Biography for
Brian De Palma More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

11 September 1940, Newark, New Jersey, USA

Birth Name

Brian Russell De Palma

Nickname

Bri

Height

5' 11" (1.80 m)

Mini Biography

Brian De Palma is the son of a surgeon. He studied physics but at the same time felt his dedication for the movies and made some short films. After seven independent productions he had his first success with Sisters (1973) and his voyeuristic style. Restlessly he worked on big projects with the script writers Paul Schrader, John Farris and Oliver Stone. He also filmed a novel of Stephen King: Carrie (1976). Another important film was The Untouchables (1987) with a script by David Mamet adapted from the TV series.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Volker Boehm

Mini Biography

Brian De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is known for his many films that go from violent pictures, to Hitchcock-like thrillers.

Born on the 11th of September in 1940, De Palma was born in New Jersey in an American-Italian family. Originally entering university as a physics student, de Palma became attracted to films after seeing such classics as Citizen Kane (1941). Enrolling in Sarah Lawrence College, he found lasting influences from such varied teachers as Alfred Hitchcock and Andy Warhol.

At first, his films comprised of such black-and-white films as Bridge That Gap (1965). He then discovered a young actor whose fame would influence Hollywood forever. In 1968, de Palma made the comedic film Greetings (1968) starring Robert de Niro in his first ever credited film role. The two followed up immediately with the film The Wedding Party (1969) and Hi, Mom! (1970).

After making such small-budget thrillers such as Sisters (1973) and Obsession (1976), De Palma was offered the chance to direct a film based on the Stephen King novel "Carrie". The story deals with a tormented teenage girl who finds she has the power of telekinesis. The film starred Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie and John Travolta, and was for De Palma, a chance to try out the split screen technique for which he would later become famous.

Carrie (1976) was a massive success, and earned the two lead females (Laurie and Spacek) Oscar nominations. The film was praised by most critics, and De Palma's reputation was now permanently secured. He followed up this success with the horror film The Fury (1978), the comedic Home Movies (1980) (both these films featured Kirk Douglas, the crime film Dressed to Kill (1980), and another crime thriller entitled Blow Out (1981) starring John Travolta.

His next major success was the controversial, ultra-violent film Scarface (1983). Written by Oliver Stone and starring Al Pacino, the film concerned Cuban immigrant Tony Montana's rise to power in the United States through the drug trade. The film, while being a critical failure, was a major success commercially.

Moving on from Scarface (1983), De Palma made two more movies before landing another one of his now-classics: The Untouchables (1987), starring old friend 'Robert de Niro' in the role of Chicago gangster Al Capone. Also starring in the film were Kevin Costner as the man who commits himself to bring Capone down, and Sean Connery, an old policeman who helps Costner's character to form a group known as the Untouchables. The film was one of de Palma's most successful films, earning Connery an Oscar, and gave Ennio Morricone a nomination for Best Score.

After The Untouchables (1987), De Palma made the Vietnam film Casualties of War (1989) starring Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. The film focuses on a new soldier who is helpless to stop his dominating sergeant from kidnapping a Vietnamese girl with the help of the coerced members of the platoon. The film did reasonably well at the box office, but it was his next film that truly displayed the way he could make a hit and a disaster within a short time. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) starred a number of well-known actors such as Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman, yet it was still a commercial flop and earned him two Razzie nominations.

But the roller coaster success that De Palma had gotten so far did not let him down. He made the horror film Raising Cain (1992), and the criminal drama Carlito's Way (1993) starring Al Pacino and Sean Penn. The latter film is about a former criminal just released from prison that is trying to avoid his past and move on. It was in the year 1996 that brought one of his most well-known movies. This was the suspense-filled Mission: Impossible (1996) starring Tom Cruise and Jon Voight.

