A few days ago, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter told me that, by all accounts, he believes Brian De Palma, 83, will not be making another film again. That’s what he was hearing and he seemed fairly certain about it. I had to dig deeper.
Now, a second in-the-know person is, more or less, confirming that. They’re telling me that health issues, associated with aging, and the added headache of whether an insurer would even find him able to run a set again, have kept De Palma from returning to the director’s chair. With that said, although he does not consider himself to be retired, it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a new film from him anytime soon.
As far as I know, De Palma had two projects in development before COVID happened: the crime-drama “Sweet Vengeance” — which was going to be shot in Spanish — and a Harvey Weinstein inspired horror film. I’m told both of those films are no longer in the works. There’s nothing in the pipeline anymore.
De Palma’s last film was 2019’s “Domino” — which, like most of his 21st century output, was a critical and commercial failure. After that one got released, he immediately went to work on the above two projects. Both had scripts ready and financing had been secured.
As far as I’m concerned, the name De Palma is holy. I’ll always abide by his church of cinema. He hasn’t necessarily gotten his due over the years, at least when compared to his more high profiled ‘70s peers (Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg). Noah Baumbach directed a wonderful doc about him in 2015, it tried to reassess and reintroduce De Palma to a new generation of moviegoers. I highly recommend it.
Quentin Tarantino seems to be in agreement, and, last year, went that extra mile by implying that De Palma was more important a filmmaker than Scorsese and Spielberg. Strong words.
Throughout his career, De Palma was deemed heir to Hitchcock. You could immediately tell that you were watching a film directed by him. De Palma is indelibly known for his unusual camera angles and shot compositions — especially his famous usage of split-screen, tracking shots, slow-motion and the 360-degree camera pan.
I don’t even know where to start when naming my favorite De Palma works, there are so many good ones — “Carrie,” “Phantom of Paradise,” “Dressed to Kill”, “Blow Out”, “Scarface”, “Body Double”, “The Untouchables,” “Casualties of War,” “Carlito's Way”, “Mission: Impossible” … you choose.
As expected, Snyder's latest is being torn apart by TIFF attendees. No mercy given. The film, which had its world premiere this evening, is being called by some one of the worst movies to ever premiere at the festival.