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Brian De Palma

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120-653: Brian Russell De Palma ( [de ˈpalma] ; born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for work in the suspense , crime and psychological thriller genres. De Palma was a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors. His films include mainstream box office hits such as Carrie (1976), Dressed to Kill (1980), Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987), and Mission: Impossible (1996), as well as cult favorites such as Sisters (1972), Phantom of

240-470: A physics student, De Palma became enraptured with the filmmaking process after viewing Citizen Kane and Vertigo . After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1962, De Palma enrolled at the newly coed Sarah Lawrence College as a graduate student in their theater department, earning an M.A. in the discipline in 1964 and becoming one of the first male students among a female population. Once there, influences as various as drama teacher Wilford Leach ,

360-528: A "very important" role in their lives, a proportion unusual among developed countries . However, similar to the other nations of the Americas. Many faiths have flourished in the United States, including both later imports spanning the country's multicultural immigrant heritage, as well as those founded within the country; these have led the United States to become the most religiously diverse country in

480-500: A $ 5 million budget. De Palma's output has slowed since the release of Redacted , with subsequent projects often falling into development hell , due mostly to creative differences. In 2012, his film Passion starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival but received mixed reviews and was financially unsuccessful. De Palma's next project

600-509: A 1966 movie about The Responsive Eye op-art exhibit curated by William Seitz for MOMA in 1965. In an interview with Joseph Gelmis from 1969, De Palma described the film as "very good and very successful. It's distributed by Pathe Contemporary and makes lots of money. I shot it in four hours, with synched sound. I had two other guys shooting people's reactions to the paintings, and the paintings themselves." Dionysus in '69 (1969)

720-468: A background person/object in focus. Slow-motion is frequently used in his films to increase suspense. De Palma has been married and divorced three times, to actress Nancy Allen (1979–1983), producer Gale Anne Hurd (1991–1993), and Darnell Gregorio (1995–1997). He has one daughter from his marriage to Hurd, and one daughter from his marriage to Gregorio. He resides in Manhattan , New York . De Palma

840-579: A continuous presence in what is now the continental United States in 1565. Martín de Argüelles , born in 1566 in San Agustín, La Florida then a part of New Spain , was the first person of European descent born in what is now the continental United States. Virginia Dare , born in 1587 in Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina , was the first child born in the original Thirteen Colonies to English parents. The Spaniards also established

960-414: A continuous presence in what over three centuries later would become a possession of the United States with the founding of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico , in 1521. In the 2020 United States census, English Americans 46.5 million (19.8%), German Americans 45m (19.1%), Irish Americans 38.6m (16.4%), and Italian Americans 16.8m (7.1%) were the four largest self-reported European ancestry groups in

1080-465: A cut between two different subjects is not a true jump cut, no matter how jarring. A jump cut usually involves a jump through narrative time (as with the famous holiday greeting in Citizen Kane —a schoolboy Kane sulkily wishes his guardian "Merry Christmas", and the scene then cuts to the guardian wishing his charge, about to turn twenty-five, "and a Happy New Year") or an "elliptical" edit, wherein

1200-569: A different time." In the same interview, he said he was "glad" that the film had become a "a favorite of the gay community". David Thomson wrote in his entry for De Palma, "There is a self-conscious cunning in De Palma's work, ready to control everything except his own cruelty and indifference." Matt Zoller Seitz objected to this characterisation, writing that there are films from the director which can be seen as "straightforwardly empathetic and/or moralistic". His life and career in his own words

1320-472: A few failures along the way ( Snake Eyes , Mission to Mars , The Bonfire of the Vanities ), but look at the range here, and reflect that these movies contain treasure for those who admire the craft as well as the story, who sense the glee with which De Palma manipulates images and characters for the simple joy of being good at it. It's not just that he sometimes works in the style of Hitchcock, but that he has

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1440-428: A larger budget than Carrie , though the consensus view at the time was that De Palma was repeating himself, with diminishing returns. As a film, it retains De Palma's considerable visual flair, but points more toward his work in mainstream entertainments such as Mission: Impossible , the thematic complex thriller for which he is now better known. The 1980s were marked by some of De Palma's best known films including

1560-407: A new film of his opens, everything he has done before seems to have been preparation for it." In his review of Femme Fatale , Roger Ebert wrote about the director: "De Palma deserves more honor as a director. Consider also these titles: Sisters , Blow Out , The Fury , Dressed to Kill , Carrie , Scarface , Wise Guys , Casualties of War , Carlito's Way , Mission: Impossible . Yes, there are

1680-503: A political message rather than the drama or emotion of the narrative. This may be observed in some segments of Sergei Eisenstein 's The Battleship Potemkin . Alexander Dovzhenko ' used jump cuts in Arsenal (Soviet Union, 1930), where a close-up shot of a character's face cuts closer and closer a total of nine times. Mark Cousins comments that this "fragmentation captured his indecision ... and confusion", adding that "Although

1800-426: A poor relationship with his father, and would secretly follow him to record his adulterous behavior; this would eventually inspire the teenage character played by Keith Gordon in De Palma's 1980 film Dressed to Kill . When he was in high school, he built computers. He won a regional science-fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations ". Enrolled at Columbia University as

