Filmmaker: Brian DePalma

[punch_the_lion]

The ultimate litmus test in the style over substance argument. At his best, he is very good. Sisters, Obsession,Carrie, The Fury, Dressed to Kill, Blow-out,Body Double, The Untouchables etc.

Not Crap.

[Ace]

Crap. Even at his best he does cynical reinterpretations of hitchcock.
He was the object of Pauline Kael's affections, and she was a pretentious idiot.
For style over substance, i'll take bertolucci.

[Dudley]

Hmmm. Of late, complete crap. SnakeEyes and The Black Dahlia are jaw-droppingly awful, Mission To Mars, Bonfire Of The Vanities, Mission Impossible, all pretty piss-poor.

I really like Carlito's Way and Carrie, and The Untouchables and Scarface are good fun.

So many of his more recent films look really flat and syntheticy, like cheap-ish TV drama.

So probably CRAP with waffles

[Steve V.]

Hmmm. Of late, complete crap. SnakeEyes and The Black Dahlia are jaw-droppingly awful, Mission To Mars, Bonfire Of The Vanities, Mission Impossible, all pretty piss-poor.

I really like Carlito's Way and Carrie, and The Untouchables and Scarface are good fun.

So many of his more recent films look really flat and syntheticy, like cheap-ish TV drama.

So probably CRAP with waffles

I agree with this.

[mattw]

Take it to the limit, DePalma.

Scarface- Not Crap
The Untouchables- Not Crap
Carlito's Way- Not Crap
Mission: Impossible- Kinda meh
Snake Eyes- Crap w/ waffles for cool camera work
Mission to Mars- Crap
Femme Fatale- Crap
Black Dahlia- The highest order of CRAP

It seems he's getting crappier as he goes along, so I'm afraid CRAP it is.

[Andrew Weatherhead]

Yeah Scarface and The Untouchables were good movies, but they weren't well directed. I think DePalma is complete shit, those movies could have been so much better.

[placeholder]

DePalma is a hack. I like Blow Out, Sisters, Dressed to Kill, and Body Double okay, but that's about it. His work is nowhere near as engaging as that of the directors he steals from.

I have read that he and Dario Argento have some sort of long-standing feud. On his best day, DePalma cannot touch Argento.

CRAP.

[boilermaker]

Oh very very Crap. I think every film he's made is deeply flawed or at least very clunky direction wose. Those that placeholder mentions are all ok. I, for the life of me, can't work out how he attracts the big name casts he does. What he does well, however, is plunder others work(Hitchcock or Eisenstein for example), not unlike Tarantino.

[punch_the_lion]

Oh very very Crap. I think every film he's made is deeply flawed or at least very clunky direction wose. Those that placeholder mentions are all ok. I, for the life of me, can't work out how he attracts the big name casts he does. What he does well, however, is plunder others work(Hitchcock or Eisenstein for example), not unlike Tarantino.

I disagree. His direction (at his best) is far from clunky because of his often strong visual style and the fluidity of his camerawork. Is he on par with Hitchcock or even Scorsese? Of course not. He has made, especially recently, a lot of duds but that doesn't take away from his best work. Simply saying he just steals is also an oversimplification. He infuses those cinematic ideas of Hitchcock or Eisenstein with his own auteurist approach.

[punch_the_lion]

I have read that he and Dario Argento have some sort of long-standing feud. On his best day, DePalma cannot touch Argento.

Argento has made as much dreck as DePalma. He hasn't even directed a decent film since the 1980's.The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Reed and Suspiria are the only ones I would rate really highly. At least DePalma has been eclectic and mixed genres with misfires along the way. I think "hack" is too harsh a descriptor.

[placeholder]

Argento has made as much dreck as DePalma. He hasn't even directed a decent film since the 1980's.The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Reed and Suspiria are the only ones I would rate really highly. At least DePalma has been eclectic and mixed genres with misfires along the way. I think "hack" is too harsh a descriptor.

I'd rate Argento's Trauma, The Card Player, Sleepless. and The Stendhal Syndrome as much better than decent, though I suspect his best work is unfortunately behind him. In any case, I think Tenebre, Inferno, and Opera are among the man's best, in addition to the ones you named.

Argento has done plenty of dreck to be sure, but I don't think he did anything less than stellar until the '90s.

DePalma's work has almost consistently been abysmal, and I certainly don't think he's done anything worthwhile since the '80s. I stand by my contention that he is a hack. I don't see much eclecticism (Is that a word?) in his work either.

Let's argue about movies on the internet!

[tim]

no one mentioned phantom of the paradise?!?!?

not crap, complete with recording studio scenes. someone had a link posted to one of these scenes in some other thread.

[etch]

DePalma: too much skill to be a hack. Yes, many of his movies are Hollywood bullshit, but the guy has style and can tell a story. It is very difficult to make a good film, DePalma has made several. I thought Femme Fatale was a return to form.

