Brian De Palma Deconstructs Sequences in His Films Strangle, strangle, strangle, strangle. The filmmaker Brian De Palma was contentedly narrating the action of his new frenemy thriller, "Passion," for a visitor. "The nightmare never ends," he said as the scene concluded. He meant it in a good way. For more than 40 years, he has been orchestrating elaborately staged genre films. Suspense, horror and pure cinematic phantasmagoria are his specialty, shot through with twists, doubled characters and hypnotic voyeurism. He's made many other movies - from "Scarface" to "Mission to Mars" - but Mr. De Palma, 72, seems in his element when playing mind games, as in "Dressed to Kill" and "Sisters," among others. His latest, "Passion," stars Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace as a boss and her junior colleague at an advertising firm. When Christine (Ms. McAdams) takes credit for a clever ad designed by Isabelle (Ms. Rapace), the resulting double crosses, frame-ups and worse make for a decidedly unsafe workplace. Mr. De Palma said he remembered Ms. McAdams from "Mean Girls," adding, "She's very good at being bad." "Passion," which opens Friday in theaters and is available on video on demand, is a remake of the 2010 French film "Love Crime." Directed by Alain Corneau, that film featured Kristin Scott Thomas as Ludivine Sagnier's mentor. But Mr. De Palma makes the story his own, deepening the intrigue with fake-out dreams and using Skype and viral video to expand his customary hall of mirrors. Affable and relaxed though still an imposing figure, the khaki-clad Mr. De Palma sat down recently in the back of a Greenwich Village restaurant to watch and discuss sequences from his own oeuvre that informed "Passion." Originally invited to view classical films that influenced "Passion," he responded playfully: "I could only refer to my own films. Nobody does this but me. Thus began the ultimate De Palma experience: watching a master of cinematic voyeurism watch his own films. Sisters One of the intricately storyboarded set pieces in "Passion" involves a home invasion that unfolds simultaneously with a ballet performance via split-screen. Four decades ago, Mr. De Palma featured the same technique in "Sisters." Margot Kidder stars as a woman whose date ends up dead inside her sofa bed. It's a long story. On one side of the screen, she and an accomplice clean up after hiding the corpse; on the other, a journalist who saw commotion through the window pushes a detective to investigate. "I don't know where I got this idea," Mr. De Palma said, leaning into the screen as he watched. The thing about split screen is: It's a kind of meditative form. You can go very slowly with it, because there's a lot to look at. People are making juxtapositions in their mind. And you can have all this exposition mumbo jumbo on one side. The journalist and detective eventually walk down the hallway to the apartment - while the accomplice slips around the corner of the same hallway, filmed from a different angle. We see it all as it unfolds, but remain powerless. It's a recipe for hand-wringing suspense. Mr. De Palma, ever the logistician of the macabre, recalled that for an earlier scene, "the producer said we could never put anybody into a sofa bed, and I shot it in one shot to show that you can in fact fit somebody into the sofa bed." Dressed to Kill Another De Palma hallmark is the elaborate dream sequence. It's usually as immaculately staged as any "real" scene but only proves that looks can be deceiving. In "Passion," dreams and psychological distress come into play as the rivalry escalates between Christine and Isabella. For a precursor this time, Mr. De Palma chose a dream sequence from his 1980 thriller, "Dressed to Kill." The cross-dressing killer (Michael Caine) escapes from a mental hospital dressed as a female nurse and stalks his victim (Nancy Allen) while she's in the shower. When the DVD offered a choice, Mr. De Palma joked, "Let's play the unrated version - come on!" Soon enough, the stalking began: A lushly filmed sequence adopts the killer's perspective as he approaches. Mr. De Palma said.: "Now we're in the point-of-view shot. Like the one in "Passion." Point of view: crazy person. White nurse's shoes inch along, while Ms. Allen is observed in the shower. Ms. Allen's character hears something, spots the killer's shoes - and panics. The sequence cruises on with a mesmerizing, almost narcotically heightened suspense that's one of Mr. De Palma's specialties. "You make this stuff as slow as possible," he murmured. You're just agonizingly building up. And then there are the shoes: "A lot of people have made remarks about the white shoes. Creepy white nurse's shoes. Passion Some filmmakers claim not to watch their own films, or say they only see the mistakes. Mr. De Palma displayed no such qualms as he pored over the split-screen sequence in "Passion." On the right-hand side, Ms. McAdams as Christine goes about her business after a party at home, showering undisturbed. "I told her, "Just get yourself ready," and she could make that as long or as short as she wanted," Mr. De Palma said. I would just cut it. On the left, as the ballet unfolds, the image cuts from a tight close-up on Ms. Rapace's eyes to the duet in progress. The piece is Jerome Robbins's version of "Afternoon of a Faun," in which a couple dance as if facing the mirrored wall of a studio. In Mr. De Palma's hands, that means they're looking dead into the camera. Meanwhile, somebody's now in Christine's house. "You're lulling the audience," Mr. De Palma said of the combination of sequences. I had no idea how it would work. I just had an instinct about it. This is your very typical point-of-view murderer shot, but here juxtaposed against this beautiful ballet. The dance grows more intimate. Christine's stalker comes closer. Art on the left, death on the right. "And then whack!" he exclaimed. It was a resounding end to the scene, but just another step in Mr. De Palma's nightmarish world of suspense.