1. Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and screenwriter.
28 Facts About Brian De Palma
2.
De Palma was a leading member of the New Hollywood generation.
3.
Brian De Palma's style is allusive; he paid homage to Alfred Hitchcock in Obsession and Body Double ; Blow Out is based on Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup and Scarface, his remake of Howard Hawks's 1932 film, is dedicated to Hawks and Ben Hecht.
4.
De Palma was born on September 11,1940, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of three boys.
5.
Brian De Palma was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, and attended various Protestant and Quaker schools, eventually graduating from Friends' Central School.
6.
Brian De Palma had a poor relationship with his father, and would secretly follow him to record his adulterous behavior; this would eventually inspire the teenage character in De Palma's Dressed to Kill.
7.
Brian De Palma won a regional science-fair prize for his project "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations".
8.
De Palma followed this style with various small films for the NAACP and the Treasury Department.
9.
Each of these films experiments with narrative and intertextuality, reflecting De Palma's stated intention to become the "American Godard".
10.
In 1970, De Palma left New York for Hollywood at age thirty to make Get to Know Your Rabbit, starring Orson Welles and Tommy Smothers.
11.
In November 1976, De Palma released an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Carrie.
12.
De Palma gravitated toward the project and changed crucial plot elements based upon his own predilections.
13.
Brian De Palma sought to adapt it numerous times, though the project would carry a substantial price tag, and has yet to appear on-screen.
14.
The film boasted a larger budget than Carrie, though the consensus view at the time was that De Palma was repeating himself, with diminishing returns.
15.
De Palma directed Scarface, a remake of Howard Hawks's 1932 film, starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer with a screenplay by Oliver Stone.
16.
De Palma directed the music video for Bruce Springsteen's single "Dancing in the Dark" the same year.
17.
In 1987, De Palma directed the crime film The Untouchables, loosely based on the book of the same name and adapted by David Mamet.
18.
De Palma then had subsequent successes with Raising Cain and Carlito's Way.
19.
Brian De Palma's ensuing films Snake Eyes, Mission to Mars, and Femme Fatale all failed at the box office and received generally poor reviews, though Femme Fatale has since been revived in the eyes of many film critics and became a cult classic.
20.
Brian De Palma has often produced "De Palma" films one after the other before going on to direct a different genre, but would always return to his familiar territory.
21.
De Palma has been married and divorced three times, to actress Nancy Allen, producer Gale Anne Hurd, and Darnell Gregorio.
22.
Brian De Palma has one daughter from his marriage to Hurd, and one daughter from his marriage to Gregorio.
23.
De Palma is often cited as a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors, a distinct pedigree who either emerged from film schools or are overtly cine-literate.
24.
Brian De Palma's contemporaries include Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, John Milius, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, and Ridley Scott.
25.
De Palma has encouraged and fostered the filmmaking careers of directors such as Mark Romanek and Keith Gordon, the latter of whom collaborated with him twice as an actor, both in 1979's Home Movies and 1980's Dressed to Kill.
26.
Filmmakers influenced by De Palma include Terrence Malick, Quentin Tarantino, Ronny Yu, Don Mancini, Nacho Vigalondo, and Jack Thomas Smith.
27.
Yes, there are a few failures along the way, but look at the range here, and reflect that these movies contain treasure for those who admire the craft as well as the story, who sense the glee with which De Palma manipulates images and characters for the simple joy of being good at it.
28.
Brian De Palma's films have been interpreted as feminist and examined for their perceived queer affinities.