So why has De Palma been so frequently overlooked?

“He made very provocative movies,” says Bouzereau. “The reviews would always call him a Hitchcock copycat. Maybe that perception stayed. When I was growing up in France and discovered him in the ’70s and became literally obsessed, he was kind of a pariah already.”

Acceptance seems to have come only gradually.

“I was always a fan, but I thought I understood his shortcomings as a creative and a craftsman,” Kenny says. “Now, though, a lot of the things that I thought were flaws in ‘Dressed to Kill’ and ‘Body Double’ and ‘Blow Out’ … I don’t see them that way anymore. I see more clearly what he was doing, and what he was trying to do.”

I didn’t know I knew who Laurent Bouzereau was. I watched his documentary, Five Came Back, when it was released on Netflix. Then, in the middle of reading this book, I watched his most recent documentary, Faye, about actor Faye Dunaway, on MAX, and didn’t realize Bouzereau directed it until the end. If you want to know what to expect from the book before reading it, I definitely recommend watching one of Laurent’s documentaries. I love film documentaries. Whether it’s something like Belushi or In Search of Darkness or Electric Boogaloo—they all make me happy, I have seen dozens of them, and I can say unequivocally, when it comes to biographical documentaries, I think Laurent stands in a class all of his own.

The documentaries are organized, composed, and communicated in a way that is simultaneously logical and emotional—highlighting the humanity of the subject(s), their contributions to the art of film, and peppered everywhere else is what Laurent seems to personally admire about them—which becomes what you suddenly admire about him. They are infectious. They pull off this magnificent magic trick of making you want to live in that time and place and know these people and, upon exiting, realizing that’s exactly what you just experienced. Or, of course, as close to that as a documentary can possibly bring you. Like, a couple times, I got pissed off on behalf of Faye Dunaway. And I hold grudges. That’s the kind of power Laurent Bouzereau has and that very same magic and power is seamlessly transferred to The De Palma Decade.

In preparation for this book review, I wanted to see all of the referenced De Palma films I had yet to see. I was not ready. I was not ready for Phantom of the Paradise or Obsession or The Fury. By that I mean, I had a ‘90’s idea of Brian De Palma in my youth. Then, a more contemporary idea in adulthood. And then, I had to break my brain and squeeze in a third idea of who Brian De Palma was and, at that point, I was unmoored. I am convinced that Brian De Palma is a time-traveler, he’s from the future (and/or completely outside of time and space), and he specifically traveled to America in the 1970’s, to make films that were bound by the technology of the time, all because he wanted the goddamn challenge. Reading The De Palma Decade, I think there’s an element of truth in that unhinged theory.

The book covers the first ten years of Brian De Palma’s filmmaking career, separating the films thematically instead of chronologically: The Split—Sisters (1972) and Dressed to Kill (1980); The Power—Carrie (1976) and The Fury (1978); The Tragedies—Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Obsession (1976), and Blow Out (1981). Each section contains incredibly insightful analysis of De Palma’s filmmaking techniques, cast and crew interviews (including De Palma himself), and, what I particularly enjoyed, direct reflection from Laurent hiimself on how the films impacted their life.

For anyone looking to be introduced to Brian De Palma, I would wholeheartedly recommend The De Palma Decade. I would watch the films in the order of the book and after watching each, read the corresponding chapter. Then, I would rewatch all of the films again in chronological order so you can see the evolution of this filmmaker in real time. If I were teaching a film studies class, I would devote an entire semester of study to this with The De Palma Decade as the assigned textbook. I am officially in awe of Laurent Bouzereau and sincerely cannot wait for his next project. In the meantime, he has plenty of documentaries I haven’t yet seen and plenty of books I haven’t yet read. I consider Laurent Bouzereau to be any film critic’s aspiration and inspiration.

