Talk:Brian De Palma

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What happened to AMBROSE CHAPEL? That would have been a logical choice for De Palma to have made into a movie. It would have restored De Palma to critical and box-office glory after his most popular film MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE, if not one of his most disappointing films from an appalling script with so many plot-holes. Such skilled direction by De Palma with MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE would have made a definitive film out of AMBROSE CHAPEL if all the elements of production came together! AMBROSE CHAPEL and THE DEMOLISHED MAN are the two films I've always wanted to see De Palma direct. I hope THE DEMOLISHED MAN and AMBROSE CHAPEL have not been lost forever. With the sucess of INCEPTION one would think these two films were no-brainers for someone like De Palma. AMBROSE CHAPEL and THE DEMOLISHED MAN would have been more successful then MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE at the world-wide box-office instead De Palma is to direct a french remake of female corporate murder that doesn't sound so promosing. I hate the people in the Hollywood studio system who decide what gets made and not and who directs. AMBROSE CHAPEL and THE DEMOLISHED MAN should get green-lit immediatly. Hopefully with De Palma, Oliver Stone or Christopher Nolan!!!!!HARRY GEORGATOS

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HARRY GEORGATOS:Doesn't De Palma have final cut in his movies? According to a website Hollywood bigwigs treat De Palma with contempt. His films have generated little box-office buisness with only a small handful making respectable takings. MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE and THE UNTOUCHABLES have been his most successful. SNAKE EYES and MISSION TO MARS did some minor buisness. SNAKE EYES and MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE seem like severely compromised films. MISSION needed more real sweat and violence. The scene where Ethan has the black hood removed to finally meet Max was building to an explosive piece of gun violence. When there was no extensive gun battle it seemed like the film was desperatly missing something. The way Max Von Sydow CIA assassin crew eliminated Robert Redfords bookworms in THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR was a scene that should have been applied at that moment in MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE. SNAKE EYES would have to have the worse ending in Hollywood history! There was an extensive CGI set-piece removed from the film by the brutal force of the studio to that appalling ending. De Palma had a more violent version with a higher sex quotient in his original cut. The studio forced him to change the film and thus damage the movie. It's like telling Scorsese, Spielberg or the Coen brothers to water down the violence in films like THE DEPARTED, MUNICH or NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. If anyone has a bootleg director's copy of De Palma's original cut of SNAKE EYES contact me harry.georgatos@yahoo.com.au, and will pay good money! Organic violence is what one expects in a De Palma film. SNAKE EYES and MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE should have been a volatile cocktail of secret spy violence. Tarantino's INGLORIOUS BASTERDS was a violent piece of mayhem and has become Tarantino's most successful film alongside PULP FICTION. Why shouldn't De Palma be given the same freedom then some compromised film as a result of market research test screenings which have destroyed so many films in Hollywood. De Palma has been unable to make a great film since CARLITO'S WAY. FEMME FATALE was brilliantly directed with appalling performances from the two leads. De Palma's great films started with SISTERS, OBSESSION, CARRIE, THE FURY, DRESSED TO KILL, BLOW OUT, SCARFACE, THE UNTOUCHABLES, CASUALTIES OF WAR and his last great film CARLITO'S WAY. De Palma's other films have failed to excite as those previous films. I would desperately love to see De Palma's original cut of SNAKE EYES on Blu-Ray. HARRY GEORGATOS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.120.16.131 (talk) 02:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Bio
HARRY GEORGATOS: De Palma's career comes in phases. His early life was part of the counterculture, experimental period MURDER A LA MOD and DIONYSUS AT '69. With SISTERS he experimented with his idol Hitchcock. GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT went back to anti-establishment period of his counterculture films as an executive gives up his high-paying job to become a Magician. Apparently De Palma has disowned the film. PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE is a comic book satire illustrating the venality of the music industry. At the time it was a cult-classic but films such as Alan Parker's PINK FLOYD THE WALL in my opinion is such a complex 2 hour music video clip that demonstrates the self-destructive and nihilist flavour of the music industry that PHANTOM becomes irrelevant. My favourite era of De Palma films started with OBSESSION, CARRIE, his first masterpiece in my opinion THE FURY(a sci-fi spy chiller that had me mesmerised). Then came DRESSED TO KILL, and his other masterpiece BLOW OUT, followed by the trash masterpiece SCARFACE and BODY DOUBLE. Then came one of his most commercial films in THE UNTOUCHABLES. This being a studio picture it is still a vintage De Palma film with thrilling set-pieces put together by a master of cinema. CASUALTIES OF WAR is De Palma's most personal film. It is also some of the most gutwrenching scenes to come out of a mainstream studio. It failed at the box-office because of the nature of it's subject matter. REDACTED too met the same fate. Americans simply don't want to be confronted with such ugly subject matter. WISE GUYS was not the De Palma I was expecting but a formulaic studio comedy that fell flat. RAISING CAIN had a spellbinding first half. THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES was a slick piece of filmmaking but not a typical De Palma film. This was the type of material Kubrick should have done with William Hurt playing the master of the universe. CARLITO'S WAY was more a reflective gangster film then SCARFACE'S inflammotory nature. In CARLITO'S WAY Al Pacino is released from prison on a technicality to only find himself in a bigger prison, New York City. There are forces in the city that won't let Carlito start a new life and draw him back into a life of crime. Once out of prison Carlito cannot see the angles, and this leads to his demise at Grand Central station. CARLITO'S WAY has a stunning climax set-piece as Carlito escapes his nightclub, chased by the gangsters on a night train to Grand Central Station for an edge of your seat shoot-out. Still the set-pieces in this film are vintage De Palma. The premise to MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE just doesn't ring true. CIA would not implicate Ethan as the assassin and mole without recovering all the dead bodies first. The only 2 bodies not recovered were that of JIM and CLAIRE. Unless Jim's body was on a morgue slab Ethan would not be implicated. That's a huge question mark hanging over the films credibility. The IMF sting operation was extremely boring. The only reason the film works is because of De Palma's direction. He was given a dog of a script and made it more interesting. SNAKE EYES is a terrific film with a terrible ending. MISSION TO MARS is a rescue movie with an embarrassing ending in how life originated from Mars onto Earth. That's it! End of movie! It has some of the worse dialogue I've seen on film. The way I expect astronauts to talk and interact is like THE RIGHT STUFF. The definitive movie on the cavalier attitude of astronauts. De Palma has come good with films such as FEMME FATALE, THE BLACK DAHLIA and the powerful REDACTED. This is a film very similar to CASUALTIES OF WAR but stylisticaly a recall to his early experimental films GREETINGS and it's sequel HI,MOM! I wish De Palma gets to make THE DEMOLISHED MAN. His film technique would make a mindbending film out of this premise. Spielberg made the sci-fi film De Palma never made in MINORITY REPORT. The technique Spielberg uses is straight out of a De Palma film: HARRY GEORGATOS