1920-681: A reaction to the prevailing European consensus that America's domestic originality was degenerate . Prevalent ideas and ideals that evolved domestically, such as national holidays , uniquely American sports , military tradition, and innovations in the arts and entertainment give a strong sense of national pride among the population as a whole. American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist and moral elements. Despite certain consistent ideological principles (e.g. individualism , egalitarianism , faith in freedom and democracy ),

2040-602: A reassessment and found acclaim. De Palma directed the music video for Bruce Springsteen 's single " Dancing in the Dark " the same year. In 1987, De Palma directed the crime film The Untouchables loosely based on the book of the same name , adapted by David Mamet . The film stars Kevin Costner , Andy Garcia , Robert De Niro , and Sean Connery , the latter of whom won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for

2160-545: A region that was settled historically by the British. Overall, as the largest group, European Americans have the lowest poverty rate and the second highest educational attainment levels, median household income , and median personal income of any racial demographic in the nation, second only to Asian Americans in the latter three categories. According to the American Jewish Archives and

2280-402: A screenplay by Oliver Stone . The film received mixed reviews with its negative depictions of ethnic stereotypes, as well as its violence and profanity. It has since been re-evaluated and became a cult classic . The following year he made another neo-noir erotic thriller, Body Double (1984), starring Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith . The film also received mixed reviews but has since had

2400-472: A significant and disorienting role in a scene of Joel and Ethan Coen 's A Serious Man . They intersperse shots of Rabbi Nachtner and Larry Gopnik having a conversation in the Rabbi's office with shots of an earlier meeting that Nachtner had with a different person in the same office. In television, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In editor Arthur Schneider won an Emmy Award in 1968 for his pioneering use of

2520-406: A single sequence. Continuity editing uses a guideline called the " 30-degree rule " to avoid the appearance of jump cuts. The 30-degree rule advises that for consecutive shots to appear seamless and continuous in time, the camera position must vary at least 30 degrees from its previous position. Some schools would call for a change in framing as well (e.g., from a medium shot to a close up). The idea

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2640-418: A successful franchise . De Palma's work after Mission: Impossible has been less well received. His ensuing films Snake Eyes (1998), Mission to Mars (2000), and Femme Fatale (2002) all failed at the box office and received generally poor reviews, though Femme Fatale has since been revived in the eyes of many film critics and became a cult classic . His 2006 adaptation of The Black Dahlia

2760-552: A total of 1,834,212 self-identifying individuals. Barack Obama , 44th President of the United States who is biracial- his mother is white (of English and Irish descent) and his father is of Kenyan birth- only self-identifies as being African American. According to the 2020 United States census, 8.4% or 27,915,715 Americans chose to self-identify with the "some other race" category, the third most popular option. Also, 42.2% or 26,225,882 Hispanic/Latino Americans chose to identify as some other race as these Hispanic/Latinos may feel

2880-414: A way to capture it on film. I came up with the idea of split-screen, to be able to show the actual audience involvement, to trace the life of the audience and that of the play as they merge in and out of each other." De Palma's most significant features from this decade are Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom! (1970). Both films star Robert De Niro and espouse a leftist revolutionary viewpoint common to

3000-442: Is also an option in the census and other surveys. The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino", which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that comprises the largest minority group in the nation. People of European descent, or White Americans (also referred to as European Americans and Caucasian Americans), constitute

3120-626: Is frequently used in TV editing, in documentaries produced by Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel , for example. It is noticeable in Universal Monsters films and music videos . The jump cut sometimes serves a political use in film. Some have used it as an alienating, Brechtian technique (the Verfremdungseffekt ) that makes the audience aware of the unreality of the film experience in order to focus attention on

3240-561: Is going to happen to them?" His films have also been interpreted as feminist and examined for their perceived queer affinities. In Film Comment 's "Queer and Now and Then" column on Femme Fatale , film critic Michael Koresky writes that "De Palma's films radiate an undeniable queer energy" and notes the "intense appeal" De Palma's films have for gay critics. In her book The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema , Linda Ruth Williams writes that "De Palma understood

3360-513: Is indigenous to the Americas , originally migrated to the two continents between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago. These Paleoamericans spread throughout the two continents and evolved into hundreds of distinct cultures during the pre-Columbian era . Following the first voyage of Christopher Columbus , the European colonization of the Americas began, with St. Augustine , Florida becoming

3480-453: Is now United States territory since the founding of San Juan, Puerto Rico (the oldest continuously inhabited settlement on American soil) in 1521 by Juan Ponce de León , and the founding of St. Augustine, Florida (the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the continental United States) in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés . In the State of Texas , Spaniards first settled the region in

3600-554: Is now the United States since before the Revolutionary War , relatively large waves of Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese immigration did not begin until the mid-to-late 19th century. Immigration and significant population growth continue to this day. Due to a number of factors, Asian Americans have been stereotyped as " perpetual foreigners ". As defined by the United States Census Bureau and