Bouzereau did some reporting, and some of his subjects actually have something to say. De Palma talks about the importance of music in setting the tone for his long, dialogue-free scenes (like that museum sequence). Hirsch riffs on the different approaches taken by “The Fury” stars Kirk Douglas and John Cassavetes: Douglas, who attacked his role with vim, came in hot but fizzled in later takes, while it took Cassavetes, who often booked acting jobs to help pay for the movies he wanted to make himself, about 10 takes to get loose. Nestled between the platitudes of “The De Palma Decade” are some genuine insights into the filmmaking process.

But the author’s unabashed adoration of De Palma can be a hindrance to deeper understanding. Bouzereau touches on the primary controversy surrounding “Dressed to Kill,” that “De Palma conflates transness with mental illness and homicidal behavior.” Caine’s character does indeed come across as a trans person whose conflicted identity leads him to kill. Here we go. Bouzereau is going to ask his hero how he views all of this now. And then … he doesn’t. Instead, De Palma says a little about how his screenplay for “Cruising,” a movie ultimately written and directed by William Friedkin, led to some of his ideas for “Dressed to Kill.” With that, the author lets him skate, onto the next platitude. Early on, Bouzereau writes that he has “no intention here to make a social treaty or statement or defend the controversial aspects of De Palma’s work” (perhaps he means “treatise,” not “treaty”). Fair enough. But the idea of handling such a gleeful provocateur with kid gloves seems to somehow miss the point of De Palma’s work.

The book covers seven films, organized thematically into three sections: The Split (“Sisters” and “Dressed to Kill”), The Power (“Carrie” and “The Fury”) and The Tragedies (“Phantom of the Paradise,” “Obsession” and “Blow Out”). “The Split,” of course, has multiple meanings for De Palma, who used split screens not merely as an aesthetic exercise: Like many an artist of the macabre, going back at least to Edgar Allan Poe, he also made bloody hay out of the theme of doubling, and the terror and instability inherent to the idea of a divided self.

By the time he made “Sisters,” in 1972, De Palma had already done a few scrappy counterculture features, including “Greetings” (1968), “The Wedding Party” (1969) and “Hi, Mom!” (1970). But “Sisters,” a proper freakout starring Margot Kidder, playing conjoined twins, is the first of what we now think of as a De Palma movie: a psychosexual nightmare with madman instincts. Viewed with the hindsight of 52 years, it feels of a piece with other rule-breaking, devil-may-care horror films of the period, including George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left” (1972) and David Cronenberg’s “Shivers” (1975).

It is, in other words, the real deal. Paradoxically, it also marks De Palma’s true entry into the sincerest form of flattery, the imitation game. Bouzereau starts his defense early, asking, “Is it fair to label De Palma a copycat? Isn’t he, rather, the legitimate heir to the Hitchcock kingdom?” He may, in fact, be both.

De Palma’s slavish emulation of Hitchcock runs through numerous films, and with notable specificity. Someone witnesses a murder in the apartment across the way, a la “Rear Window” (“Sisters,” “Body Double”). A blond star is murdered in a movie’s first act, as in “Psycho” (“Dressed to Kill,” which also throws in a couple of shower scenes and an obtuse expert explaining why a man dresses as a woman). He bows to “Vertigo” on multiple occasions, including “Blow Out” (man suffers the same tragedy twice, unable to prevent murders he has indirectly enabled) and, more directly, “Obsession,” about a grief-stricken man who reconstructs a lost lover. In these movies De Palma is almost like a hip-hop producer, mixing samples of different songs to create a new whole. He is director as collagist.

By focusing on De Palma’s ‘70s output (“Blow Out” and “Dressed to Kill” are technically early-‘80s movies, but exact decades can be imprecise markers of an artist’s thematic output), the book opts to pull up short of the director’s next, in many ways more eclectic, period. The ‘80s brought, among others, the opulence of “Scarface” (the subject of a pair of recent books, by Glenn Kenny and Nat Segaloff), the undiluted sleaze of “Body Double,” the mainstream success of “The Untouchables” and the underrecognized Vietnam War drama “Casualties of War.” If you seek a more comprehensive study, check out Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s fine 2015 documentary “De Palma.” In “The De Palma Decade,” the filmmaker gets a more precise spotlight. And he couldn’t have asked for a more devoted fan to shine it.