Lists
The normal way to present lists is with the oldest item first. Also, I think it's more legible to write "year: title" than "title (year)". --Pinkunicorn

I don't think the ordering of the items is so important (but it should not be random!). I looked at a few of the wikipedia director entries, and it seems that the consensus is "title (year)", see Bille August, Wim Wenders. --css

IBM
I'm looking forward to the entry for 660124 The Story of an IBM Card. Sounds gripping. Wikipedia contains spoliers, no?

What windbag wrote this?
It is this tension, at once removed from the superficial elements of the plot or characters, yet intended to elicit emotional responses, that drives De Palma's work; the somewhat notorious reputation he has earned and the critical dismissal De Palma has experienced is a direct result of the distantiation techniques he employs in films that use the methodology of thrillers to engage the audience.

-That was me in 2006. My first experience writing on Wikipedia. My bad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.28.227.107 (talk) 21:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Sisters
Sisters was tongue-in-cheek? I don't think so.

Well, I saw it yesterday. It is tongue in cheek. :) It looked like a send-up of the genre - everything from the blatant contradictions in the story to that ending. Really funny in a macabre way.

Source
This is a good article to use as a source or to update the article with Mad Jack 18:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Bizarre article
The author seems to know a number of biographic details, but shows a quite limited understanding of his films. The attempts at film theory are also questionable. The biggest problem with the article is the Career Beginnings and Highlights section. The problem with this section is that it doesn't actually provide an overview of his career highlights. Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, and Body Double are considered by many to be the core of his filmography, and these are not even mentioned. Blow Out particularly, is considered by many to be the quintessential De Palma film. This section also contains an obvious inaccuracy. Carlito's Way was not controversial for its violence like Scarface, and is not a particularly violent film (for its genre). Similar films made around the same time such as Goodfellas or Reservoir Dogs are considerably more violent.

