Brian De Palma's personal experience.

Brian De Palma is known as "Hitchcock of America" and "Master of Contemporary Suspense". Because his parents divorced in childhood, young Depalma spent several days tracking and collecting evidence of his father's infidelity, so that this unfortunate childhood experience became the psychological root of his preference for voyeurism in the future. Depama's father is a plastic surgeon. He witnessed his father's work on the operating table since he was a child. Those bloody scenes have had a lifelong influence on him, making him constantly show his keen interest in bloodshed in the film.

Depalma studied physics before entering the film industry, and won the grand prize of the local science and technology fair in high school. His design project is "Solving differential equations with analog computers" (for the young experience of this scientific genius, see the film The Edge of Razor). After entering Columbia University, Depalma began to shoot some amateur short films (mostly satires). Among them, The Awakening of wotan, filmed by 1962, won him a scholarship, which enabled him to enter Sarah Lawrence University for further study, and studied under the drama director Wilf Derridge.

From 1962 to 1964, Depalma filmed the first feature film The Wedding Banquet, but it was not released until 1969. There are two main characters in it, one is Jill Clayberger, a student at Sarah Lawrence University, and the other is a Brooklyn boy who first appeared on the screen and claimed to be Bobby Danillo. That is the famous Robert De Niro in the future.

Sisters is the beginning of Depalma's imitation of Hitchcock. In the film, he began to use split screen technology, which became one of the symbolic elements of his style, and showed his superb ability to grasp the plot structure and narrative rhythm. Carrie the Witch, filmed by 1976, is by far the most successful adaptation of Stephen King's novels and a classic of horror movies. Full of creative shock and fear without losing some humor, it set off an upsurge all over the world, and the famous nightmare ending was imitated many times by later generations.

Scarface (1983) updated the classic model of robber films in 1930s with baroque style and more violent presentation. Depalma's masterpieces in the 1980s include Unselfish and War Casualties. In the former, the tribute to Odessa Steps has become a hot topic for critics.

"The Road to Cariteau" is perhaps the last work of De Palma in 1990s, and it has been well received. He undoubtedly entered the ranks of Hollywood's most trusted first-class directors, which enabled him to get a lot of opportunities, but there was not much room for free play. Mission Impossible is a big hit at the box office, which shows Depama's skillful skills in operating this type of film, while Snake Eyes has somewhat injected an attempt to personalize the writing of business conventions, but the result is both losses.

In 2000, the sci-fi movie mission to mars became a real joke. In addition to his visual creativity, these gaudy and empty entertainment films have repeatedly lowered the expectations of the audience and obviously damaged his level.

In 2006, the old man finally returned, regained his best black theme, and made a crime movie "black dahlia" adapted from a real case, which made fans see that Depalma was back.

In 2007, De Palma collected and sorted out the experiences of a large number of American soldiers in the conflict between the United States and Iraq. This time, he focused on the Iraq war and filmed a story about American soldiers who participated in the Iraq war, "Excerpt and Revision", which is commendable. With this film, Depalma won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director and the Future Digital Film Award at the 64th Venice Film Festival.

Brian de Palma is probably one of the directors in New Hollywood who involves the most types of movies. During these years' film career, he constantly changed his style and theme, and tried and explored in comedies, horror films, police films, action films and science fiction films. It seems that the film genre itself is his research object, and he especially likes parody and modification of those classics. His skillful manipulation of genre films makes it easier to gain the affinity of entertainment films. He is good at combining visual expression with a highly controlled sense of terror, showing moral ambiguity and attractive dark and depraved sentiment in absurd stories, while his unwillingness to avoid or even fanaticism about disgusting scenes constantly challenges the audience's acceptance limit.

1970 "Hi, Mom! It is also an anti-establishment comedy that goes with the flow, but he soon realized that this rebellious trend would soon pass, so he began to follow Hitchcock's example in 1973 to shoot The Freak Case, which was the first success of Depalma after seven independent films. The theme of the film is controversial: the psychological shadow of conjoined babies when they grow up. Its conception comes from a real case that the director saw in a Russian science magazine in his early years. The film uses split-screen technology (thanks to the award in the late 1960s and the popularity of Boston murderers), which not only changes the writing style, but also invites Hitchcock's imperial composer bernard herrmann to compose. This not only shows a sense of tribute, but also reminds the audience of Hitchcock's films such as Dr. Edward and Psycho, which have harsh music, creating a familiar genre for movies. Since then, Depalma has gradually established the future label characteristics (such as voyeurism).

1974' s Phantom of the Sky is adapted from the novel of the same name. Until 1999, there were probably no fewer than four movie versions of the classic Phantom of the Opera, and this version of Depalma should be regarded as the most bizarre, dazzling and subversive. 1976' s Romance once again laid hands on Hitchcock (including the soundtrack), and the "tribute" to the predecessors reached its peak in this film. The film is actually a remake of "vertigo", but it is said that Hitchcock in the fashion world at that time didn't buy it at all. It was also in this film that De Palma began to create the 360-degree scanning lens he had tried. Carrie the Witch created a new genre of horror movies about children with super powers. It was Depalma's most successful film at that time (and one of the successful examples of adapting Stephen King's novels so far), with shocking scenes and profound implications. Later, Hollywood also remake several similar youth campus horror films, but the realm is not brilliant. In addition to continuing to use the auxiliary picture, Depalma also has a unique symbol: the nightmare ending with the fake. In addition, it is worth mentioning that a despicable person in the film planned revenge and got the attention of the audience. He is john Travolta and will step into the ranks of superstars in the future; Nancy allen, who plays ChrisHargenson, married Depalma three years later. Their marriage lasted four years. After their breakup with KLOC-0/983, Nancy Allen only appeared briefly in several films such as Robocop.

