• film
• new-releases

Great New Hollywood filmmaker Brian De Palma holds court on his rollercoaster career, which includes films like Carrie, Scarface and Body Double

The prospect of an extended dialogue with a filmmaker about their career being released as its own feature film might raise a few red flags for some. Isn’t this something in the realm of what you find in the extras of DVDs or Blu-rays? Yet De Palma, a documentary about American director Brian De Palma, is a lot like one of the man’s films: it deceives you with apparent simplicity on the surface, sneaking up on you with a highly entertaining, sharply-edited blend of humour and humanity.

The doc’s co-directors Jake Paltrow and Noah Baumbach have numerous high-profile credits of their own, and one suspects this familiarity with all facets of American filmmaking enables the ease with which De Palma opens up to them for what amounts to an extended monologue. It’s a documentary that acts as both film school and a demystification of the filmmaking process.

Indeed, one of its most enjoyable aspects is how De Palma approaches every work – some briefly, some extensively – with something of an emotional remove. Though he has his favourites (Carlito's Way) and doesn't necessarily lack pride for what he’s made, each stop on the filmography tour is treated like a section of a résumé: the filmmaker eloquently extrapolates on what he learned from each film and how it helped him get the next job, but by no means does he treat the films like they’re his children.

He’s positive, but always rational about the realities of the eras in which he’s worked, and how the perceptions of the films made will naturally change with time and distance as the surrounding culture changes. He's rational and often hilarious. That’s one of the key things that make this one of the new great docs on a filmmaker: the raconteur onscreen is as brazen as his films.

Read our film editor's guide to the key points in the De Palma canon