3720-522: Is often cited as a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors, a distinct pedigree who either emerged from film schools or are overtly cine-literate. His contemporaries include Martin Scorsese , Paul Schrader , John Milius , George Lucas , Francis Ford Coppola , Steven Spielberg , John Carpenter , and Ridley Scott . His artistry in directing and use of cinematography and suspense in several of his films has often been compared to

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3840-782: Is one of his all-time favorite films, and that after watching Scarface he knew how to make his own film. John Travolta 's performance as Jack Terry in Blow Out even resulted in Tarantino casting him as Vincent Vega in his 1994 film Pulp Fiction , which would go on to reinvigorate Travolta's then-declining career. Tarantino also placed Carrie at number eight in a list of his favorite films. Critics who frequently admire De Palma's work include Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert . Kael wrote in her review of Blow Out , "At forty, Brian De Palma has more than twenty years of moviemaking behind him, and he has been growing better and better. Each time

3960-598: Is the Asian American population, comprising 19,618,719 people in 2020, or 5.9% of the United States population. California is home to 5.6 million Asian Americans, the greatest number in any state. In Hawaii, Asian Americans make up the highest proportion of the population (57 percent). Asian Americans live across the country, yet are heavily urbanized, with significant populations in the Greater Los Angeles Area , New York metropolitan area , and

4080-399: Is to convey to the viewer a different point of view on the action but with the timeline of the action being continuous. Generally, if the camera position changes less than 30 degrees, the difference between the two shots is not substantial enough, and the viewer experiences the edit as a jump in the position of the subject rather than a change of point of view, which is jarring. Jump cuts, on

4200-765: The Arab American Institute (AAI), Arab Americans have family origins in each of the 22 member states of the Arab League . Following consultations with MENA organizations, the Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a new MENA ethnic category for populations from the Middle East , North Africa , and the Arab world , separate from the "white" classification that these populations had previously sought in 1909. The groups felt that

4320-639: The Arab American National Museum , the first Middle Easterners and North Africans (viz. Jews and Berbers ) to arrive in the Americas landed in the late 15th to mid-16th centuries. Many fled ethnic or ethnoreligious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition ; a few were taken to the Americas as slaves. In 2014, the United States Census Bureau began finalizing the ethnic classification of people of Middle Eastern and North African ("MENA") origins. According to

4440-629: The Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the Southwest and brought close contact with the culture of Mexico . Large-scale immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from Eastern and Southern Europe introduced a variety of elements. Immigration from Africa , Asia , and Latin America has also had impact. A cultural melting pot , or pluralistic salad bowl , describes

4560-483: The District of Columbia and the five inhabited U.S. territories have a non-white majority. The state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic White Americans is Maine , while the state with the lowest percentage is Hawaii . Europe is the largest continent that Americans trace their ancestry to, and many claim descent from various European ethnic groups . The Spaniards were the first Europeans to establish

4680-649: The Greenwich Village filmmaking scene. De Niro was unknown at the time; the credits mistakenly display his name as "Robert Denero". The film is noteworthy for its invocation of silent film techniques and an insistence on the jump-cut for effect. De Palma followed this style with various small films for the NAACP and the Treasury Department . During the 1960s, De Palma began making a living producing documentary films, notably The Responsive Eye ,

4800-574: The Kingdom of Kongo ). The first West African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The English settlers treated these captives as indentured servants and released them after a number of years. This practice was gradually replaced by the system of race-based slavery used in the Caribbean . All the American colonies had slavery, but it was usually the form of personal servants in

4920-601: The Maysles brothers , Michelangelo Antonioni , Jean-Luc Godard , Andy Warhol , and Alfred Hitchcock impressed upon De Palma the many styles and themes that would shape his own cinema in the coming decades. An early association with a young Robert De Niro resulted in The Wedding Party . The film, which was co-directed with Leach and producer Cynthia Munroe, had been shot in 1963 but remained unreleased until 1969, when De Palma's star had risen sufficiently within

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5040-618: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), an "American Indian or Alaska Native" is a person whose ancestry have origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, or South America. 2.3 million individuals who are American Indian or Alaskan Native are multiracial; additionally the plurality of American Indians reside in the Western United States (40.7%). Collectively and historically this race has been known by several names ; as of 1995, 50% of those who fall within

5160-582: The Office of Management and Budget , the grouping includes individuals who self-identify as African American, as well as persons who emigrated from nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. The grouping is thus based on geography, and may contradict or misrepresent an individual's self-identification since not all immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa are "Black". Among these racial outliers are persons from Cape Verde , Madagascar , various Arab states, and Hamito-Semitic populations in East Africa and

5280-525: The Sahel , and the Afrikaners of Southern Africa . African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes ) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. According to the 2020 United States census, there were 39,940,338 Black and African Americans in the United States, representing 12.1% of

5400-586: The San Francisco Bay Area . The United States census defines Asian Americans as those with origins to the countries of East Asia , South Asia , and Southeast Asia . Although Americans with roots in West Asia were once classified as "Asian", they are now excluded from the term in modern census classifications. The largest sub-groups are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Cambodia, mainland China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Pakistan,

