De Palma is an amazing documentary about the works of art the Brian De Palma has made in his outstanding film career. De Palma is the director of great cinema classic like Scarface, Carrie, Blow Out, Carlito’s Way, The Untouchables, Body Double, Sisters, Phantom of Paradise, Dresses to Kill, Mission: Impossible, Obsession, Casualties of War. De Palma doesn’t hold anything back in this documentary.
The documentary shows great insight into the films that he has made. He explains the steps and setbacks of most of his movies. He tells how he was able to show his obsession of with violence and murder through his movies. I think the documentary is works because he De Palma himself is the narrator of the film and he is very blunt and straight forward about the process he went through including dealing with bad and good actors, studios problems, and the rating system. He explains that Orson Welles a film legend didn’t know his lines in Get to Know Your Rabbit.
They needed to hold cue cards off camera so the legendary actor could say his lines probably. He remember thinking that he was in his 20’s telling a Hollywood legend to redo his lines. He remembers the time when Led Zeppelin sued him over Phantom of the Paradise. There were three other lawsuits because of that film as well. De Palma mentions that he hates all other adaptations of Carrie. He explains his fixation with using spilt screen in his movies.
The audience for this film also gets insight into De Palma’s life, once he threatened his cheating dad with a knife. He explains his rough childhood probably lead him to making such violent films. He documentary has its funny parts too. De Palma explains how Sean Connery hated getting shot in the Untocuchables. Sean had never used the squibs (which are used to explode and show gunshots with bloody spray) when though he was James Bond. Sean was used to being the one shooting people, not getting shot. De Palma also says that he is Hitchcock’s True Heir, which he might be. I’ll leave that debate to film critics and film snobs.