Following up this film was the interesting but unsuccessful film Snake Eyes (1998) starring Nicolas Cage as a detective who finds himself in the middle of a murder scene at a boxing ring. De Palma continued on with the visually astounding but equally unsuccessful film Mission to Mars (2000) which earned him another Razzie nomination. He met failure again with the crime/thriller Femme Fatale (2002) the murder conspiracy The Black Dahlia (2006) and the controversial film Redacted (2007) which deals with individual stories from the war in Iraq.

Brian De Palma may be down for the moment, but if his box office history has taught us anything, it is that he always returns with a major success that is remembered for years and years afterwards.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Bob Stage

Spouse

Darnell Gregorio-De Palma	(11 October 1995 - 18 April 1997) (divorced) 1 child
Gale Anne Hurd	(20 July 1991 - 1993) (divorced) 1 child
Nancy Allen	(12 January 1979 - 1983) (divorced)

Trade Mark

[Split screen] Often uses split screens (created optically or using a split diopter while shooting) to build suspense and/or convey story information. This allows the audience to choose what to look at and engages them further in the story (Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Carrie (1976), _Dressed To Kill (1980)_, Blow Out (1981), Mission: Impossible (1996), Snake Eyes (1998), Femme Fatale (2002) and _The Black Dalhia (2006)_).

[Alfred Hitchcock Homage] Films frequently reference the work of Alfred Hitchcock, using similar locations, camera techniques/compositions, musical scores by Bernard Herrmann (a frequent Hitchcock collaborator), and blondes as leading ladies.

Frequently casts 'Robert de Niro', 'William Finley', John Lithgow, Gregg Henry, 'Dennis Franz', Gary Sinise, Al Pacino, 'Sean Penn' and ex-wife Nancy Allen.

The "LONG TAKE" which is usually complimented by a series of elaborate tracking shots or dolly movements

Dopplegangers (or evil twin), and femme fatales appear frequently in De Palma's films.

Often shoots 'tense' moments without any widening lens or zoom. When coupled with his trademark extended shot, it creates a feeling the viewer is in the scene.

Safari Jacket

[Voyeurism] Films often feature a protagonist who is voyeuristic by nature (Dressed To Kill (1980)), profession (Blow Out (1981)), or circumstance (Body Double (1984)).

Trivia

Won top prize in regional Science Fair in high school. Project was "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations." Cf. computer nerd in Dressed to Kill (1980).

De Palma graduated from Friends' Central School, a small quaker school outside of Philadelphia

De Palma bases his most famous cinematic predilection, voyeurism, on a specific childhood incident. When he was a child, his parents split up, his mother accusing his father of infidelity. The young De Palma spent several days stalking his dad with recording equipment, hoping to find evidence to confirm his mother's suspicions.

Uncle of actor Cameron De Palma.

In the 1970s, De Palma helped a close friend on a film project. He helped audition and interview actors. When the film was shot, DePalma did some uncredited writing on an opening "scrawl," a device the friend thought of at the last minute to help explain events in the film, so the audience would not be confused. The friend was George Lucas and the film was Star Wars (1977).

First child with Gale Anne Hurd, Lolita, born September 19, 1991.

Second daughter, Piper De Palma, born October 21 1996 in Palo Alto, California.

Brother of photographer Bart DePalma.

Italian-American.

Is a Bruce Springsteen fan and directed him in the "Dancing In The Dark" music video.

Wrote the role of the hooker in Dressed to Kill (1980) specifically with his then wife Nancy Allen in mind.

Has never contributed an audio commentary track to his DVDs.

Step-father of The OC actress Willa Holland.

Received a special thanks credit in Mean Streets (1973) for introducing Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro to one another.

Personal Quotes

The camera lies all the time; lies 24 times/second.

(On why he would not add rap songs to the soundtrack to "Scarface") "They said it would help promotion, presenting the film in a different way, but Giorgio's music was true to the period, I argued -- and no one changes the scores on movies by Marty Scorsese, John Ford, David Lean. If this is the `masterpiece' you say, leave it alone. I fought them tooth and nail and was the odd man out, not an unusual place for me. I have final cut, so that stopped them dead."