5520-581: The United Kingdom . Unlike migration from other countries, United States migration is not concentrated in specific countries, possibly as a result of the roots of immigration from so many different countries to the United States. As of 2016 , there were approximately 9 million United States citizens living outside of the United States. As the result of U.S. tax and financial reporting requirements that apply to non-resident citizens, record numbers of American citizens renounced their U.S. citizenship in

5640-579: The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom , the framers of the Constitution rejected any religious test for office. The First Amendment specifically denied the federal government any power to enact any law respecting either an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise, thus protecting any religious organization, institution, or denomination from government interference. European Rationalist and Protestant ideals mainly influenced

5760-570: The Western Hemisphere and beyond, including the District of Columbia, the seat of government of the United States. English is the unofficial national language . Although there is no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S. naturalization requirements —standardize English. In 2007, about 226 million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish , spoken by 12% of

5880-551: The flag of the United States – for example, typically a top hat with red and white stripes and white stars on a blue band, and red and white striped trousers. Columbia is a poetic name for the Americas and the feminine personification of the United States of America, made famous by African American poet Phillis Wheatley during the American Revolutionary War in 1776. It has inspired the names of many persons, places, objects, institutions, and companies in

6000-767: The northern states (north of the Mason–Dixon line ) had abolished slavery. However, slavery would persist in the southern states until the end of the American Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment . Following the end of the Reconstruction era , which saw the first African American representation in Congress , African Americans became disenfranchised and subject to Jim Crow laws , legislation that would persist until

6120-597: The slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States. As an adjective, the term is usually spelled African-American . Montinaro et al. (2014) observed that around 50% of the overall ancestry of African Americans traces back to the Niger-Congo -speaking Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria and southern Benin (before the European colonization of Africa this people created the Oyo Empire ), reflecting

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6240-502: The 20th century, although American Samoans are only nationals and not citizens of the United States. Despite its multi-ethnic composition, the culture of the United States held in common by most Americans can also be referred to as mainstream American culture , a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Northern and Western European colonists, settlers, and immigrants. It also includes significant influences of African-American culture . Westward expansion integrated

6360-538: The American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity. Americans have migrated to many places around the world, including Argentina , Australia , Brazil , Canada , Chile , China , Costa Rica , France , Germany , Hong Kong , India , Japan , Mexico , New Zealand , Pakistan , the Philippines , South Korea , the United Arab Emirates , and

6480-526: The English language, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from other parts of Europe, especially Germany , France , and Italy . Original elements also play a strong role, such as Jeffersonian democracy . Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia was perhaps the first influential domestic cultural critique by an American and

6600-508: The Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by English Puritans , Pennsylvania by Irish and English Quakers , Maryland by English and Irish Catholics , and Virginia by English Anglicans . Although some individual states retained established religious confessions well into the 19th century, the United States was the first nation to have no official state-endorsed religion. Modeling the provisions concerning religion within

6720-711: The North (where 2% of the people were slaves), and field hands in plantations in the South (where 25% were slaves); by the beginning of the American Revolutionary War 1/5th of the total population was enslaved. During the revolution, some would serve in the Continental Army or Continental Navy , while others would serve the British Empire in the Ethiopian Regiment , and other units. By 1804,

6840-598: The OMB definition prefer the term "American Indian", 37% prefer "Native American" and the remainder have no preference or prefer a different term altogether. Among Americans today, levels of Native American ancestry (distinct from Native American identity ) differ. Based on a sample of users of the 23andMe commercial genetic test, genomes of self-reported African Americans averaged to 0.8% Native American ancestry, those of European Americans averaged to 0.18%, and those of Latinos averaged to 18.0%. Native Americans, whose ancestry

6960-482: The Office of Management and Budget, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are "persons having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii , Guam , Samoa , or other Pacific Islands ". Previously called Asian Pacific American , along with Asian Americans beginning in 1976, this was changed in 1997. As of the 2020 United States census, there are 622,018 who reside in the United States, and make up 0.2% of

7080-640: The Pacific also have large Pacific Islander populations such as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands (Chammoro), and American Samoa (Samoan). The largest concentration of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, is Honolulu County in Hawaii, and Los Angeles County in the continental United States . The United States has a growing multiracial identity movement. Multiracial Americans numbered 7.0 million in 2008, or 2.3% of

7200-549: The Paradise (1974), Blow Out (1981), Body Double (1984), Casualties of War (1989), and Carlito's Way (1993). His direction often makes use of quotations from other films or cinematic styles, and bears the influence of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock , Jean-Luc Godard , and Michelangelo Antonioni . His work has been criticized for its violence and sexual content but has also been championed by American critics such as Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael . De Palma

7320-400: The Paradise (1974), and Obsession (1976). In November 1976, De Palma released a film adaptation of the 1974 novel Carrie by Stephen King . Though some see the psychic thriller as De Palma's bid for a blockbuster, the project was in fact small, underfunded by United Artists , and well under the cultural radar during the early months of production, as the source novel had yet to climb

