The director Brian De Palma called a “genius”
The crime and thriller genres would have a severe dent left in them if it weren’t for the magnificent works of Brian De Palma. The New Jersey-born director has delivered several suspenseful masterpieces over the years, most notably Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables, Blow Out and Carlito’s Way.
If Quentin Tarantino claims that you’re one of his biggest cinematic influences, then you know you’re on to something. Alongside the likes of Martin Scorsese and Sergio Leone, De Palma is just that, which goes to show that his films are held in the highest esteem by significant figures in the movie industry.
While De Palma’s influence on his fellow filmmakers is far-reaching, there looks to be but one person in cinema that has inspired him more than any other. De Palma has previously stated his admiration for the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, who helmed the likes of Notorious, Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo and The Birds, to name but a few of his masterpieces.
In an interview with Dick Cavett, De Palma opened up on his admiration for Hitchcock, responded to Cavett’s suggestion that he was indeed “the new Hitchcock” and why it is that so many fellow directors and cinema fans alike consider the British filmmaker to be a “master” at his craft.
“Because Hitchcock pioneered a whole kind of film grammar,” De Palma began. “He taught us how to express things as clearly visually as they can be expressed. It’s like good grammar. You can speak well; you can speak badly. You either write clearly or you don’t.”
The big thing for De Palma when it comes to Hitchcock is his precision and perfection, ultimately unrivalled by any of his contemporaries. He continued: “When he’s expressing an idea or a whole cinematic sequence, he puts the camera in exactly the right position. He has exactly the right shots. Everybody else is kind of muddleheaded and birdbrained basically, in relationship to him.”
Cavett then responded by questioning why it was that all the other directors aside from Hitchcock hadn’t learned directly from them and didn’t capture the exact same grammar as he did. De Palma’s answer was simply, “Because he’s a genius. You can get close, but he is a genius”.
De Palma also admitted that he had “consciously duplicated Hitchcock”. He noted: “Learning how to use that grammar, trying very much to look through his eye and now I think it’s evolved into a sort of grammar of my own. If you want to know anything about cinematic storytelling, he’s it.”
