How Does De Palma Create His Signature Style?

De Palma is well known for his hit with his Scarface remake in 1983. This is because he used his own signature style on this movie creating use of stylized violence which gave this film a high attraction to his style. This film is jam packed with exciting gangster confrontations. Including use of many weapons such as, bullets, guns, chain saws not to mention the high amounts of cocaine. De Palma’s movies began to evolve around tackling issues of psychotics, gangsters, killers and using these tales in a way to create his signature style by adding his own subversive sensibility. Which is what makes this film so aesthetically pleasing created by his signature style. Brian gave us a sense of glamorised violence and well dressed criminals living a better life than the poorer legal workers. This film was brought out in 1983 when America was only just recovering from its worst economy depression. Which is what Brian intended to do by showing his viewers what was actually happening in the 80’s by being shown their cultural values with exaggeration to aware them of the social and political issues that time in America.

Brian shows American’s the real world and what is happening in the 80’s such as ‘Tony’ an immigrant making his way up the table , yes in an illegal way but he is shown as the top man with all the beautiful women all the money  and big house living this so called American Dream but is this the way Brian wants to show this immigrants stereotype they are breaking the law but why? Having to escape a bad life through crime and drugs to live sustainably but with gaining access to ease of money carrying out the issue until the end and becoming greedy. Brian shows us this straight from the escape right up to not knowing when to stop when to give in and run from it all over again.

Here is a quote from Brian's interview book:







This quote clearly shows how bad he wants his audience to react to the effects of blood, he sarcastically speaks to his staff by saying 'what ware we making here ? Cinderella' clearly showing that he wants his films to be gory as possible to shock the audience.

Source Page 83, Brian De Palma Interviews:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RzPnavf9kpsC&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=award+winners+hollywood+scarface+brian+de+palma&source=bl&ots=jyRC8j5oLe&sig=Dssra9fZYNjlUbISjZ3l8pIlO60&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pTBiUKL2GsKb0QWFqIGwAg&ved=0CHIQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=award%20winners%20hollywood%20scarface%20brian%20de%20palma&f=false

Scarface
Brian de Palma's 1983 gangster movie is still a must-see for Pacino's potent and influential performance
*****

Hello! Al Pacino in Scarface (1983). Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

After a quarter of a century, a return to the big screen now further magnifies the brutal unsubtlety of Brian de Palma's 1983 gangster movie, itself a reworking of Howard Hawks's 1932 film. De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone cleverly transpose the action to Fidel Castro's "Mariel" expulsion of jailbirds from Cuba in 1980. Among the dodgy flotsam winding up in Miami is Tony "Scarface" Montana, ferociously played by cock-of-the-walk Al Pacino, shrilly insisting on his anti-communist political status, but thirsting for sex, money and blood. Tony parlays a successful hit job on an old Havana compañero of Fidel's into a connection with the local drug lord - and from there his inexorably growing addictions to power and cocaine propel him to the top, and over it.

Pacino's performance is always intensely watchable (although even in 1983 he is developing his mannerism of ending a scene by shouting throwaway lines over his shoulder as he swaggers off) and his very first scene, under interrogation by US immigration cops, is a cracker. The early career of Tony and his buddies in sunny, breezy Miami Beach is nice to watch and De Palma's handling of Tony's first bungled drug deal is tremendous: with the camera drifting enigmatically back and forth between the motel room carnage to the waiting getaway car. But there is also something a little stately about the dramatic pace and that 1980s synth score, and also a quaint sort of Kung Fu/Bond movie aesthetic to Scarface, with its lairs and spotlit country homes, its perimeter fences and its dozens of disposable henchmen fatally greeting Tony's "little friend". (Incredibly, two new movies this week reference the famous line and a third is a reworking of the basic Scarface plot.)
I am struck once again by the strange facial similarity between Tony's wife Elvira, played by Michelle Pfeiffer and his sister, Gina, played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Deliberate psychological insight? Or a just an accident of style? The movie is dwarfed by Raging Bull and GoodFellas at either end of the decade, and I'm not sure if it really is a satire on America's new Reaganite dawn, but it's still a must-see for Pacino's potent and influential performance.



Scarface
Production year: 1983
Country: USA
Cert (UK): 18
Runtime: 170 mins
Directors: Brian De Palma
Cast: Al Pacino, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Loggia, Steven Bauer

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/21/scarface-review?INTCMP=SRCH

Research Project Question:

" How does Brian De Palma create his own signature style on the gangster genre film with reference to Scarface?"