"I'm astounded there aren't more American political films. I'm amazed, when you can make movies for nothing, there are not people out there making these incredibly angry anti-war movies. How come?" (September 2006)

I've never been accepted as that conventional artist. Whatever you say about David Lynch or Martin Scorsese, they are considered major film artists and nobody can argue with that. I've never had that. I've had people say it about me. And I've had people say that I'm a complete hack and you know, derivative and all those catchphrases that people use for me. So I've always been controversial. People hate me or love me.

My films deal with a stylized, expressionistic world that has a kind of grotesque beauty about it.

I like stylization. I try to get away with as much as possible until people start laughing at it.

I have a reputation as an action director because I know how to kill, how to shoot people, how to spill blood.

[on Alfred Hitchcock] He is the one who distilled the essence of film. He's like Webster. It's all there. I've used a lot of his grammar.

[on Sissy Spacek] Sissy's a phantom. She has this mysterious way of slipping into a part, letting it take over her. She's got a wider range than any young actress I know.

It's hard to make movies where you put women in peril any more. You can't really stalk women around anymore. It's very difficult. It's sort of unsettling to field a lot of hostile questions about why you keep doing this and why you dislike women so much. You say, "It's a murder mystery, I'm running out of victims." It's all right to kill men, but women are out. No one complained when I killed a man in "Sisters."

[1987 comment on Robert De Niro] He's very low-key and concentrated when he's working. The thing that gets in the way of his work is people staring at him. So what you have to do on the set when he's working is to get people who are just going to gawk out of his eyeline. With the other actors he's very tuned, very responsive.

So much of shooting sex scenes in movies you a see are naked people sort of humping each other on a bed, shot in the most unflattering way just because they happen to be naked and mimicking making love. They don't really dramatize their particular sexual attraction to each other. And it's very difficult. You have to find a way, a visual way to approach scenes like that.

Women are more sympathetic creatures in jeopardy, plus they're more interesting to photograph. I'd rather photograph a woman walking around with a candelabra than a guy. It's as simple as that. Somebody once said that the history of cinema was made photographing women, and I think one could truthfully say that.

I'm not interested in a lot of talk. Talk to me is very boring and a lot of people just put that up there all the time. You have many films with these long character scenes, with extremely in-depth analysis, and what you have is a lot of characters sitting around talking to each other. Which does little to excite me in terms of the possibilities of what you can do with cinema. So I have those sequences in when they're necessary, but I certainly don't structure my film around them. And most of cinema today is driven by television, which is all talk - I tend to be the counterprogramming director.

On The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990): The initial conception of it was incorrect. If you're going to do The Bonfire of the Vanities you would have to make it a lot darker and a lot more cynical, but because it was such an expensive movie we tried to humanise the Sherman McCoy character - a very unlikeable character, much like the character in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). We could have done that if we'd been making a low budget movie, but this was a studio movie with Tom Hanks in it. I think John Lithgow would have been a better choice for Sherman McCoy, because he would have got the blue-blood arrogance of the character. I thought we were going to get away with it, but we didn't. I knew that the people who had read the book were going to be extremely unhappy. I think if you look at the movie now, and you don't know anything about the book, and you get it out of the time that it was released, I think you can see it in a whole different way.

I don't think I do referencing, I use ideas which I think are effective in this particular piece at the moment. If they've been used before, fine. I mean, who cares? To me, it's all grammar. If I've got that word available and it was used before and if I can use it again more effectively for my piece - why not? It's the history of art from the beginning of time. Why do you think painters still paint Chartres Cathedral? Do you think they should be painting some rock in a garden? But they have this incredible architectural thing in front of them! Are they copying, are they simulating it? Well, maybe they have a different interpretation of the piece of art that's in front of them. I mean, how unusual...

Where Are They Now

(November 2004) In Bulgaria, looking for locations for his current project - The Black Dahlia.

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