The movie that sent Brian De Palma into Hollywood exile: “Then I went to Europe”
There once was a time when filmmaking wasn’t entirely seen as a capitalist pursuit and colossal money-making scheme, with a long-gone Hollywood era in which powerful people cared about quality storytelling as well as profit.
At the start of the New Hollywood movement, a new kind of creative freedom emerged as daring young directors took hold of the reins and ushered in a period of complete rebellion and reform. While the American film industry had been stuck in its ways and making very little progress compared to the creative leaps being made in Europe, everything shifted after the likes of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma stepped onto the scene, temporarily changing the greed-driven mindset that dominated Hollywood.
However, while the creativity of these directors had a strong cinematic impact, perhaps there is no way to completely change such a lucrative business, with the suits soon going back to their old ways and opting for the money-driven approach to filmmaking. This is something that De Palma deeply struggled with, with the director describing the era that changed everything in an industry taken over by a commercialistic mindset.
Many people have debated the simultaneously positive and detrimental impact of the New Hollywood movement. While it led to classic films like Taxi Driver and The Godfather, it also rang in a new era of filmmaking that many consider to be the death of cinema entirely.
The colossal success of projects like Star Wars and Jaws (which led to the birth of the blockbuster) has largely been associated with the beginning of the end, ushering in a new period in which studios realised just how much more they could make and decided to prioritise this with future projects.
Naturally, this had a trickle-down effect on independent directors and those who wanted to make low-budget arthouse films, with De Palma describing a time when his career nose-dived as a result of this commercialistic shift, saying, “I felt it when the movies got so expensive. Obviously, with the advent of the huge movies in 4000 theatres with advertising budgets, etcetera”.
“That started with Jaws and went on with the Star Wars movies,” he added. “But when I made Mission to Mars—which is a $100million movie—when you have so much money…and you have to fight all these battles… Fortunately, because the Disney administration changed while I was making the movie, I was able to get most of what I wanted done.”
He further highlighted the studio control having a vice-like grip on the director’s neck because money matters, which led to him reaching a breaking point, saying, “That’s when I said, ‘I don’t want to make movies like this anymore. They shouldn’t be this expensive’. But quite the contrary—now they’re $250million! Then I went to Europe to make movies with European financing. It was getting crazy!”
After the success of Jaws and Star Wars, it only made De Palma’s life harder when it came to commissioning new projects, continuing to make gritty thrillers like Blow Out and Body Double that weren’t viewed on an even keel with the work being made by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. However, he continued down the same path, never giving up on his vision and staying true to his slice of cinema, even if that meant moving somewhere else to do so.