Like the volumes from Kenny, Blumenfeld, and Vachaud, Bouzereau’s study focuses on De Palma’s films (he sticks to the director’s high period, from 1973’s Sisters to 1981’s Blow Out). But this cinematic love letter contains more than in-depth commentary: there’s biography, oral history, and personal reflection. The result is a playful, even whimsical, contribution to the effort to consolidate De Palma’s auteur status, to evaluate De Palma’s reputation as one of America’s most important, though divisive, filmmakers.

Bouzereau wrote a previous book on the filmmaker, so he knew he had to bring something fresh to the table. There are new interviews with the director and his collaborators, including actors Nancy Allen, Sissy Spacek, and John Lithgow, production designer Jack Fisk, composer Paul Williams, and editor Paul Hirsch. The interviewees offer considerable insight into De Palma’s execution of action, from the prom scene in Carrie to the use of split screen in Sisters and the climatic Steadicam chase in 1993’s Carlito’s Way. This said, the book offers, at times, a retread of the information in Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s addictive 2016 documentary, De Palma, released by A24, the home of De Palma disciples Ari Aster (Hereditary, Beau is Afraid) and Ti West (The MaXXXine trilogy). Still, Bouzereau ventures into uncharted territory that should please die-hard cineastes, posing the question of why Hi Mom! and Get to Know Your Rabbit haven’t received the same scalpel-sharp analysis given to the director’s other early films. And the chapter on Phantom of the Paradise, particularly Williams’ recollection of writing his song “Old Souls” is moving. (Note: there’s a delightful story in the book about Orson Welles trying to get his film The Other Side of the Wind up and running.)

Keep in mind that Bouzereau is a fanboy. This is a deeply personal reflection on the films of a director he places in a higher slot in the pantheon than Alfred Hitchcock. Unlike the probing Hitchcock/Truffaut, the oral history and analysis here tends to excessively soft on De Palma’s failures. The interviews are a mixed bag. Cliff Robertson’s “aw shucks” take on shooting Obsession contentedly stays at the level of the actor’s tan and ego while Spacek and Fisk are tender (and perceptive) about their working and personal relationship on Carrie. As for De Palma’s ultimate standing among the gods of cinema, put me down as a skeptic regarding some of his films. 1984’s Body Double wasn’t so much a thriller as a comedic pastiche on porn chic Los Angeles while 2006’s The Black Dahlia was a very frustrating product — it is a muddled adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel, its narrative undercut by flaccid dramatic tension. Still, if you approach the book’s hyperbole with caution, The De Palma Decade has the merits of Bouzereau’s documentaries Five Came Back and Faye: it is a thoroughly enjoyable portrait of a counterculture master of the scream scene. At its finish, I couldn’t help but utter one of De Palma’s customary exclamations, “Holy Mackerel!”

In May of 1989, three months prior to the theatrical release of Casualties Of War, the New York Times Magazine published an article about the film by Bruce Weber, which begins with a test screening of the film. Here's an excerpt, courtesy of the book Brian De Palma Interviews, edited by Laurence F. Knapp:

IN THE MINUTES BEFORE the first public test screening of Brian De Palma's new movie at a theater in Boston, a young man approaches Steven Spielberg, De Palma's friend and fellow director who is sitting in the audience with a baseball cap pulled down over his brow, and asks him if he is Steven Spielberg.

"No," Steven Spielberg says, though as the man begins to walk away, he changes his mind.

Ambivalence and nervousness are prevalent this evening. De Palma himself, who believes this movie, Casualties of War, unequivocally to be his best, is nonetheless aware that it is not a romping entertainment. "It's so intense people may get up and leave," he said earlier in the day. At the moment, he's in the front row, and will spend the evening with his back to the screen, watching the audience.

Farther back, seated with Spielberg, are the film's producer, Art Linson, and several Columbia Pictures executives, including Dawn Steel, who approved the project in November 1987, shortly after she became president of the beleaguered studio.