Brian De Palma Filmography:

Film	Role	Year
Passion Brian DePalma returns to the suspense genre with this remake of the 2010 french thriller, Love Crime. The plot follows a...	Director, Screenwriter	2013
Heat Brian De Palma directs this remake of the 1987 Burt Reynold action thriller in this Sierra/Affinity production starring...	Director	2013
Redacted Director Brian De Palma turns his lens on the Iraq War with this "fictional documentary" about the experience of U.S....	Director, Screenwriter	2007
Sisters Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America director Douglas Buckfollows that gruesome collection of three short films with this...	From Screenplay by, Screen Story	2007
The Black Dahlia Director Brian De Palma returns to the helm for the first time since 2002's Femme Fatale with this stylish screen adaptation...	Director	2006
Femme Fatale Brian De Palma blends the emotional netherworld of film noir with a stylish portrayal of life among the wealthy and powerful...	Director, Screenwriter	2002
Mission to Mars Brian De Palma directed this science-fiction suspense story. When the United States sends its first manned mission to Mars,...	Director	2000
Dial H For Hitchcock This documentary is a loving look at the cinematic genius of Alfred Hitchcock. Speeding through much of his early British...		1999
Snake Eyes Brian DePalma directed this taut thriller, set in Atlantic City, where a corrupt cop investigates a political assassination....	Director, Producer, Screen Story	1998
Mission: Impossible After he is framed for the death of several colleagues and falsely branded a traitor, a secret agent embarks on a daring...	Director	1996
Rotwang Muss Weg! German politics and filmmaking are parodied in this comedic mystery that centers on a line-up of odd-balls, each suspected of...		1995
A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies In 1994, the British Film Institute commissioned a set of films to mark the centenary of the movies. They would trace the...		1995
Carlito's Way Carlito's Way is a tale of a former hood trying to escape his former life. Al Pacino is Carlito Brigante, a high-level Puerto...	Director	1993
Raising Cain A complicated thriller, directed with great visual style by Brian De Palma, Raising Cain is the story of twin brothers,...	Director, Screenwriter	1992
The Bonfire of the Vanities Brian De Palma's Hollywood sanitization of Tom Wolfe's scabrous satire stars Tom Hanksas Sherman McCoy, the "master of the...	Director, Producer	1990
Casualties of War Casualties of War was based on a New Yorker article by Daniel Lang. This, in turn, was inspired by a true incident which...	Director, Screenwriter	1989
The Untouchables Like the TV series that shared the same title, The Untouchables (1987) was an account of the battle between gangster Al...	Director, Screenwriter	1987
Wise Guys The "wise guys" referred to in the title, Harry Valentini (Danny DeVito) and Moe Dickstein (Joe Piscopo), turn out to be not...	Director, Screenwriter	1986
Body Double In Body Double, director Brian DePalma pays homage to theAlfred Hitchcock movies Vertigoand Rear Window, adding a few...	Director, Producer, Screenwriter	1984
Scarface Al Pacino stars as Tony Montana, an exiled Cuban criminal who goes to work for Miami drug lord Robert Loggia. Montana rises...	Director	1983
The First Time In this quiet though not quite bland semi-autobiographical look at his formative years, directorCharlie Loventhal has his...	Consultant/advisor	1983
Blow Out Brian De Palma's homage toMichelangelo Antonioni's classic art movie Blow-Up (1966) blends suspense and political paranoia...	Director, Screenwriter	1981
Dressed to Kill One of Brian De Palma's most divisive films, Dressed to Kill is a spine-chilling Alfred Hitchcockupdate for the late 1970s....	Director, Screenwriter	1980
Home Movies Brian De Palma directed this treatise concerning an egotistical film professor as a film-making project for his...	Director, Producer	1979
The Fury Brian De Palma returns to the mind-blowing potential of telekinesis in the follow-up to his 1976 horror hit Carrie. While...	Director	1978
Obsession Love never dies in Brian De Palma's psychological thriller, though money certainly complicates matters. Rich New Orleans real...	Director, Screen Story	1976
Carrie This classic horror movie based on Stephen King's first novel stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, a shy, diffident teenager...	Director	1976
Phantom of the Paradise "He sold his soul for rock-n-roll," read the tagline for Brian De Palma's satirical Phantom of the Opera for the '70s rock...	Director, Screenwriter	1974
Sisters A reporter gets more than she bargained for when she tries to prove that a murder has occurred in Brian De Palma's disturbing...	Director, Screenwriter	1973
Get to Know Your Rabbit In this comedy, young Donald Beeman (Tom Smothers) becomes disillusioned with his business career and quits to become a...	Director	1972
Dionysus in '69 Produced, directed, shot, and edited by Brian De Palma, Robert Fiore, and Bruce Rubin, Dionysus in '69 documents a landmark...	Cinematographer, Director, Editor, Producer	1970
Hi, Mom! Brian De Palma takes on late 1960s media culture in his followup to Greetings (1968). Seeking a place in New York life one...	Director, Screenwriter	1970
The Wedding Party This dark comedy finds Charlie (Charles Pfulger) traveling to stay at the house of his fiancee's parents two days before his...	Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter	1969
Murder à la Mod A man is being blackmailed by his wife, who wants him to get out of the pornography business. His girlfriend steals some...	Director, Editor, Screenwriter	1968
Greetings If for nothing else, Greetings would be memorable as the second feature-length directorial effort of Brian DePalma (his...	Director, Editor, Screenwriter	1968