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7440-521: The Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Asians overall have higher income levels than all other racial groups in the United States, including whites, and the trend appears to be increasing in relation to those groups. Additionally, Asians have a higher education attainment level than all other racial groups in the United States. For better or for worse, the group has been called a model minority . While Asian Americans have been in what

7560-555: The United States census does not describe their European and American Indian ancestry as they understand it to be. A significant portion of the Hispanic and Latino population self-identifies as Mestizo , particularly the Mexican and Central American community. Mestizo is not a racial category in the United States census, but signifies someone who has both European and American Indian ancestry. Hispanic or Latino Americans constitute

7680-536: The United States constituting 62.4% of the population. However, the English Americans and British Americans demography is considered a serious under-count as they tend to self-report and identify as simply " Americans " (since the introduction of a new "American" category in the 1990 census) due to the length of time they have inhabited America. This is highly over-represented in the Upland South ,

7800-521: The United States has a high adherence level compared to other developed countries and a diversity in beliefs. The First Amendment to the country's Constitution prevents the Federal government from making any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this as preventing the government from having any authority in religion. A majority of Americans report that religion plays

7920-620: The United States or are descended from people who were brought as slaves within the past five centuries, with the exception of the Native American population and people from Alaska , Hawaii , Puerto Rico , Guam , Texas , and formerly the Philippines , who became American through expansion of the country in the 19th century; additionally, American Samoa , the United States Virgin Islands , and Northern Mariana Islands came under American sovereignty in

8040-711: The adult population identifies as having no religious belief or no religious affiliation. According to the American Religious Identification Survey , religious belief varies considerably across the country: 59% of Americans living in Western states (the " Unchurched Belt ") report a belief in God , yet in the South (the " Bible Belt ") the figure is as high as 86%. Several of the original Thirteen Colonies were established by settlers who wished to practice their religion without discrimination:

8160-493: The bestseller list. De Palma gravitated toward the project and changed crucial plot elements based upon his own predilections, not the saleability of the novel. The cast was mostly young and relatively new, though Sissy Spacek and John Travolta had gained attention for previous work in, respectively, film and episodic sitcoms . Carrie became De Palma's first genuine box-office success, garnering Spacek and Piper Laurie Oscar nominations for their performances. Pre-production for

8280-469: The centrality of this West African region in the Atlantic slave trade . Zakharaia et al. (2009) found a similar proportion of Yoruba associated ancestry in their African American samples, with a minority also drawn from Mandinka populations (founders of the Mali Empire ), and Bantu populations (who had a varying level of social organization during the colonial era, while some Bantu peoples were still tribal, other Bantu peoples had founded kingdoms such as

8400-476: The cinematic potency of dangerous fucking, perhaps earlier than his feminist detractors". Robin Wood considered Sisters an overtly feminist film, writing that "one can define the monster of Sisters as women's liberation; adding only that the film follows the time-honored horror film tradition of making the monster emerge as the most sympathetic character and its emotional center." Pauline Kael's review of Casualties of War , "A Wounded Apparition", describes

8520-446: The decade from 2010 to 2020. In 2024 a new organization was created to lobby the U.S. Congress for relief from citizenship-based taxation that is often cited as the reason for the record renunciations. Jump-cut A jump cut is a cut in film editing that breaks a single continuous sequential shot of a subject into two parts, with a piece of footage removed to create the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positioning on

8640-765: The decision. Still, it was also a consequence of the pragmatic concerns of minority religious groups and small states that did not want to be under the power or influence of a national religion that did not represent them. The American culture is primarily a Western culture , but is influenced by Native American, West African, Latin American, East Asian, and Polynesian cultures. The United States of America has its own unique social and cultural characteristics, such as dialect , music , arts , social habits , cuisine , and folklore . Its chief early European influences came from English , Scottish , Welsh , and Irish settlers of colonial America during British rule. British culture , due to colonial ties with Britain that spread

8760-485: The director writing, "De Palma has sprung to the place that Robert Altman achieved with films such as McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Nashville and that Francis Ford Coppola reached with The Godfather films—that is, to the place where genre is transcended and what we're moved by is an artist's vision...it's a great movie. Travolta and Allen are radiant performers". De Palma then directed crime film Scarface (1983) starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer with

8880-400: The dramatic impact of a certain scene De Palma has employed a 360-degree camera pan . Slow sweeping, panning and tracking shots are often used throughout his films, often through precisely-choreographed long takes lasting for minutes without cutting. Split focus shots, often referred to as "di-opt", are used by De Palma to emphasize the foreground person/object while simultaneously keeping

9000-457: The earlier "white" designation no longer accurately represents MENA identity, so they successfully lobbied for a distinct categorization. This new category would also include Israeli Americans . The Census Bureau does not currently ask about whether one is Sikh , because it views them as followers of a religion rather than members of an ethnic group, and it does not combine questions concerning religion with race or ethnicity. As of December 2015,

9120-466: The early film The Tempest (1908) when Ariel magically disappears and reappears. Dziga Vertof 's avant-garde Russian film Man With a Movie Camera (1929) is almost entirely composed of jump cuts. Contemporary use of the jump cut largely stems from its appearance in the work of Jean-Luc Godard (at the suggestion of Jean-Pierre Melville ) and other filmmakers of the French New Wave of

