DE PALMA: Hmm... [Pauses] Well, as a matter of fact, somebody put RAISING CAIN together the way it was originally supposed to be done, and it gave me lots of food for thought. RAISING CAIN was originally supposed to start with the woman's story-- you'd follow her for the first 20 minutes-- and then Lithgow's doesn't start until you see him smother her. But when I was cutting the movie, I didn't think her story was interesting enough to sustain the long beginning, so I reversed it and put the Lithgow stuff firstand used the opening scenes as kind of a flashback. Somebody got ahold of the original script and put it back the way it was supposed to be, and I thought it could be really interesting to actually do it the way I always wanted to.

FANG: You mean re-edit, or go back and completely remake it?

DE PALMA: Redo it. It's a very good idea. It was based on an experience I had with a woman who was in the midst of a divorce. She used to come by my house after work, we would spend a few hours together and then she would go home. But she would fall asleep all the time because she had been working all day, and I would sort of watch her sleep, and I thought about what would happen if she slept through the night. That was the initial concept for RAISING CAIN: the fact that she's with her lover and we know she doesn't go home. It's a very good idea, but I just didn't think it was strong enough in relationship to the Lithgow stuff, and that may have been a mistake.

FANG: Isn't that concept an extension in many ways of Angie Dickinson's subplot in Dressed To Kill?

DE PALMA: Yes, to some degree. But we're not always so conscious of these things the way people who study these films and look for all the signs are. We do things intuitively, and then you remind us of the similarities, and maybe you're right.

SB: Well, he was very, very hands off – he’s actually very trusting of the actors. He chooses great actors and let’s them do their thing. The most I ever saw him do was with Michelle. For us, he never said anything to us except ‘where are you walking in’ or ‘where do you want to do this’, you know? He let us play the scene and then he would move the camera. But with Michelle because she was so new, she was intimidated and it worked for the character and he kept her off balance I think. He wasn’t very nurturing and encouraging with her. She was having her issues of being the girl, the only girl, and us being in our own world and it worked for her. She explodes and she’s so angry and so done with Tony being such an ass and it was all about the boys. And that worked for her – she walked around like that. Really fragile and Brian didn't do anything to help that.

[Coleman] If screenplay writer Oliver Stone was on set a lot, were there any interesting discussions that came up between the two of you during shooting?

SB: Oliver was NOT on the set a lot – another news bulletin! Oliver was basically banned from the set after the second or third week out of seventeen weeks we shot. He was banned and the reason is because he had a lot to say about the scenes that he wrote and how they were played and what was said and everything. And once we started shooting it was like Oliver, please! Because he’d come around and he’d say, ‘What are you doing? What are you shooting today? What’s going on? What are you gonna do?’ And Brian would say, ‘Can you just relax and please let us do what we’re doing?’

[Coleman] Do you feel like it was that director side of Oliver coming to the surface?

SB: Absolutely! He was ready to go! He was ready to make his own movie! He couldn't help it! Put him on the set and he’s gonna tell you how to shoot the scene! It was just not a happy union - there was not a collaboration there at all. The collaboration was that he delivered this beautiful screenplay and we went to work with it. But his offerings were not welcome and eventually he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome. And I think it really bugged the shit out of him – he was not a happy camper. One day he was standing outside the gates at Universal and I was pulling up and he called me over and he goes, ‘Hey, Steven! Steven!’ And I go, ‘What are you doing there?’ And he goes, ‘Well, they won’t let me on the set!’ So I said, ‘What?!’ And he goes, ‘Can you just tell me what your shooting today?’ (Laughs) And I remember this one moment – I can't tell you specifically, but the script was bigger then what we shot obviously and there were scenes we had to cut because they were to expensive. And I remember one day he found me and he goes, ‘Have you done the scene with the so and so...” and I said, ‘Uhhh...no, we’re not doing that scene.’ And he was like, ‘What do you mean you’re not doing that scene?’ And I’m like, ‘They cut it.’ And he goes, ‘Are you KIDDING me?!’ – like crazy! That’s another interesting thing that most people don't know.

SB: "Raising Cain" is much more his comfort zone I think. "Scarface" was a tremendous undertaking and I’m one of those who really feel that no one could have done it like Brian De Palma. In that case I’m a Brian De Palma supporter and the way the film was made, the way the film is directed, "Scarface" is brilliant. The rhythm, tone and editing of it is perfect and a lot of that is him. Now that being said, I was sort of a skeptic before I met him and worked with him because the films that he made before "Scarface" always left me really frustrated. I was impressed by his technical and cinematic style, but I also felt manipulated always and I don't like feeling that as an audience member. I don't like feeling the director manipulating. So I wasn’t a big fan let’s just say, but when you get to "Raising Cain" after "Scarface," I’m a big fan. One more time he had me – I loved what he did with that movie. Loved the way it’s done, love the way it works on the senses and the surprises and I loved the acting in it. John Lithgow is amazing – he’s just so weird and goofy and beautiful. And he directed me really well too and he got a performance out of me I didn’t expect to deliver. I really thought of myself as much more active and he kept me really restrained, even in my physical appearance. I had to do everything possible to not fight him on it because it was like he wanted my hair combed all the time, he wanted the overcoat and he wanted me in a 3-piece suit. I said, ‘Why a 3-piece – why do I have to wear a vest?’ He goes, ‘Because I want you to be absolutely beautiful and gorgeous and I want you to be absolutely groomed perfectly in every scene – that’s who you are!’ (Laughs) He has these precepts and concepts on film visually that he imposes on the story and he’ll make it work, or not! In that movie it really works.

Yet another of Carter's personalities, Josh, has regressed to boyhood. He's a terrified child, one constantly fearing the wrath of his father. Again -- not entirely unlike Carter -- Josh is an image of masculinity reverted to a "harmless" or impotent stage, pre-adolescent, and therefore pre-sexual.

Finally, the guardian of the children is the personality named Margo. Importantly, Margo is female. Margo rescues Amy, destroys the Elder Dr. Nix, and restores order. It is a woman, therefore, who finally usurps the role of "hero"/"conqueror" in modern America. Carter can only become a hero when he is...female. The film's valedictory shot is of a looming, powerful Margo, standing heroically behind his family (Jenny and Amy). Carter could only be himself (a caring individual and care-giver) when in the personality and guise of a woman...and the last shot explains this visually. Margo is not menacing; not evil. She is triumphant.

All throughout this masterful, unbroken shot, Waldheim explains the history of the Nix family and the theories underlying multiple personality disorders. She basically describes the events of the movie (Cain vs. Carter) in a fashion that makes sense out of perspective we've witnessed thus far. It's a journey from the top of Carter's mind, literally, to the bottom...to Cain's mind, where we spy his murderous handiwork (the corpse).

De Palma understands that form must echo content, and so the form of his film -- multiple perspectives coming together -- reflects the flotsam and jetsam Carter's splintered mind. The virtuoso unbroken shot is Waldheim's tour of that mind, a narrative maze of twists and turns, of science and ultimately death. But importantly, this tour is an unbroken one (like Waldheim's dissertation), making linear sense of the tale for the viewer.