Wildly unfounded article
This article seems to contain a great deal of unfounded commentary that ignores NPOV - particularly concerning the so-called violent reactions to De Palma's gangster films. The article also substantially glosses over a lot of De Palma's major successes in the 1990s such as The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible, as well as the notorious flop of The Bonfire of the Vanities

I am going to try and tackle this entry over the next week or two. It's a mess. I'm thinking of using Martin Scorsese's entry as my model.
 * The Untouchables was mid-80s. The problem I see with this article is a clear inflation of the director's influence and talent by fans, with virtually no criticism of a filmmaker who has often been accused of ripping off other directors like Hitchcock, has had few (or no) unqualified successes, very few box office successes, many critical flops, and a large comparative number of horrible "Mission to Mars"-like films, compared to the relatively even careers of those who are considered his contemporaries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by A. Swearengen (talk • contribs) 13:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Weird balance
There's an entire section of this article dedicated to Redacted, one of his least-known films, but no sections on Scarface or The Untouchables? --Delirium 01:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Redacted wasn't just another film. It's a steep dive over the deep end of political activism, and some would call it a gift to fascism.  A lot of people who loved those others will never watch another DePalma film.  That's a world of difference from The Untouchables.
 * -- Randy2063 (talk) 02:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I sure hope your POV stays out of the article. -- Zim Zala Bim talk  02:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * BTW, I removed that section a few days ago as it was redundant to the existing article on the film. -- Zim Zala Bim talk  02:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm just explaining why it's notably different than his other films. You may disagree with my side of that view, but you did not say I was wrong.  The NPOV standard means the article itself should be neutral.  It does not mean we should strip out the controversies related to the topic.
 * Someone else will eventually replace that section. Otherwise, it would be like having an article about Jane Fonda without noting her support for anti-American causes.
 * -- 03:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I'd like to point that the "supposed atrocities" the film talks about are very real and were prosecuted ! There was a trial and it was king of a big deal as is summed here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_killings

It is very weird that acknowledged US army horrific behavior is considered a "supposition". It even shocked me actually. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E34:ED05:91A0:A07F:985E:D0AD:8432 (talk) 09:02, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Re-write?
This article is in pretty bad shape for an important film director, especially in comparison to the articles on some of his contemporaries/peers. It also hasn't changed appreciably in content or structure in the past 5 years, despite several noted criticisms on this page.

I may endeavor to re-do this entry in the coming weeks; I just revamped the article on Blow Out, so I've got a lot of my De Palma materials out. Any objections or thoughts? Jedgeco (talk) 15:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Catholic?
Is he a Catholic now? If not, the cat American Roman Catholics should not be present. Qzm (talk) 02:30, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Science Fair
A remember very well Brian De Palma's prizewinning entry in the Philadelphia-area science fair...1957-58 school year, I believe, the same year I got an honorable mention in the same science fair for a mathematical project. I remember being quite impressed by it. When later Mr. De Palma became famous as a film director, I was really surprised that he hadn't followed a career in electronics/computers where it was clear he had many talents. I appreciate the article having discussed how he changed from a science/engineering orientation to his life in film. Bill Jefferys (talk) 20:15, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Criticism Edits
Hey, figured I'd start the thread about the ongoing edits in the Criticism section. Vaselineeeeeeee's concern is about the sources I've cited being unreliable/blogs and the number of paragraphs/length of the quotes being undue for the topic. While the sources are reliable and none are blogs (Film Comment is a magazine published by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Lola is an online film journal), I've removed the long block quote about Dressed to Kill, which in retrospect would be more appropriate on the page for the film itself. 2601:1C0:CF00:6D2:59F4:1E72:9711:7C4D (talk) 21:44, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * References in this new area were incorrectly formatted, causing a number of errors in the page rendering. I've fixed the problems, though since it seems like the changes might be contentious, I feel like it's important to point out that the fix is just a fix -- it's not an endorsement of the material. -- Mikeblas (talk) 21:00, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Frequent collaborators
It's been suggested that this section be removed, so what does the community think about this? YouCanDoBetter (talk) 17:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced information removed
Just a heads up that I deleted unsourced claims in this article per WP:V and WP:OR. Please don't add unsourced information. If there are sources that can support this (including ones already in this article), please do re-add the table, but with proper semantics per MOS:TABLECAPTION, etc. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:58, 23 September 2022 (UTC)


 * It seems you re-added this material without adding citations. Did you read WP:V? ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:48, 24 September 2022 (UTC)