Stephen Burum Body Double
Stephen H. Burum, ASC (born 1939) was the cinematographer on Body Double (1984).
Burum became De Palma's most important visual collaborator
Body Double was Burum's first collaboration with De Palma. He would go on to shoot seven more De Palma films:
| Year | Film |
|---|---|
| 1984 | Body Double |
| 1986 | Wise Guys |
| 1987 | The Untouchables |
| 1989 | Casualties of War |
| 1990 | The Bonfire of the Vanities |
| 1992 | Raising Cain |
| 1993 | Carlito's Way |
| 1998 | Snake Eyes |
Eight films over fourteen years makes Burum the cinematographer most closely associated with De Palma's mature style — the long tracking shots, the split-diopter compositions, the prowling camera movements that implicate the audience in the watching.
Body Double required a cinematographer who could shoot voyeurism as seduction
The film's visual challenge was specific: the audience needs to feel the pull of what Jake sees through the telescope. The erotic dance, Gloria's movements through her house, the stalker in the background — Burum had to make these images seductive enough that the audience participates in the voyeurism before the film reveals it as a trap.
Burum's cinematography shifts register across the film:
- The telescope sequences are warm, golden, soft-focused — the visual language of desire
- The murder is harsh, bright, and over-lit — the voyeuristic pleasure turned violent
- The porn industry sequences are garish and artificial — exposing the machinery behind the fantasy
- The final vampire-film bookend returns to controlled genre lighting — performance restored
De Palma auditioned cinematographers like actors to find Burum
De Palma spent considerable time searching for the right cinematographer for Body Double. He conducted screen tests with different DPs, using attractive women as subjects to ensure they were lensed correctly — an unusual process that treated the cinematographer search like a casting call. Burum's agent got him an interview, and his test footage won De Palma over. Once the partnership was established, the working relationship became efficient:
"We speak in shorthand on the set. There's not much dialogue between us. The collaboration is not artsy at all, but very matter-of-fact." — Stephen Burum, American Cinematographer (2019)
Burum came to De Palma through Coppola's orbit
Burum's pre-De Palma career ran through Francis Ford Coppola: he shot second unit on Apocalypse Now (1979), then served as cinematographer on Coppola's The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983). He was trained in the visual maximalism of the New Hollywood generation before bringing that sensibility to De Palma's more controlled compositions. The Coppola-to-De Palma pipeline was a pattern — editor Jerry Greenberg, who also worked on Body Double, had cut Apocalypse Now. See De Palma and Coppola.