Is he? Sergio Leone is certainly in competition for that title. Is there anyone else who could rival their purely cinematic set pieces like Museum scene in De Palma's Dressed to Kill or Final Duel in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West?
shareAlfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah, Steven Spielberg, John Woo, Tony Scott, David Fincher, Alfonso Cuaron, among many others come to mind.
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Mmmmmm....Yes, Briane DePalma has great visual style. He basically lacks depth, though (except in the rare effort like BLOW OUT), so his imagery is too often rather superficial.
For instance, this shot from FEMME FATAL is utterly gorgeous, but it doesn't really connect very solidly with anything else in the film...other than that the heroine is submerged in a bath at one point, and there's a prism that reflects pinpoints of light in another. (The film is basically a mess, dramatically speaking.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw8I_PKL5Ao&index=8&list=PL-O_xtE_ThRgX3HEbuwrSqBbjjEJ0SHgF
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No. Scorsese wannabe. And cocaine decisions, as Frank Zappa pointed out in his song of the same name, never lead to good choices, OP.
A second-tier director, at best. I only own The Untouchables because of Connery’s performance.
He is a B movie director who got lucky living during a time when film critics were feeling generous and confused him for being an A-List director.
shareThe fuck? Are you on crack?
A second-tier director doesn't make films like Scarface. Or The Untouchables for that matter, or Carlito's Way. Not every film he's made is a top-tier film, but enough are that to refer to him as "a second-tier director at best" is not only disrespectful, but it's simply wrong.
And let's not forget Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Mission Impossible and Carrie. Maybe flicks not as good as those other DePalma films you mentioned. And certainly not up there with Hitch's best -- the filmmaker DePalma wanted to be more than any other as his arresting visual style attests to. But certainly films only a pretty gifted filmmaker could create.
shareI just watched Blow Out last night. That's also a good film, albeit ultimately a depressing one.
What is strange is how he has just kind of slid downhill since his peak in the 80s and early 90s. He definitely WAS a high-quality director for a time. Then he started making films that were still relatively high-profile, but that weren't as well received by audiences. And now he makes films--when he does actually make a film--that no one sees, and when someone does actually see them they don't usually like them.
His career is actually very reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola's.
Even his lesser films like Snake Eyes still have things in them that don't make them a total waste of time.
shareHave you seen the retrospective documentary that was made about him recently?
Here's the trailer if you're not aware of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97XoMjwoZ5w
I am actually (re)watching several of his films right now to prepare myself to watch the doc. The Untouchables was a few nights ago, Blow Out was last night, and tonight it's Carlito's Way.
Also, no film with Nic Cage is a total waste of time. :)
Delusional, hahaha!
sharehe's up there for sure
shareno
shareNot even close.
shareHe actually reminds me of Nicolas Cage... they both do their own thing in their respective fields and they are both "unconventionally-great".
shareHe got a lot better over time, but I always felt that in the beginning, its not simply that DePalma fashioned himself as a Hitchcock copycat...he rather botched the kind of suspense sequences that Hitchcock pulled off with better timing.
Example: the murder in the elevator in Dressed to Kill. Its much more gory and bloody and "visceral"(the slashing of the victim's jugular vein) than the Psycho shower murder(more violence was allowed in 1980 than 1960), but the "finish" -- Nancy Allen's hooker arriving while the killer waits in the elevator and -- just drops the blade on the slightest tap of the doors closing ...is too long, too slow, and too silly(the blade just falling like that.)
Example: the long slow motion sequence involving Kirk Douglas, Amy Irving, Carrie Snodgress and some villainous CIA guys. Everything happens in an unbelievable manner and DePalma slows everything down so we can consider just how ridiculous it is.
Example: the staircase shootout in The Untouchables IS a great set-piece...from when the shooting begins. But the rather endless and agonizing dragging of the baby carriage up the stairs by the mother is typical DePalma...too long, too drawn out, too unbelievably slow.
I compare this to the staircase scene in Psycho where the detective goes up the stairs, is attacked at the top by the mother , and falls down the stairs and gets stabbed to death on the foyer floor.
If DePalma had shot that scene, it would have taken five agonizing slow motion minutes to get the detective up the stairs, and five agonizing slow motion minutes to fall back down the stairs, until we didn't care. Hitchcock built his suspense slow and 'in real time" and got that fall done in the right amount of time, too.
Some will say: but hey, the detective's fall was a "fake" process shot to which I say: nobody noticed that in 1960 and it looks like fantasy stylization now.
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Its the TIMING that Hitchocck got right and that DePalma got wrong...early on at least in DePalma's career(I think we can add the long slow build-up to the pig's blood falling on Carrie to this.)
Actually, Peckinpah had Hitchcock's timing down much better for suspense(and with slow motion) in the action scenes in The Wild Bunch.
Still, DePalma DID get better. Overall, The Untouchables is filled with great sequences, Scarface is a classic, and Carlito's Way got both the visuals and the music just right for the final chase.
But stylistically...Hitchcock and a bunch of other guys beat DePalma.