For more than 40 years, Brian De Palma has been directing feature films that divide audiences, from box-office hits decried for their violence (Carrie, Dressed To Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables) to box-office flops that draw passionate defenders (Obsession, The Fury, Blow Out, Femme Fatale). But few De Palma films have been as controversial as Redacted, his impressionistic recreation of a rape and murder committed by U.S. forces in Iraq. Based on an actual incident, Redacted takes a variety of approaches to its story, with the core characters seen from surveillance-camera footage, video blogs, cable-news reports, and their own "home movies," among other sources. In its festival run, Redacted caused a stir in the media for its relentlessly damning portrait of American soldiers and its heightened sense of drama. Redacted distributor Magnolia Pictures has also balked at the film's closing montage of photographs of dead Iraqis, over worries that without permission from the victims' families, there could be legal trouble down the road. De Palma recently spoke to The A.V. Club about his intentions with Redacted, the controversy surrounding the film, and how he's navigated through a career that's won him as many detractors as fans.
The A.V. Club: Next to Scarface, Redacted may be the film of yours that's gotten the most attention from news reporters, pundits, and other people who aren't necessarily film buffs. Is that something you relish or regret?
Brian De Palma: Well, you never can predict these things. I knew the movie would get a reaction, because it's showing a different vision of our soldiers in Iraq. All we ever get told is that they're valued and we support them, and as they're represented on television, they're true-blue and honorable. Which is true, for the most part. But there's another side. When you see these representations of them, you must realize they are representations. They're propaganda for the Marines and the Army and the Bush administration. The soldiers aren't allowed to say what they really feel or think. They're just supposed to parrot the administration's talking points, and that's what their job is. You should view these stories about them with that in mind. Because I noticed when I researched this material—which is based on an incident very similar to the one in Casualties Of War—that soldiers, when they're not "on camera," so to speak, express a whole different view of the war. And talking to a lot of soldiers who've returned from Iraq confirmed that.
AVC: Do you think that the people criticizing the film understand it? Do you think they're conversant enough with your work to get what you're going for?
BDP: No. It's like the whole way this war was prosecuted. They had an opinion before they got any information. And if the information doesn't work with their opinion, then they just get rid of it. Or ignore it. And it's basically the way they've proceeded with this war, saying that when someone reports the reality of what's actually happening, it's just "negative media stories." I was talking to a journalist today, and I said about the Oklahoma bombing a decade ago, "Suppose we had one of those every day. What kind of world would we think we were living in?" When you put stuff in perspective, you realize that well, the administration can complain, "The media isn't telling the stories about how we're building schools blah blah blah," but has anybody read any of the blogs from the Iraqis who are living through what our occupation is doing? There've been a couple of them that have been printed into books, and they're fascinating. You get a whole different view of what's going on over there, all of which has been redacted from the mainstream media. And for obvious reasons, because the architects of this war, who are my age, learned the lessons of Vietnam, that you've got to keep the pictures away from the people, and you've got to make the information fit into the mold of how you want to present it.
AVC: What's the status of the closing montage at this point? Is it going to be cut from the film altogether, or included, but with bars over the victims' eyes?
BDP: I think it's going to wind up with the bars over the eyes. I cannot get [Magnolia] to accept the liability, even though I've got first-amendment lawyers saying that nobody has ever brought a suit against a war picture, and probably never would. But that never makes any difference to the insurance companies. It just makes me wonder, are we being redacted by insurance companies now? Are they the arbiters of what we see? Seems to be. I mean, it's like something out of Double Indemnity. These are war photographs, and you can't show them? Something's not right about that. The fact that Redacted got redacted somehow is an irony that I think is worth leaving the way it is.
AVC: There are obvious similarities between Redacted and Casualties Of War, but also to your earlier films, like Hi, Mom! and Greetings, which were more loose and experimental. Do you find in general that to really "see" a Brian De Palma film, it helps to have seen a lot of other Brian De Palma films?
BDP: I think that's true of any director, or any writer, or any painter, or any poet that you like. Of course, if you're struck by a certain work, then you want to go back and see what they did before, and you want to get a biography and figure out how it all fits together. Absolutely. I do that all the time.