[punch_the_lion]

Argento has made as much dreck as DePalma. He hasn't even directed a decent film since the 1980's.The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Reed and Suspiria are the only ones I would rate really highly. At least DePalma has been eclectic and mixed genres with misfires along the way. I think "hack" is too harsh a descriptor.

I'd rate Argento's Trauma, The Card Player, Sleepless. and The Stendhal Syndrome as much better than decent, though I suspect his best work is unfortunately behind him. In any case, I think Tenebre, Inferno, and Opera are among the man's best, in addition to the ones you named.

Argento has done plenty of dreck to be sure, but I don't think he did anything less than stellar until the '90s.

DePalma's work has almost consistently been abysmal, and I certainly don't think he's done anything worthwhile since the '80s. I stand by my contention that he is a hack. I don't see much eclecticism (Is that a word?) in his work either.

Let's argue about movies on the internet!

Eclecticism is a word and appropriate for DePalma in terms of genre.

He has done avant garde with his early experimental films Greetings and Hi Mom! staring Robert Deniro.

Hitchock homage thrillers like Sisters[i], [i]Obsession, Dressed to Kill and Body Double.

Horror with Carrie,The Fury and Raising Cain.

Gangster/Crime Drama with Scarface, The Untouchables and Carlito's Way.

The Cult film with Phantom of the Paradise.

War with Casulties of War.

Scifi with Mission to Mars.

Neo-noir with The Black Dahlia etc.

Granted more crap in the last decade or so. I would rate only Carlito's Way and Femme Fatale as being watchable. So I will stand by Not Crap but with some waffles.

As for Argento, I think his influences like Hitchcock and Bava are often very overt, just like DePalma. Okay, I would also rank Tenebre and Inferno.

[placeholder]

Eclecticism is a word and appropriate for DePalma in terms of genre.

You say "eclecticism," I say "pandering." Granted, that's a little oversimplification on my part, and maybe I'd like him if he pandered to my particular lowbrow tastes. In any case, none of his genre exercises do much for me.

I actually just sat through The Black Dahlia a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was really, really embarrassing. It seemed unintentionally campy. I expected to like it, and was disappointed.

As for Argento, I think his influences like Hitchcock and Bava are often very overt, just like DePalma.

I wouldn't dream of arguing with this.

Argento only really works in gialli and horror movies, but I think he excels in his idiom. I am usually not particularly engaged by DePalma's takes on these common influences, though I think they are his most watchable movies.

Of course, something makes me want to give his movies a chance sometimes, so maybe the joke is on me. Or maybe I don't "get" him. I still say he's crap, though.

[sparky]

It's an unpopular sentiment here, but Scarface is not crap. I think it is genius, in fact. It is over-the-top, ridiculous, gratuitous, hammy, gaudy and brilliant for all of this. Pacino called it operatic, which is as good a description as I can come up with.

In general, I am not a fan of DePalma and Oliver Stone, but on this particular film, the nastiness and requirement for excess fitted them perfectly.

But DePalma's crap. I've enjoyed some of his other films - The Untouchables, Snake Eyes (ludicrous, but entertainingly flashy), Blow-Up) and Mission: Impossible, but they have no heart, and are occasionally very unpleasant. Mission: Impossible is probably the one that I have enjoyed the most out of these, and considering that it is essentially well-filmed sterile techno trash-o-rama, I think that it is quite telling.

I have no time for Carrie, and I have not seen Sisters.

I think that Scarface has heart. It is one full of cocaine, cordite, cigar smoke and red paint, and it enthralls me because of this.

Countless edits for typos and additions.

[boilermaker]

but they have no heart, and are occasionally very unpleasant.

You've nailed it with those few words. although occasionally adorned with pretty pictures, de Palma's films for the most part are technical exercises and little more. There is also a nastiness that permeates his films which makes it almost impossible to care about the fate of the characters.

Awful filmaker.

[punch_the_lion]

but they have no heart, and are occasionally very unpleasant.

You've nailed it with those few words. although occasionally adorned with pretty pictures, de Palma's films for the most part are technical exercises and little more. There is also a nastiness that permeates his films which makes it almost impossible to care about the fate of the characters.

Awful filmaker.

I think with films like Obsession, Carrie and Blow-Out he creates pathos out of the tragedy of the main characters and what happens to their fate. As for "nastiness", do you mean black humor? He isn't Spielberg.

[Ty Webb]

DePalma is the anti-John Carpenter.


CRAP w/WF 7 for The Untouchables, Carrie, and The Fury. (And even that last one is a very guilty pleasure.)

[anarchyinthebronx]

DePalma is the anti-John Carpenter.


CRAP w/WF 7 for The Untouchables, Carrie, and The Fury. (And even that last one is a very guilty pleasure.)

Huh? Two directors as different as night and day. The only similarities being they made some solid movies in the seventies and eighties before settling into mediocrity.