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We recently discussed the documentary about Hitchcock/Truffaut and the influence that "the master of suspense" has had on many of the great filmmakers who are still active today. Curiously, in the documentary, without a doubt, his most accomplished student, Brian de Palma, does not appear. The documentary "De Palma" (2015), directed by filmmakers Noah Baumbah and Jake Paltrow, explores the life and career of the screenwriter and film director from New Jersey. This article could have easily been titled "De Palma by Baumbah and Paltrow," but it is the director's own voice behind great titles like "Scarface" (1983) or "The Untouchables" (1987) that energetically and reflectively narrates his work and life at the same time.
The documentary begins with De Palma explaining the impact that watching "Vertigo" (1958) had on his adolescence. In the words of the filmmaker himself: "Hitchock makes a film ("Vertigo") about the role of a director, which is basically to create romantic illusions; he makes you fall in love with it (with his romantic creation represented in the figure of Kim Novak) and then kills it, twice. And that is what we directors do: we create beautiful women, exciting virile men, we make audiences engage in their stories and emotionally attach to them. Hitchcock shows what we do while we do it. And it is something that has fascinated me since the first time I saw it at 18 years old."
De Palma matured with "Vertigo," and much of his career has followed the trail of the British director by making personal versions disguised as confessed remakes, direct homages, explicit nods, and playing with the plots, starting points, or essence of many of Hitchcock's films and characters. From "Obsession" (1976), his particular homage to "Vertigo," through "Dressed to Kill" (1980), a direct tribute to "Psycho" (1960); to "Body Double" (1984), a mix of many of his films but directly inspired by "Rear Window" (1954). All of them are heirs to the basic principles of Hitchcock's cinema: creating a film based on expressive images.
This aspect is something that has marked all of De Palma's work: being a strictly visual director and creating emotions in the viewer through images. The director recounts the stylistic resources he has used in his films to convey emotions, such as split screens in titles like "Sisters" (1972) or "Carrie" (1976), to create suspense by playing with two simultaneous points of view. Another characteristic resource is the long and elaborate tracking shots that we can see in "Snake Eyes" (1998) or "Blow Out" (1981) to track characters and thus create moments of tension and suspense that last longer, always accompanied by hypnotic and suggestive melodies from composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Pino Donaggio, or Ennio Morricone. These visual excesses have sometimes been criticized by the press and specialized critics as negative, as overblown and delirious, but undoubtedly define him as a unique author.
The documentary takes us through his work from beginnings marked by auteur, underground, and politically challenging cinema, in which he worked with a young Robert De Niro in titles like "Greetings" (1968) and "Hi, Mom!" (1970), to his complicated relationships with major studios when making commercial films like "Mission to Mars" (2000). It also reviews his horror and suspense films like "The Fury" (1978) or "Raising Cain" (1992); box office hits like "Mission: Impossible" (1996); tremendous failures like "The Bonfire of the Vanities" (1990), and it also refers to personal ventures like "Casualties of War" (1989).
With sincerity, self-criticism, humor, and revealing important moments of his personal life, De Palma, the accomplished student, now becomes a valuable teacher for the filmmakers of the film, friends, and followers of the filmmaker, and of course, for any cinema enthusiast and student.