My all-time favorite filmmaker is Brian De Palma. He began making short films in the early 1960s, heavily influenced by French New Wave director, Jean-Luc Godard. One of his earliest champions was critic Pauline Kael who remained an avid fan throughout her life, even when he was attacked by other critics.
De Palma's first feature was made in 1963, but not released until 1969. It was called The Wedding Party, and is a loose, freewheeling film very much in the style of Godard: long takes, improvised scenes, jump cuts, sped-up footage, etc. The film marked the debut of Robert De Niro in a supporting role as the friend of the groom, and Jill Clayburgh as the bride.
While trying to finance his next feature, De Palma made a series of short films for the government. His second feature, Murder a La Mod (1968) is a Rashoman-like film, about a murder shown three different ways: once as a drama, once as a comedy, and once as a thriller.
De Palma's first success came in 1968 with Greetings, another Godardesque film about three friends (including Robert De Niro) who try to avoid the draft. The De Niro character returned in the sequel, Hi, Mom! (1970).
These two films were successes among young, counterculture audiences, but De Palma didn't want to be stereotyped as the satiric voice of his generation. However, Hollywood came calling, specifically comedian Tommy Smothers, who wanted De Palma to helm his first starring feature, Get To Know Your Rabbit. In this film, Smothers plays a businessman who decides to give up his career to become a tap-dancing magician. However, De Palma had arguments not only with Warner Bros., the studio behind the film, but also with Smothers, who had his own ideas. Finally, an exasperated De Palma left the production. It was completed by another director, released in 1972, and vanished quickly from theatres.
In 1973, De Palma tried his hand at a quirky comic thriller called Sisters, about French-Canadian Siamese twins (Margot Kidder) who get involved in a murder. The film was a success, and gave De Palma clout to make a project he had written several years before.
Phantom of the Paradise is about Winslow Leach, a young naive composer who has written a rock opera based on the Faust legend. Through a series of mishaps, Leach finds himself framed by Swan (Paul Williams), a world-famous record producer who has Leach arrested. In the meantime, Swan steals Leach's music and records it with his own artists. A vengeful Leach escapes from prison, and is disfigured when his face is crushed in a record-pressing machine at Swan's factory, Death Records. The now-disfigured Leach, donning a birdlike mask and cape, begins haunting the Paradise, Swan's new rock palace, demanding his music be performed by Phoenix (Jessica Harper), a young backup singer.
Phantom mixes elements of The Phantom of the Opera, Faust, Beauty & the Beast, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Touch of Evil, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Picture of Dorian Gray into its twisted tale. The music and lyrics to the piece were written by Paul Williams.
Unfortunately, Phantom failed to find success in the U.S., despite being released twice, the second time with a totally different ad campaign. It was a success overseas, and only found its American audience when it showed up on cable and home video in the 1980s.
After Obsession, a thriller with Cliff Robertson, De Palma had the first major success of his career with Carrie (1976), based on Stephen King's first novel, about a teenager with telekenetic powers.
In 1980 came the controversial Dressed to Kill, a slasher film patterned after the thrillers of giallo director Dario Argento. The film's centerpiece was a vicious murder in an elevator with a straight razor. The following year saw the release of the vastly underrated Blow Out, featuring John Travolta as a movie sound man who accidentally records a murder on tape, and has trouble trying to convince the authorities the sound was a gunshot, not a tire blow out. To me, this is Travolta's finest performance, and possibly De Palma's finest film. It was a box office failure.
De Palma returned in '83 with Scarface, which is now considered a classic, but at the time was a fizzle at the b.o. Initially rated X, De Palma refused to cut a frame, and the violent, profanity-laden film went out with an R rating.
In 1986, De Palma, who always had comedy in his films, even the darkest ones, made an all-out comedy called Wise Guys, about a pair of wanna-be gangsters (Danny De Vito & Joe Piscopo) who accidentally cause their boss to lose a huge amount of money at the racetrack. The boss sets both men up to kill each other. Of course, De Vito doesn't know he has to kill Piscopo and vice versa. The film was another flop, but some critics, such as Roger Ebert, gave it positive reviews.
De Palma scored another hit in 1987 with The Untouchables, based loosely on the career of Eliot Ness who helped bring down Al Capone in 1931 Chicago. The film reunited De Palma with Robert De Niro, whose last film for the director was in 1970. De Niro played the brutal Capone, while Kevin Costner, still relatively unknown, played the straight-arrow Ness.
With the success of The Untouchables, De Palma next made the dark, chilling true story Casualties of War, based on a real-life incident, in which a group of Marines in Vietnam kidnapped, raped and murdered a Vietnamese girl. Sean Penn played the brutal sergeant, while Michael J. Fox played the one soldier who refused to participate in the crime. In my opinion, this is the most effective, haunting war film I have ever seen. But it came too late, after the late 1980s saw a series of Vietnam-era films, such as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill. Critically it was well-received, and Pauline Kael wrote a glowing review, but audiences in the summer of 1989 wanted escapism, not a grim, realistic portrait of the madness of war.
De Palma returned to Warners again, and the results were equally disasterous as they were on Get To Know Your Rabbit. The film was The Bonfire of the Vanities, based on Tom Wolfe's satiric novel. The failure of the film wasn't De Palma's fault. He was brought in to replace another director, had no say in casting or script. He was basically a director for hire. The movie was the bomb of the 1990 Christmas season, and it garnered almost universal pans, including one from Pauline Kael. The film was such a fiasco, it spawned a book, The Devil's Candy, which chronicaled the making of the film.
De Palma worked steadily throughout the 1990s, and had his biggest hit ever with Mission: Impossible. Although it may seem like a typical popcorn/Tom Cruise action flick, the film actually has De Palma's fingerprints all over it. He managed to take a Hollywood blockbuster and turn it into a personal film.
De Palma's latest film is the underrated The Black Dahlia, based on James Ellroy's novel about a real-life murder case in 1947 L.A. He currently has several new films on the horizon, including a prequel to The Untouchables called Capone Rising.
What I like most about De Palma's work is the way he mixes fear and violence along with satiric comedy. Some of his trademarks include long camera pans, lengthy, unbroken scenes, split-screen, shocking, out-of-the-blue murder set pieces, and a feeling of dread and unease. You never know what to expect in a De Palma movie...but no matter how dire the consequences are onscreen, De Palma never lets you forget that you are watching a movie.
The Wedding Party (1963)
Murder a La Mod (1968)
Greetings (1968)
Dionysus in '69 (1970)
Hi, Mom! (1970)
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972)
Sisters (1973)
Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Obsession (1976)
Carrie (1976)
The Fury (1978)
Home Movies (1979)
Dressed to Kill (1980)
Blow Out (1981)
Scarface (1983)
Body Double (1984)
Wise Guys (1986)
The Untouchables (1987)
Casualties of War (1989)
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
Raising Cain (1992)
Carlito's Way (1993)
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Snake Eyes (1998)
Mission to Mars (2000)
Femme Fatale (2002)
The Black Dahlia (2006)
This was just a quick overview of Brian De Palma. In college, I wrote over 100 pages on his life and career for my senior thesis.
I'm also into the work of Sergio Leone, whose films include A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, Duck You Sucker and Once Upon a Time in America.
Other directors I admire include:
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Michelangelo Antonioni
Roman Polanski
Francois Truffaut
Martin Scorsese
Dario Argento
Mario Bava
Orson Welles
Sam Peckinpah
Walter Hill
John Carpenter
And many, many others.
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