror/action filmmaker he’s now known as? What if this was everything that followed?
For what it’s worth, I am one of those who argue there’s value in dated cinema. You need to capture the style and values of the time so the viewer can be properly transported. It’s what separated a 1940s film from a 1970s film, for example. The ideals may be very similar deep down, but the iconography is important, and the personality radiating off the screen is even more so. This is all to say that I understand why De Palma wouldn’t make a lot of films like Greetings and Hi, Mom! in later years. They feel a bit too cliché for counterculture cinema of the time, feeling like less subtle or ambitious cousins of The Graduate (1967). Even so, there’s something infectious, so unique about them that could only be made at that time… and I think it helps that the young and unfocused lens elevates the material into the material of aspirational dreamers not aware of where their pursuits would take them.
At the risk of accusing De Palma of just borrowing from other filmmakers, Greetings feels like a Vietnam War-era version of French New Wave. There’s an experimentation and sexuality mixing with conversation that feels reminiscent of Francois Truffaut. The scenes may meander, often feeling like vignettes strung together by upbeat sitcom music, but they play like De Palma’s response to watching Jean-Luc Godard’s intertitles and thinking that he could parody that with all of the lush technique of the American aesthetic. It’s a film walking towards New Hollywood without fully understanding what values it will carry.
Even so, these archetypes have a freshness that allows Greetings to encapsulate what New York must’ve felt like in the late '60s. It was a time of uncertainty as young people were being drafted to war and, quite impactfully, needing an outlet to rebel. At every possible turn, De Palma is commenting on cinematic technique, even mixing in art criticism as he has protagonist Jon Rubin (De Niro) explain to his nude art model the value of voyeuristic art. In a form of subversion that would more effectively be explored in Hi, Mom!, it’s a meta commentary on the way messages are presented through the camera, questioning whether the subject knows of their prism and if there’s justification in the exploitation. Add in the predictable Vietnam War angles, and it becomes a wonderful study of young men trying to find themselves during a fraught period of history.
One of my favorite aspects of Greetings is the emphasis on The John F. Kennedy Assassination. While it’s easy to break down whatever available information there is over 60 years removed, I’m sure it was harder to find a sense of order in 1968. The government wasn’t as transparent, and any potential tell-all could be complete gossip or hold meaningful answers. There’s a search for truth that parallels the Vietnam motifs in that there’s a quest for order and stability. Even the decision to break these scenes up by segments centered around online dating shows the many ways that institutions are trying to control the narrative, even if they make no sense.
Both of the films have a manic streak that’s hard to fully reflect on the page. De Palma’s less interested in consistency and more pushing his limits. Even so, Hi, Mom! feels more focused and has often received comparisons to Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) thanks to a more pronounced use of voyeurism in the plot. Add in that the sexual revolution factors in more heavily (including a very funny early scene where Jon and his friend analyze pornography at a theater), and it’s the perfect left turn of what many would assume a post-collegiate study of masculinity would look like. There’s antagonism and uncertainty. Even the efforts to find direction come at the expense of very strange detours, including a race-swapped presentation meant to help white people understand the harassment faced by Black protestors.
Again, this may not exactly rank among De Niro’s best. Even if it explains why he’s been keen to do raunchy comedies his whole career, it mostly skids by on his charisma. He’s likable and jaunty. Even when he’s being a complete pervert (warning: lots of nudity), there’s a clear recognition of his dignity. There’s greater purpose than titillation in every frame, though it doesn’t hurt. In fact, the title of Hi, Mom! is spoken so jovially at the end of the film that it works as a punchline, trying to excuse how chaotic 1970s New York is and whether Jon is able to maintain a morally upstanding lifestyle.
When forced to judge whether De Niro would’ve been considered great this early in his career, the answer remains doubtful. Neither are necessarily masterpieces, even if they are relics of their time that encapsulate the drive of New Hollywood better than almost every contemporary. They feel like friends getting together and trying to make sense of the world through collage technique. Hi, Mom! works better as a calling card for De Palma’s visual style thanks to his shift between different camera models as well as a pivot to documentary verité to help emphasize how much the Civil Rights Movement means to the characters.
Even in a story that’s rich with comedic absurdism, De Palma is inserting ideas that were prevalent at the time and attempting to speak about them like the common tongue. These are ramshackle conversations that may meander into needless tangents, creating rich understandings of who Jon would choose to hang out with. There’s a freedom that feels refreshing, almost anarchic when compared to what was to come. Greetings and Hi, Mom! may have themes, but they don’t always follow clear plots. They’re sometimes closer to dissertations or local theater, of which I wouldn’t mind seeing De Palma experiment with more. Even if what he’s made might be more singular, I think his flippant work has a deeper honesty to grapple with. There’s activism beyond the style and performances.
At the end of the day, I wouldn’t rate either of these as essential works by the director or actor. Even so, I think it far surpasses counterculture cinema of the time solely by digging into specificity and attempting to make sense of the larger ideas. The sexual revolution may have been more sexist than it let on, but Hi, Mom! at least provides nuance to the debate while keeping up the dazzling pop-color technique that ran rampant. It may seek a righteousness beyond its control, but it’s not attempting to be superior to the viewer. Jon and his team are sketchy dudes, but they’re also products of their environment, unshaped by societal norms.
Basically, they’re young. It’s surreal to judge it against what’s to come because, within a decade, De Niro would go from a breezy political comedy to one of the most aching transformations the screen had seen with Raging Bull. He delved into the psychological depths of some disturbed individuals who need therapy far more than Jon does. There’s no innocence on the road ahead. Greetings and Hi, Mom! may be self-aware, but they are still trying to get a grip. As the world changed around them, they had the choice to follow or be left behind. Whether or not De Palma would’ve continued to make comedies in this vein, it’s a relief to see him dedicate this much time to exploring the zeitgeist without adding pretensions to the text. This is, for better or worse, a film that feels like walking through a New York that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not fabricated by nostalgia, but by the simple pleasures De Palma and crew had at the time. It may not feel as immersive as other films, but it captures the conversations in the air and tries to make sense of them. These two films are imperfect, but they’re still endurable as the work of young, aimless auteurs in the making.
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