Casualties of War had been abandoned by Paramount, Steel's previous employer; she rescued it for Columbia, upped the budget to a reported $22.5 million and made it her first "green light." Columbia finished 1988 last among the nine major movie studios in domestic market share, and Steel, charged with effecting a resurgence, is now awaiting summer, when the first movies produced at the studio on her watch will be released. Though Casualties of War features Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, and is thus compatible with Steel's predilection for star packages, it isn't Ghostbusters II (which is due next month). As the lights go down, Steel is visibly on edge.

Based on the true story of an atrocity committed by a squad of American soldiers in Vietnam, Casualties of War is immediately recognizable as a Brian De Palma film. In its opening sequence, a nighttime battle in the jungle that is photographed in the glossy, hyperbolized mode De Palma has frequently favored in his depictions of threat and chaos, Daniel Eriksson, a "cherry" who is seeing his first action, falls through a hole in the jungle floor and finds himself wedged in the earth up to his armpits, his legs dangling into a tunnel dug by the Vietcong. Played by Fox, Eriksson is plainly terrified, but he is spared a bit of suspense that the audience, which sees that the tunnel occupied, is not. As Eriksson is yanked to safety by a comrade, an enemy guerrilla swipes at his legs with a knife-and misses.

It is a typical De Palma manipulation, a macabre joke played both for the audience and at its expense. It is the only one in the picture: Though the film is bursting with De Palma's inventions, the grim truth of the material is no laughing matter. When the squad members, sent on a scouting patrol, kidnap a young Vietnamese woman, rape her and kill her, Eriksson is unable to stop them and bears excruciating witness to the crime. For the remainder of the movie, he is at the mercy of his conscience.

In the middle of the screening, half a dozen people do pick up and leave. And when the lights finally come up the theater is silent. Not a rustle. Eventually, as opinion cards are distributed, Steven Spielberg leans across Dawn Steel, whose fists are not yet unclenched, and murmurs a judgment to a man sitting on her opposite side.

"You'll be thinking about this for a week," he says.

"Maybe the ending could be made simpler," De Palma says. It is the following morning, and he doesn't look well. A large man - his girth, like many of his movies, is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock - he is devilishly bearded, and can be imposingly stone-faced. But today he is pale with apparent sleeplessness. After the screening, he attended a focus group discussion, examined the audience opinion cards and went to bed. Dawn Steel and Art Linson have expressed a wary satisfaction at the results of the test, but sipping cappuccino in the lounge of his hotel and speaking in his oddly reedy voice, De Palma is more forthright. The focus group had been impatient during a key expository sequence, he says, and he now wears the aspect of a man who, at the end of a long and grueling effort, has just discovered there is more work to be done.

"We were disappointed," he says, acknowledging that the majority of the audience graded the picture in the good to very good range. "What you really want," he says, and then stops to distance himself from the studio executives. "What they want is to have it tipped way high in the excellent area." He points out that, unlike a comedy, in which you can actually gauge what the audience thinks is funny, Casualties of War is supposed to leave the audience stunned, disturbed, introspective - and silent.

"In a movie like this, I'm not sure testing has any relevance," he says. "Still, you have to consider the problems when you read the cards and listen to the focus groups. You have to consider what's bothering them. Why aren't they reacting more strongly? It unnerves you. Everyone is unnerved. No question about it."

"We were in hell for five months," said Michael J. Fox. Speaking during the filming of the movie's final sequence in a San Francisco park last summer, Fox had, along with the rest of the crew, just returned from the jungles of Thailand, where the bulk of the movie was shot, and where temperatures had been routinely over 100 degrees.

"You're physically exhausted, and because of the material, you're emotionally in a bit of a state," Fox said. "It was really important to watch Brian getting out of his Volvo every day, and to know that he knew exactly what was going to happen. He inspires confidence."

