Well, there has been this perception that you've taken on high-profile projects, namely "Mission to Mars," as a deliberate attempt to go "mainstream." Is that off-base?

I basically do things because I'm interested by the script. Whatever anybody thinks about "Mission to Mars," I liked the script and developed it with a very good writer [Ted Tally, who wrote "Silence of the Lambs"]. I had a good time working on the material. Whether people think it's successful or not is something else.

It was a terribly difficult movie to make, but I think journalists don't have the right idea the way this sort of system works. When they hire a director like me who is a final-cut director -- you got a big item there. So, you better want to let me make the movie the way I'm gonna make it or hire somebody else. You can get them for cheaper and have more control over them. [Laughs]

So despite the bureaucracy involved in big studio films, you've never had a problem putting your personal imprint on them?

That's why they hire you.

Would you concede that your body of work is better appreciated in Europe than in the States or is that another misperception?

That is also a perception I'm not sure about. The reason my movies do so well in Europe is because they're visual and not driven by dialogue, so you don't have to have a lot of subtitles. I get some pretty staunch, diehard De Palma admirers here in the United States. There may not be as many of them, but they are indeed impassioned. Of course, in my movies there's always some kind of battleground. I have always been very popular right from the beginning with "Sisters." My first real success was "Greetings!" which won the only big international prize I ever had at the Berlin International Film Festival.

To be making movies at my age, going into my fourth decade, having my hits and misses, you have to be commercially viable in order to continue to make movies. Even though "Mission to Mars" got quite a drubbing by the critics, it still did $100 million worldwide. People seem to forget that. Do we ever hear the grosses on "Red Planet" and "Ghosts of Mars?"

Do you feel any more pressure than usual for "Femme Fatale" to succeed both critically and commercially?

Of course, you always want your movies to succeed on all those levels. But I had a lot of fun making "Femme Fatale." I think it's a kind of unique, very sophisticated, witty, fun, sexy idea. So, if it connects -- great. It was done relatively inexpensively and it's all been paid off because of the advances and the way it's been doing in Europe. If it does like $20 million-$30 million, it'll be a huge hit for us here. That's all that matters to me -- it paid everybody back and I can go out and continue working.

To this day, your visual style remains an influence on so many directors. How did your own style evolve?

Oh, I don't know. It has a lot to do with being very driven by visual ideas and being a great admirer of Michelangelo Antonioni and Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa, directors who were great visual stylists. You connect with them because you sort of see the world as they do. It gives you a history of material to know that you're working in an area that has been, needless to say, done exquisitely before. My particular style started to grow from the actual way I laid things out. Slow-motion, parallel action sequences, the use of the Steadicam, which gives you more mobility and allows you to use longer takes, split screen -- I sort of developed these things as one developing, specific technique for specific material.

Then, of course, I kinda liked them because I like silent filmmaking. I like using pictures and music. I found myself, after 20 or 30 years, sort of alone in this area. Not too many directors do stuff like that, and I also find that they don't really think too hard about where they stage their scenes -- stuff which I am obsessed with. People stage chases or shootouts and it doesn't look like they think about where they're placing the people. Whether you build a set or go out and find a location, I will prowl these places, take photographs of them, create computer modeling of them -- I go through all the options and it gives me all kinds of interesting visual ideas for the sequences.

The museum scene in "Dressed to Kill," in which you use a lengthy tracking shot, is frequently cited as an exemplary piece of filmmaking. What were the origins of that sequence?

A lot of what I think is misunderstood about me is that most of the things you see in my movies are usually not based on somebody staying at home in a dark room watching old movies all the time, but someone who actually experiences the sequence. I picked up girls in the Museum of Modern Art when I was in college, so I was used to walking around, looking at paintings, talking to people.

Are you surprised by the renown that scene has acquired over the years?

Well, it's beautifully done. It's like a ballet. And the scoring is beautiful. That's why it lives. It's a very good idea and that's what makes great sequences, much like the shower scene in "Psycho." That's a great idea. It was greatly figured out how to shoot it, where the camera positions were, etc. That's why those sequences stick with us.

At the time you were filming "Scarface," did you have any idea it would pervade popular culture like it did?

No, no way. There was such a political furor -- everything about "Scarface" was controversial. Just to get out of the experience alive was more than I could ask. We were embattled about "Scarface" from the inception of it right through the release.

In retrospect, do you understand why the picture resonated? The majority of critics panned it, but audiences seemed to eat it up.

Some audiences ate it up. I remember many screenings where the movie was loathed by the audiences.

What do you think it is about your films that divides so many people?

It kind of surprises me when they just go berserk over something like "Mission to Mars." I mean, you might not like it or you might not like the genre or think it's dreamy or surreal or whatever, but the vehemence of the critical response was kind of shocking.

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