Brian De Palma

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Brian De Palma (2009)

Brian De Palma (* 11. September 1940 as James Giacinto De Palma jr. In Newark , New Jersey ) is an American film director .

Life

Brian De Palma, whose family has Italian roots, grew up in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania and New Hampshire . He began studying physics at Columbia University in New York , where he soon became a member of a student theater group. There he began to deal with film and to make his first short films. He dropped out of physics and was one of the first male students to go to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, which had a focus on performing arts . He was awarded a scholarship for the 16mm film Wotan's Wake (1962). In the mid-1960s, his first feature film, The Wedding Party , was made in collaboration with Wilford Leach and Cynthia Munroe , but it was not released until 1969.

Brian De Palma was married three times. His first wife was the actress Nancy Allen , with whom he was married from 1979 to 1983. This was followed by his marriage to Gale Anne Hurd , with whom he has a child. From 1995 to 1997 De Palma was married to Darnell Gregorio-De Palma; A child also emerged from this relationship.

In 2015 the documentary De Palma , directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow , was released, in which De Palma reports on his work as a director and screenwriter.

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His films are about tension, murder, obsession and mental disorders. Recurring themes and motifs in his films are voyeurism and surveillance, doppelgangers , multiple personalities and violence.

Brian De Palma in Venice, 2007

De Palma refers to Alfred Hitchcock in many of his films . De Palma's thrillers are based on basic themes and motifs from Hitchcock films, citing scenes and using many strategies of cinematic narration such as plan sequences and close-ups in a similar way to Hitchcock. The quotes are particularly clear in De Palma's thrillers such as Black Angel (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980) and Death Comes Twice (1984), in which he not only adopts the basic narrative and film structure of Hitchcock's films (in order: Vertigo - From the realm of the dead (1958), Psycho (1960), Das Fenster zum Hof (1954)), but also scenes, settings and camera perspectives are clearly cited. A connection between the films De Palmas and his self-declared role model Hitchcock is taken up in almost every film review of his films. Negative reviews often refer to the accusation of the Hitchcock epigone, which is often made . Positive reviews, on the other hand, often certify that De Palma's films are of equal cinematic quality and present De Palma's references to Hitchcock as positive: Roger Ebert wrote in his review of Femme Fatale that “it's not just that De Palma sometimes works in the Hitchcock style , he also has the courage to do so ”.

In terms of film technology, De Palma is best known for its extensive use of the steadicam . The so-called “ Establishing Shot ” in Spiel auf Zeit , for example, introduces the entire ensemble of actors with just one, very elaborate tracking shot. You can see a similarly long tracking shot in his film My Brother Cain . De Palma was the first to consistently use the split screen as a tension-generating film-technical means and to resort to this technique again and again (cf. e.g. Sisters and Femme Fatale) .

De Palma celebrated his first big success in 1976 with the horror thriller Carrie - Satan's youngest daughter , which is based on the book Carrie by Stephen King . In the following years he made a number of other thrillers. He celebrated great success with critics and audiences in particular with the two gangster films Scarface and The Untouchables in the mid-1980s and in 1996 with Mission: Impossible . De Palma was nominated five times for the Golden Raspberry as worst director of the year between 1981 and 2001 . After the film adaptation of the James Ellroy novel The Black Dahlia in 2006, De Palma drew attention again with Redacted (2007). The filmmaker filled the story of the everyday life of an American border post in Iraq , who is confronted with the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family, with material from video images, surveillance cameras and material from YouTube and iChat . Redacted celebrated its world premiere at the 64th Venice Film Festival , where it was represented in the competition for the Golden Lion and was one of the favorites. While the main prize went to Ang Lee for his contribution Danger and Desire , De Palma was awarded the Silver Lion for best director.

In 2012 De Palma completed work on Passion , a remake of the French thriller Love and Intrigue . The film with Rachel McAdams , Noomi Rapace , Paul Anderson and Karoline Herfurth received an invitation to compete at the 69th Venice Film Festival that same year and was released in German cinemas on May 2, 2013. His subsequent feature film, the thriller Domino - A Story of Revenge with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Carice van Houten , was released on the Internet as a video-on-demand offer at the same time as a limited theatrical release in 2019, and also in the United Kingdom only a DVD start is provided.

Filmography (selection)

De Palma in Guadalajara, 2008

Music videos

Awards

Brian De Palma as a literary figure

  • Wolfgang Bauer : The smile of Brian DePalma (1988, play in two acts; published in: Wolfgang Bauer: Werke, Vol. 8: Schauspiele 1988–1995. Graz: Droschl 1996, pp. 11–56)

literature

  • Susan Dworkin: Carrie. Dressed to kill. Scarface. And now: death comes twice. Brian de Palma or how to make a thriller. A background report from the witch's kitchen of the "new Hitchcock". Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1985, ISBN 3-404-13021-9 .
  • Laurent Bouzereau: The DePalma Cut. Dembner Books, New York 1988, ISBN 0-942637-04-6 .
  • Leonardo Gandini: Brian De Palma. Gremese publishing house, Rome 2002, ISBN 3-89472-377-7 .
  • Laurence F. Knapp (Ed.): Brian De Palma - Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2003, ISBN 1-57806-515-1 .
  • Marcus Stiglegger: [Article] Brian De Palma. In: Thomas Koebner (Ed.): Film directors. Biographies, descriptions of works, filmographies. 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2008 [1. Ed. 1999], ISBN 978-3-15-010662-4 , pp. 178-181.

Web links

Commons : Brian De Palma  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hannes Wesselkämper: Biography Brian de Palma ( Memento from December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) On: film-zeit.de from June 2008. Retrieved on June 29, 2019.
  2. ↑ Ebert, Roger : Femme Fatale . In Chicago Sun-Times , November 6, 2002. Retrieved on June 29 of 2019.
  3. ↑ Berlin International Film Festival: Prizes & Awards 1969. Accessed June 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME De Palma, Brian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES De Palma Jr., James Giacinto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Newark , New Jersey