During the period of 1979, Depalma temporarily stopped her high-profile work as a Hollywood director and returned to her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence University, to teach doctoral courses. This experience was later made into a trite "family movie" starring Kirk Douglas and his then wife Nancy Allen.

1980, de Palma operated on Psycho, the predecessor, and filmed The Edge of the Razor, which was full of violence and pornography. The nightmare ending reappears in the film, in which michael caine plays a bisexual psychiatrist with split personality, which is still frightening. The film boldly borrows the bathroom scene in Psycho, but the real murder place is in the elevator. This movie aroused the extreme reaction of the film critics, and strengthened his ambition of "pushing your luck", so we saw "Evil Line" at 198 1 and "replacement killers" at 1984. The former is a paranoid conspiracy, and john Travolta plays a film recorder who unintentionally records political murder. The latter is a thriller in the porn industry, in which a woman is drilled to the floor.

1983, he remake Howard Hawkes' classic gangster film Scarface, but the background was changed to Miami, and Al Pacino played a vulgar Cuban hero in the film. This film marks a brand-new beginning. Depalma began to enter the stage of "crime film", followed by 1986 gangster comedy "Smart Guy". Scarface was written by oliver stone who was still immersed in drugs at that time. Universal Pictures invested a lot of money, and Depalma tried to make a breakthrough. However, because some clips were too bloody (for example, friends in Montana were sawed to death), they were all listed as X-rated four times. Finally, a hearing attended by 20 senior officials had to be held, and 17 was approved as R grade by 3 votes. After the release of Scarface, which was supposed to attract bad reviews, it caused the abuse of countless young people and businessmen. To this day, the lines of the film are still influencing "gang rap" and hip-hop culture.

1984, de Palma directed Bruce Springsteen's mtv Dance in the Dark. When The Replacement Killer came out in the same year, Depalma was still repeating himself, bloody, slow-motion, shocking, Herman-style soundtrack, unexpected characters and twisted ending.

Just as his directing career was in a commercial downturn, De Palma directed 1987' s very successful "Impartiality". This moral story happened during prohibition also made kevin costner. The film has created countless classic scenes, with distinctive characters and full tension between good and evil. The gangster played by De Niro, the juvenile detective played by Andi Garcia and the calm and wise man played by Sean Connery all left a deep impression on the fans.

Next, De Palma described another kind of violence in 1989' s Vietnam War Trauma, which mainly told the inhuman abuse of a Vietnamese woman by a group of American soldiers, and the box office was a fiasco.

1990 The Nightwalker is a very clumsy work based on Tom Wolfe's popular novels. In the film, Peter Floret (played by Bruce Willis) is a journalist and writer, who leads to a "man who won the world but lost his soul". This man is the greedy Wall Street stockbroker Sherman McCaughey (played by Tom Hanks), a racial bigot who claims to be the master of the universe, and kills black youth with his own car.

Due to the failure of the film, Depalma urgently needs salted fish to turn over again. So he went back to the old road he knew. 1992, he cooperated with his old partner John Risgard for the third time and filmed RaisingCain, a horror film that returned to bloody style. In this film, JohnLithgow, one of Depalma's favorites, gave full play to his wild and dark passion.

1993, De Palma and Al Pacino jointly produced Dawn of Lovers again, which quickly won wide acclaim for many years. Undoubtedly, this film is the most representative work in Depalma's directing career, and it was rated as the best film in the 1990s by the French film handbook. EdwinTorres, the author of the original novel, is a judge of the Supreme Court of New York. The story is based on real events. It is not difficult to see that Dawn of Lovers and Scarface are actually two sides of the same coin. Both of them tell the tragic stories of foreign immigrants. They are gangsters torn in half by light and darkness. One is a Cuban who came to Miami for gold, and the other is a Puerto Rican who wants to escape from new york. One is trapped inside, one is washed away, one is rough, one is warm, and the other is self-destructive.

1996, Depalma's super blockbuster "Mission Impossible" adapted from TV series won a proud reputation and box office, and was regarded as the best entertainment by countless fans. Although the story takes place in the Secret Service in the Internet age, the dark and humid atmosphere created by Depalma reminds people of London, a foggy city frequented by Sherlock Holmes. Many details in the film fully reflect Depalma's careful thinking in the layout of the article, especially the aerial dance in which Ethan Hunt sneaked into the CIA headquarters and stole the list of agents from the sky, which pushed Depalma's proud efforts to build dramatic tension to the extreme.

1998, de Palma released Snake Eyes, the story revolves around a political assassination. It aroused the audience's appetite from the beginning, but unexpectedly, the second half of the film became mediocre, and finally the audience was seriously left behind. The huge gap that its psychological expectations can't be met simply makes the audience beat their chests and feet, which is a complete failure. De Palma turned this movie into a typical stunt movie (of course, this is his eternal passion). For example, in the 20-minute continuous follow-up shot, we followed Nicolas Cage into the casino in Atlantic City and tried our best to arrange the scene, which was technically a little face-saving.

In the sci-fi thriller mission to mars in 2000, this time he moved the terror and violence on the earth to the solar system. This film can be regarded as a tribute to Kubrick's 200 1 A Space Odyssey. Similar movies (such as "The Origin of Life on Earth") have some new ideas, and the box office income is also considerable. However, it is not an excellent work on the whole. Perhaps it is because the shooting cycle is only one year before and after, and the film crew has to travel to and from special effects studios such as industrial light and magic for most of the time, thus ignoring the shortcomings in the script.

In 2002, Depalma's new film Slut came out. The hero and heroine are antonio banderas and French supermodel Rebecca Romeen-Stamos respectively. The story takes place in Paris, and it is also a suspense film about identity and the past. As expected, the praise of a few die-hard fans is still shouting and cursing.