http://www.fandango.com/briandepalma/filmography/p17596

Brian De Palma's Biography :

http://www.biography.com/people/brian-de-palma-9272033

Brian De Palma Biography

lhttp://www.filmreference.com/film/80/Brian-De-Palma.html

Scarface Trailer 1983

Brian De Palma (b. 1940) isn't your average Hollywood director. For years he reigned as the "master of the macabre," the man who massacred the class of '76 ;and stalked Angie Dickinson Dressed to Kill. By the mid-1980s De Palma found himself assaulting his audience and critics, daring them to watch a chainsaw enter a man's skull Scarface and a power drill disembowel a defenseless woman in Body Double. What drove De Palma to such extremes? In the late 1960s, he wanted to be the next Jean-Luc Godard and revolutionize American cinema. Instead, he found himself ostracized when Warner Bros. removed him from Get to Know Your Rabbit, his first Hollywood feature. De Palma sought the refuge of Alfred Hitchcock until the late 1970s, when his surreal approach to horror became a genre unto itself Carrie;The Fury,Dressed to Kill. Ironically, just as De Palma achieved the success that his fellow Movie Brats George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg had enjoyed since the mid-1970s, he could not hide his resentment toward Hollywood. After battling with the MPAA in the 1980s, he gradually became part of the mainstream with the success of The Untouchables and Mission Impossible, although he never suppressed his desire to make audiences aware of his camera-eye and his dark, penetrating worldview. Brian De Palma: Interviews follows De Palma's fortunes as he makes the difficult transition from underground filmmaker to celebrity auteur. In profiles and q&a interviews, he emerges as a fascinating figure of excess and ambivalence. De Palma is not afraid to share his opinions about censorship, violence, feminism, American culture, and the fate of cinema in the twenty-first century. Laurence F. Knapp, an instructor of film studies at Northwestern University, is the author of Directed by Clint Eastwood.

Brian De Palma:Scarface

Brian De Palma:Scarface

Brian De Palma was notoriously known for his suspense and crime thriller films main titles include Scarface , Mission Impossible and Untouchables. Brian's reputation began to progress in the 1970's in Hollywood. One of his major successes towards his career was the film titled 'Scarface' which was released in 1983 on the 9th of December. The film Scarface is based around a drug dealing business which is ran by a Cuban refugee   the film is set in the heart of Miami. Scarface received a mixed critics response due to the harsh use of graphic violence used in scenes and foul language however this film had gained over $4.6million in its opening weekend this film was a hit. It drew so many people in to see this shocking crime thriller. In america the film was given and X rating for the violence used which was then cut to rating R after Brian convinced the box office that the film is showing an actual portrayal of the real-life drug underground. Brian then asked if he could release the directors uncut he was refused until studio executives couldn't tell the difference between the three cuts. He was aloud to release them in theaters with an unproved 'R' rating. Scarface yet again is another one of my favorites for showing the reality to the underground and giving us and insight to other cultures and how the illegal drug business can raise and collapse. I feel the way in how the movie is climaxes towards the end is amazing the build up of the characters is done to its best. And the end scene just shows how good Brian De Palma's work is. I give this film *****