Sex on Film: Brian De Palma
Premiere.com kicks off a month of sex on film, beginning with some of the most respected and notorious directors chatting frankly about their personal favorite sex scenes.
By Karl Rozemeyer
Director Brian De Palma
HFP/Lagardere Photo Archive
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THE DIRECTORS: THE OLD HAND
Brian De Palma
New York
Known not only as a groundbreaking director of gangster movies (The Untouchables; Scarface) and for his use of film techniques to induce spine-tingling suspense (Carrie; Mission: Impossible), Brian De Palma pushed the envelope when it came to his portrayal of sex on screen. Who can forget his homage to Hitchcock in Dressed to Kill (1980) when the camera pans shortly after the film's opening credits onto Angie Dickinson's crotch as she lustfully masturbates in the steaming shower seconds before she's grabbed from behind by a shadowy male figure? Here the director discusses the art of dramatizing sexual attraction on screen, how to recognize that wow!-factor in a leading femme fatale and why sex scenes are extremely difficult to do.
The Sexessentials: Blow Out, Obsession, Dressed to Kill, Femme Fatale.
You have worked with some incredible actresses who have given amazing, erotically-charged performances: Geneviève Bujold (in Obsession), Sissy Spacek (in Carrie), Angie Dickinson (in Dressed to Kill), Nancy Allen (in Dressed to Kill and Blow Out), Melanie Griffith (in Body Double), etc. What were you looking for when you cast those femme fatales?
First you have to have a visual grace and beauty in the woman or actress that works for the dramatic scenes in the script. A woman who photographs extremely well. And it's a difficult thing to find. You know, Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface. I mean we looked for her forever. Melanie in Body Double. Sissy in Carrie. You know, there has to be something — that so-called "magic" that connects with the camera and then they have to bring their emotional power to the story and the character. And when you get a combination of that in a movie, it is something you never forget. We see it in Kim Novak in Vertigo, Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Rita Hayworth in the right part and you just go: "Wow!" And sometimes you are fortunate in discovering and launching people and sometimes they don't connect with an audience. It is kind of a mystery why certain people connect and others don't.
Melanie Griffith in Body Double
HFP/Lagardere Photo Archive
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Do you use any particular techniques when you are shooting to make the actress look sexy?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Sure. I mean, you dress them, give them a look, their clothes, the way they move…
Do you actually have a decisive role in deciding all of those things?
Yeah. Absolutely. But it is still very much your particular taste and hopefully it connects with the audience.
You know, one that really struck me was Angie Dickinson in Dressed to Kill, all in white.
Angie has always been a strikingly beautiful woman in a number of movies. But then for your movie you have to try to maximize — much like a woman staring into a mirror tries to figure out what make-up to wear, what clothes to wear — you become the judge of that.
MORE SEX ON FILM...
The Virgin: Daniel Waters
The Dirty Dutchman: Paul Verhoeven
The Crossover: John Cameron Mitchell
The Punk Rebel: Larry Clark
The Big Buffalo: Vincent Gallo
The Buttoned-Up Brit: Richard Eyre
The Sophisticate: David Cronenberg
The Motherfucker: Christophe Honoré
The Shocker: Gaspar Noé
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