Brian De Palma has made some of the best genre pictures of the last 40 years. Check this list of titles, which spans from 1973 to 2002: Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise, Carrie, Obsession, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, The Untouchables, Casualties of War, Carlito’s Way and Femme Fatale. Even his less successful efforts are interesting in one way or another.
De Palma specializes in slanted well-crafted thrillers, movies that aren’t afraid to mix sexuality, violence and sly social commentary in ways both disturbing and often darkly comic.
A new documentary, the simply titled De Palma directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, attempts to shine a light on De Palma’s career not just as a gifted genre stylist but as a cinematic master who should transcend his reputation (in some quarters) as a Hitchcock knock-off — or, worse, a perverse misogynist who enjoys putting women in peril.
De Palma is essentially a first-person trip down memory lane: Baumbach and Paltrow point their camera at the now-75-year-old director and let him talk about each of his 29 movies, which he does with wit and good-natured enthusiasm. His commentary is interspersed with clips from his movies, arresting images that in most cases — like a blood-drenched Sissy Spacek in Carrie — remain as potent as the day they surfaced.
De Palma describes how he created certain effects, dishes on the difficulties of working in the Hollywood system and isn’t shy about admitting that he likes photographing beautiful women.
De Palma is catnip for fans familiar with the director’s work, but Baumbach and Paltrow seem to have little interest in digging deeper or in challenging De Palma’s more controversial tendencies They offer up an entertaining love letter that is fascinating as far as it goes. (Opens today at the Esquire Theatre. (R) Grade: B
This article appears in Jul 6-13, 2016.