9240-433: The effect jars, the idea of visual conflict was central to Soviet montage cinema of that time". Jump cuts are sometimes used to show a nervous searching scene, as is done in the 2009 science fiction film Moon in which the protagonist, Sam Bell, is looking for a secret room on a Moon base, and District 9 in which the protagonist, Wikus, searches for illegal objects in the house of Christopher's friend. Jump cuts plays

9360-482: The era in which they were released. Greetings was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival , where it won a Silver Bear award. His other major film from this period is the slasher comedy Murder a la Mod . Each of these films experiments with narrative and intertextuality , reflecting De Palma's stated intention to become the "American Godard " while integrating several of

9480-493: The erotic psychological thriller Dressed to Kill (1980) starring Michael Caine , and Angie Dickinson . Although the film received critical admiration, it also received criticism and controversy for its negative depiction of the transgender community. The following year he directed the neo-noir mystery thriller Blow Out (1981) starring John Travolta , Nancy Allen , and John Lithgow . The film received critical acclaim. The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael praised

9600-430: The fears that women were expressing in relation to the film". De Palma has also expressed contrition for the depiction of a transgender murderer in the film, saying in a 2016 interview "I don't know what the transgender community would think [of the film now]... Obviously I realize that it's not good for their image to be transgender and also be a psychopathic murderer. But I think that [perception] passes with time. We're in

9720-721: The federal government. In addition to the United States, Americans and people of American descent can be found internationally. As many as seven million Americans are estimated to be living abroad, and make up the American diaspora . The United States is a diverse country, racially , and ethnically . Six races are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes: Alaska Native and American Indian, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, White, and people of two or more races. "Some other race"

9840-440: The film as "feminist" and notes that "De Palma was always involved in examining (and sometimes satirizing) victimization, but he was often accused of being a victimizer". Helen Grace , in a piece for Lola , writes that upon seeing Dressed to Kill amidst calls for a boycott from feminist groups Women Against Violence Against Women and Women Against Pornography , that the film "seemed to say more about masculine anxiety than about

9960-418: The film had coincided with the casting process for George Lucas 's Star Wars , and many of the actors cast in De Palma's film had been earmarked as contenders for Lucas's movie, and vice versa. The "shock ending" finale is effective even while it upholds horror-film convention, its suspense sequences are buttressed by teen comedy tropes, and its use of split-screen , split-diopter and slow motion shots tell

10080-456: The film. It received critical acclaim and box-office success. De Palma's Vietnam War film Casualties of War (1989) won critical praise but performed poorly in theatres and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) was a notorious failure with both critics and audiences. De Palma then had subsequent successes with Raising Cain (1992) and Carlito's Way (1993) with Mission: Impossible (1996) becoming his highest-grossing film and starting

10200-468: The first permanent European settlement in the continental United States . From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans declined in the following ways: epidemic diseases brought from Europe; genocide and warfare at the hands of European explorers, settlers and colonists, as well as between tribes; displacement from their lands; internal warfare, enslavement ; and intermarriage . Another significant population

10320-453: The illusion of flight, and in many vlogs online, as popularized by the show with zefrank . British comedian Russell Kane has produced a series of comic, satirical videos, named "Kaneings", in response to current events. These make extensive use of jump-cut-style editing. Vernacular use of the term jump cut can describe any abrupt or noticeable edit in a film. However, technically, many such over-broad usages are incorrect. In particular,

10440-471: The jump cut. Jump cutting remained an uncommon TV technique until shows like Homicide: Life on the Street popularized it on the small screen in the 1990s. The music video for " Everybody Have Fun Tonight " makes extensive use of the jump cut. Other uses of the jump cuts include Vincent Gallo 's short Flying Christ in which various shots of "Christ" jumping are cut together as he is in mid-jump, creating

10560-408: The largest ethnic minority in the United States . They form the second largest group in the United States, comprising 62,080,044 people or 18.7% of the population according to the 2020 United States census. Hispanic and Latino Americans are not considered a race in the United States census, instead forming an ethnic category. People of Spanish or Hispanic and Latino descent have lived in what

10680-454: The late 1600s and formed a unique cultural group known as Tejanos . Uncle Sam is a national personification of the United States and sometimes more specifically of the American government , with the first usage of the term dating from the War of 1812 . He is depicted as a stern elderly white man with white hair and a goatee beard, and dressed in clothing that recalls the design elements of

10800-479: The late 1950s and 1960s. In Godard's ground-breaking Breathless (1960), for example, he with editor Cécile Decugis cut together shots of Jean Seberg riding in a convertible in such a way that emphasized the discontinuity between shots to create a deliberate jarring effect. In the clip above the scene abruptly changes perspective, emphasizing a gap in action. Jump cuts have appeared in films like Snatch by Guy Ritchie , and Run Lola Run by Tom Tykwer . It