Indeed, as technicians, setting up one last shot, built a track on the park grass for a camera to dolly on, De Palma, supervising, was an enormous, composed presence amid the commotion. De Palma would explain later that the scene had been storyboarded long ago; it was already in his head, and because there were no grave problems afforded by the location, the only problem left, really, was the technical one - matching his vision.

In the sequence being filmed, Eriksson, years after his discharge, confronts a young woman who reminds him of the woman he saw killed. And in the final shot, the young woman emerges from a bus, followed by Eriksson, who pursues her into the park and calls after her. As the cameras rolled, De Palma, seated in a director's chair and watching the scene through a viewfinder, hunched his shoulders, becoming aggressively more attentive, like a cat who'd heard a distant, unidentifiable sound. Fox approached the camera; the camera dollied toward Fox, so that, in the end, they were inches apart, his face in close-up, the actress Thuy Thu Le offscreen. The whole thing lasted less than a minute.

De Palma ran the actors through eight takes, consulting with Fox after each, and finally, the last couple of times, hustling just to the edge of the confrontation himself, so that he, Fox, Thuy Thu Le and the cameraman were all huddled together under the sound boom as if it were an umbrella.

It was the acting that hadn't satisfied him - Michael Fox's final expression.

It's a difficult scene to bring off," he said afterward. "You know, you run into a stranger and she looks at you and understands something about you that no one's ever understood. In a sense, she's the forgiving angel. And he's got to show that he's been forgiven. In the initial takes, it just wasn't there."

Eight months later, sitting in his Boston hotel, De Palma is asked if this is the scene that befuddled the screening audience. "No," he says, "they seemed to like that. They thought the movie was paced very well. And they were not disturbed by the violence, which in a movie of mine is remarkable."

The problem, he explains, was in the court martial scene, which the audience seemed to feel reiterated dilemmas that had already been resolved. "I think it's important to see the squad members on the stand," he says, see what they have to say, see them confronted with what they've done. But you are taking the risk of dragging the audience back through material they are familiar with, in order to get the true emotional thrust of the movie - which is that these are all casualties of war." He admits that he's thinking of dropping the trial scene, or at least editing it down.

It's an interesting moment, the film maker listening in his head to several different voices at once. He looks as if he wished they would all shut up.

How, he is asked, will the decision be made? "Everyone will give me an opinion," he says. "and then I'll do what I want."

Fittingly, as pure cinema, Only The River Flows is a knockout: eerie and dreamlike. An overture of kids at play is a marvel. Another scene is a dead ringer for gaudy maestro Brian De Palma. And, oh: it never stops raining.

But Wei also tethers his film to everyday realities. China’s former one-child policy takes a key supporting role. If the movie is a philosophy lesson in unknowable truth, it also has cynical police chiefs who just want someone locked up fast.

Released in China last year, the film became a domestic box-office smash: no minor feat for an art-house movie shot on 16mm film that opens with a quote from Albert Camus. In the west, it might be tempting to see crowds flocking subversively to a portrait of flawed authority. But those flaws are safely three decades in the past. Anyway, a simpler pleasure may well have been more influential. Having seen the movie, Chinese audiences then thronged social media to debate the plot, a modern forum for an age-old question. No, but seriously, whodunnit?

In a separate bit of intriguing news, Kahan will be at the 50th anniversary screening of Phantom Of The Paradise, for which Paul Williams is an already-announced guest, at the theater where Brian De Palma's movie was filmed: The Majestic Theater in Dallas, on Saturday, October 26th. In fact, with Kahan on hand, this promises to "a very special" screening of Phantom Of The Paradise.

Meanwhile, Matt Zoller Seitz re-watched the film last night:

The 25 YEARS Carlotta Films collector’s poster

To celebrate our 25 YEARS, we have created a collection of limited and exclusive collector's memorabilia . Here is the collector's poster with the anniversary visual created especially for the occasion by the illustrator Thomas Walker aka Tommypocket .

• Poster 40x60 cm
• Delivered folded

Limited to 200 copies

Find the entire collection of exclusive Memorabilia 25 years here .