Tropic Sprockets / De Palma

By Ian Brockway

“De Palma” by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow is a thorough and revealing portrait of the iconic auteur. [Showtimes and trailer at Tropiccinema.com] This engaging documentary illuminates the artist’s full career and highlights De Palma’s struggles and triumphs. There is something here for everyone from the layman to the student and professional. The film well summarizes the life of a dedicated craftsman.

De Palma is widely known for his Hitchcockian films: “Dressed to Kill,” (1980) “Obsession” (1976) and “Carrie” (1976). De Palma has made about thirty films with a fair number of them igniting a lasting controversy. Each film is dependably striking and rarely tedious.

The filmmakers of this documentary have the good sense to keep the camera on its subject letting De Palma speak for himself.

For this director, Alfred Hitchcock alone was both a blueprint and a compass setting the course for his uncompromising ideas of desire and manipulation. Hitchcock’s masterful “Vertigo” (1958) was a case study for creativity and illusion.

At Sarah Lawrence College, a young De Palma met Robert De Niro and William Finley. From then on, the director honed his apprehensive technique using jump cuts, long takes and pioneering the split screen, highlighting different camera angles simultaneously. This allowed the audience to actively choose what it wished to see, in a sense making each experience unique to the individual.

After making a few counterculture films with De Niro and Finley, De Palma left New York for Hollywood. The self-made visionary made a film with Tommy Smothers which was not well received, and the response nearly crushed him. His confidence was salvaged, however, by the enthusiastic words of film critic Pauline Kael, who steadfastly believed in him.

De Palma kept going.

He received the opportunity to direct Carrie the novel by Stephen King, employing John Travolta and Amy Irving with the encouragement of George Lucas. The film was a breakthrough hit for De Palma, who found his voice and style, notably a long lingering voyeurism in hidden spaces and jarring surprise endings.

De Palma became known for building dread, apprehension, and a sense of unease.

But with each film, the director found himself ⁶blighted by controversy. His film “Dressed to Kill” was heavily criticized for violence against women and harm from the trans community.

De Palma remains mystified to this day.

When directing “Scarface,” (1983) he was chastised yet again, even though De Palma did not show explicit graphic violence. After the controversy continued to pursue him, he directed a colorful music video for Bruce Springsteen.

De Palma followed with the blockbuster hit “The Untouchables” (1987) which made the filmmaker a household name.

De Palma then wanted to make a real difference in the anti-war movement by creating the Vietnam era “Casualties of War” (1989). For De Palma, war serves little purpose especially in far flung countries where the culture is often incomprehensible or misunderstood.

Through each film, De Palma persists and survives. In making a film, change is the only constant. The director must work with whatever materials are in hand, no matter the size of the budget.

In his later years, De Palma moved film production to Europe and discovered a greater freedom.

The director admits to being somewhat worn down by the labor-intensive process of feature films, yet he still thrives as a standard bearer for the unsettling image, for handmade apprehension without digital effects and last but least, as a memory keeper for the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock.

This film is not only a fine study in film production, but it is also a prismatic pop art portrait of De Palma the man, as an existential worrier and warrior, keenly able to adapt.

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