The de Palma Decade: Redefining Cinema with Doubles, Voyeurs, and Psychic Teens

Among a crop of fresh filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola in the 70s, Brian De Palma--a director from Philadelphia with a few small comedies under his belt--charted a cinematic path unlike any of his peers. At times he was unfairly dismissed as a Hitchcock copycat; other times he was misunderstood for his peculiar mix of sexuality, humor, music, and violence. But, over the course of ten years, he created a new cinematic language, melding his signature themes with specific filmmaking techniques that are now synonymous with his name.

Drawing from his lifelong love of De Palma, years of research, and new interviews, acclaimed documentarian Laurent Bouzereau explores the seven films that came to define The De Palma Decade--Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise, Obsession, Carrie, The Fury, Dressed to Kill, and Blow Out. He combines film analysis, detailed history of the films' productions, and interviews with De Palma himself, his casts, and collaborators to present the definitive record on this unrivaled period of cinematic creativity and the emergence of an auteur who would continue to influence filmmaking in the decades that followed.