10920-523: The late 1950s and appealed to his background in mathematics and avant-garde storytelling. Its unconventional unfolding of plot (exemplified in its mathematical layout of dialogue) and its stress on perception have analogs in De Palma's filmmaking. He sought to adapt it numerous times, though the project would carry a substantial price tag, and has yet to appear on-screen ( Steven Spielberg 's 2002 adaptation of Philip K. Dick 's Minority Report bears striking similarities to De Palma's visual style and some of

11040-517: The majority of the 331 million people living in the United States, with 191,697,647 people or 57.8% of the population in the 2020 United States census . They are considered people who trace their ancestry to the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Non-Hispanic Whites are the majority in 45 states. There are five minority-majority states : California , Texas , New Mexico , Nevada , and Hawaii . In addition,

11160-468: The nation's total population. 14% of the population have at least a bachelor's degree , and 15.1% live in poverty , below the poverty threshold . As compared to the 2000 United States census, this population grew by 40%; and 71% live in the West ; of those over half (52%) live in either Hawaii or California , with no other states having populations greater than 100,000. The United States territories in

11280-660: The nerve to." The influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma has placed five of De Palma's films ( Carlito's Way , Mission: Impossible , Snake Eyes , Mission to Mars , and Redacted ) on their annual top ten list, with Redacted placing first on the 2008 list. The magazine also listed Carlito's Way as the greatest film of the 1990s. Julie Salamon has written that critics have accused De Palma of being "a perverse misogynist", to which De Palma has responded with, "I'm always attacked for having an erotic, sexist approach – chopping up women, putting women in peril. I'm making suspense movies! What else

11400-538: The other before going on to direct a different genre, but would always return to his familiar territory. Because of the subject matter and graphic violence of some of De Palma's films, such as Dressed to Kill , Scarface and Body Double , they are often at the center of controversy with the Motion Picture Association of America , film critics and the viewing public. De Palma frequently quotes and references other directors' work. His early work

11520-406: The other hand, keep the camera's relationship to the subject the same but jump forward in time in the action. Jump cuts can be created by editing together two shots filmed non-continuously (a spatial jump cut )—but can also be made by removing a middle section of one continuously filmed shot (a temporal jump cut ). Jump cuts can add a sense of speed to the sequence of events. The effect was used in

11640-583: The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act due to the civil rights movement . According to United States Census Bureau data, very few African immigrants self-identify as African American. On average, less than 5% of African residents self-reported as "African American" or "Afro-American" on the 2000 U.S. census. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants (~95%) identified instead with their own respective ethnicities. Self-designation as "African American" or "Afro-American"

11760-497: The population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught second language. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states. Both English and Hawaiian are official languages in Hawaii by state law. While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French. Other states, such as California, mandate

11880-703: The population. Black and African Americans make up the third largest group in the United States, after White and European Americans, and Hispanic and Latino Americans. The majority of the population (55%) lives in the South ; compared to the 2000 United States census, there has also been a decrease of African Americans in the Northeast and Midwest . Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captives from Central and West Africa , from ancestral populations in countries like Nigeria , Benin , Sierra Leone , Guinea-Bissau , Senegal , and Angola , who survived

12000-408: The population; by the 2020 census the multiracial increased to 13,548,983, or 4.1% of the total population. They can be any combination of races (White, Black or African American, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, "some other race") and ethnicities. The largest population of Multiracial Americans were those of White and African American descent, with

12120-501: The publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents. The latter include court forms. Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by American Samoa and Guam , respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico. Religion in

12240-449: The sampling strata for the new MENA category includes the Census Bureau's working classification of 19 MENA groups, as well as Iranian , Turkish , Armenian , Afghan , Azerbaijani , and Georgian groups. In January 2018, it was announced that the Census Bureau would not include the grouping in the 2020 census. Black and African Americans are citizens and residents of the United States with origins in sub-Saharan Africa . According to

12360-409: The second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by

12480-419: The story visually rather than through dialogue. As for Lucas's project, De Palma complained in an early viewing of Star Wars that the opening text crawl was poorly written and volunteered to help edit the text to a more concise and engaging form. The financial and critical success of Carrie allowed De Palma to pursue more personal material. The Demolished Man was a novel that had fascinated De Palma since

12600-427: The subject across the sequence should vary only slightly to achieve the effect. The technique manipulates temporal space using the duration of a single shot—fracturing the duration to move the audience ahead. This kind of cut abruptly communicates the passing of time, as opposed to the more seamless dissolve heavily used in films predating Jean-Luc Godard 's Breathless , which extensively used jump cuts and popularized

12720-400: The technique in the 1960s. For this reason, jump cuts are considered a violation of classical continuity editing , which aims to give the appearance of continuous time and space in the story-world by de-emphasizing editing, but are sometimes nonetheless used for creative purposes. Jump cuts tend to draw attention to the constructed nature of the film. More than one jump cut is sometimes used in

12840-433: The themes of The Demolished Man ). The result of his experience with adapting The Demolished Man was the 1978 science fiction psychic thriller film The Fury , starring Kirk Douglas , Carrie Snodgress , John Cassavetes and Amy Irving . The film was admired by Jean-Luc Godard , who featured a clip in his mammoth Histoire(s) du cinéma , and Pauline Kael , who championed both The Fury and De Palma. The film boasted

