Brian De Palma (Blow Out) Blow Out
Brian De Palma (born September 11, 1940, Newark, New Jersey) wrote and directed Blow Out (1981).
De Palma considered Blow Out his most personal failure
Blow Out came after Dressed to Kill (1980), a major commercial hit. De Palma had leverage, and he used it to make what he intended as his masterpiece — a conspiracy thriller filtered through his obsessions with surveillance, political corruption, and the Zapruder film. The result was the most critically praised film of his career and a commercial disaster.
"There was no bigger disaster than Blow Out." — Brian De Palma, Interview Magazine (2011)
The failure stung because the reviews were strong. Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, and much of the New York critical establishment praised the film. The audience simply didn't come. De Palma's next film was Scarface (1983) — a deliberate pivot to a commercially viable project.
De Palma's Hitchcock engagement shifted with Blow Out
Blow Out is the De Palma film where the Hitchcock influence is most deeply absorbed rather than referenced. Where Dressed to Kill and later Body Double (1984) wear their Hitchcock debts on the surface, Blow Out integrates voyeurism, guilt, the futility of knowledge into an original structure. The primary influence is not Hitchcock but Antonioni and Coppola. See The Blow-Up and Conversation Connection.
"De Palma has been learning how to make every move of the camera signify just what he wants it to, and now he has that knowledge at his fingertips." — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker (1981)
Kael placed Blow Out alongside the best of the New Hollywood
Kael's review was the most important the film received — a full-throated declaration that De Palma had arrived at the level of his peers:
"De Palma has sprung to the place that Altman achieved with films such as McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Nashville and that Coppola reached with the two Godfather movies — that is, to the place where genre is transcended and what we're moved by is an artist's vision." — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker (1981)
This assessment — putting De Palma alongside Altman and Coppola — was controversial at the time and remains the strongest critical claim ever made on his behalf.
De Palma made Blow Out between Dressed to Kill and Scarface
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Carrie | Breakthrough; first major hit |
| 1976 | Obsession | Vertigo homage |
| 1978 | The Fury | Telekinesis thriller |
| 1980 | Dressed to Kill | Psycho homage; commercial hit |
| 1981 | Blow Out | Most acclaimed; commercial failure |
| 1983 | Scarface | Commercial peak |
| 1984 | Body Double | Rear Window + Vertigo; controversy |
| 1987 | The Untouchables | Commercial/critical hit |
The Baumbach-Paltrow documentary captured De Palma's reflection
In De Palma (2015), directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, De Palma narrates his career film by film. His discussion of Blow Out is among the documentary's most revealing passages — the film he's most proud of and most wounded by.