12960-429: The themes which permeated Hitchcock's work. In 1970, De Palma left New York for Hollywood at age thirty to make Get to Know Your Rabbit ( 1972), starring Orson Welles and Tommy Smothers . Making the film was a crushing experience for De Palma, as Smothers did not like many of De Palma's ideas. Here he made several small, studio and independently released films that included stand-outs Sisters (1972), Phantom of

13080-418: The way in which generations of Americans have celebrated and exchanged distinctive cultural characteristics. The United States currently has 37 ancestry groups with more than one million individuals. White Americans with ancestry from Europe , the Middle East , or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57.8% of the United States population. Hispanic and Latino Americans form

13200-661: The work of Alfred Hitchcock . Psychologists have been intrigued by De Palma's fascination with pathology, by the aberrant behavior aroused in characters who find themselves manipulated by others. De Palma has encouraged and fostered the filmmaking careers of directors such as Mark Romanek and Keith Gordon , the latter of whom collaborated with him twice as an actor, both in 1979's Home Movies and 1980's Dressed to Kill . Filmmakers influenced by De Palma include Terrence Malick , Quentin Tarantino , Ronny Yu , Don Mancini , Nacho Vigalondo , and Jack Thomas Smith . During an interview with De Palma, Quentin Tarantino said that Blow Out

13320-476: The world. The United States has the world's largest Christian population . The majority of Americans (76%) are Christians , mostly within Protestant and Catholic denominations; these adherents constitute 48% and 23% of the population, respectively. Other religions include Buddhism , Hinduism , Islam , and Judaism , which collectively make up about 4% to 5% of the adult population. Another 15% of

13440-567: Was De Palma's other major documentary from this period. The film records the Performance Group 's performance of Euripides' The Bacchae , starring, amongst others, De Palma regular William Finley . The play is noted for breaking traditional barriers between performers and audience. The film's most striking quality is its extensive use of the split-screen . De Palma recalls that he was "floored" by this performance upon first sight, and in 1973 recounts how he "began to try and figure out

13560-512: Was also the basis for Obsession . Dressed to Kill was a note-for-note homage to Hitchcock's Psycho , including such moments as the surprise death of the lead actress and the exposition scene by the psychiatrist at the end. Film critics have often noted De Palma's penchant for unusual camera angles and compositions. He often frames characters against the background using a canted angle shot . Split-screen techniques have been used to show two separate events happening simultaneously. To emphasize

13680-558: Was also unsuccessful and is currently the last movie De Palma has directed with backing from Hollywood. A political controversy erupted over the portrayal of US soldiers in De Palma's 2007 film Redacted . Loosely based on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings by American soldiers in Iraq, the film echoes themes that appeared in Casualties of War . Redacted received a limited release in the United States and grossed less than $ 1 million against

13800-565: Was born on September 11, 1940, in Newark, New Jersey , the youngest of three boys. His Italian-American parents were Vivienne DePalma (née Muti), and Anthony F. DePalma , an orthopedic surgeon who was the son of immigrants from Alberona , Province of Foggia . He was raised in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , and New Hampshire , and attended various Protestant and Quaker schools, eventually graduating from Friends' Central School . He had

13920-399: Was highest among individuals from West Africa (4%–9%), and lowest among individuals from Cape Verde, East Africa and Southern Africa (0%–4%). African immigrants may also experience conflict with African Americans. According to the 2020 United States census, there are 2,251,699 people who are Native Americans or Alaska Natives alone; they make up 0.7% of the total population. According to

14040-595: Was inspired by the films of Jean-Luc Godard . Michelangelo Antonioni 's Blowup and Francis Ford Coppola 's The Conversation plots were used for the basis of Blow Out . The Untouchables ' finale shoot out in the train station is a clear borrowing from the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein 's The Battleship Potemkin . The main plot from Rear Window was used for Body Double , while it also used elements of Vertigo . Vertigo

14160-554: Was published in the U.S. in 2020. De Palma and Lehman also wrote a second book, currently unpublished, called Terry , based on one of De Palma's passion projects about a French film production making an adaptation of Thérèse Raquin . De Palma's films can fall into two categories, his thriller films ( Sisters , Body Double , Obsession , Dressed to Kill , Blow Out , Raising Cain ) and his mainly commercial films ( Scarface , The Untouchables , Carlito's Way , and Mission: Impossible ). He has often produced "De Palma" films one after

14280-518: Was the subject of the 2015 documentary De Palma , directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow . Americans Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America . The United States is home to people of many racial and ethnic origins ; consequently, American law does not equate nationality with race or ethnicity but with citizenship. The majority of Americans or their ancestors immigrated to

14400-618: Was the thriller Domino (2019), released two years after the film began production. It received generally negative reviews and was released direct-to-VOD in the United States, grossing less than half a million dollars internationally. De Palma has also expressed dissatisfaction with both the production of the film and the final result; "I never experienced such a horrible movie set." In 2018, De Palma published his debut novel in France, Les serpents sont-ils nécessaires? (English translation: Are Snakes Necessary? ), co-written with Susan Lehman. It

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