Manipulative media has broken down every emotion and situation into a cliche which removes any kind of humanity or feeling. For media producers, it’s all just elements that make up a product – eroticism, drama, horror, whatever.

The famous shot with the woman reaching out to you – the audience – in front of the flag, is a striking reminder for our conscience. Reach inside yourself and search for your soul.

In a political climate which has established lies as something ordinary, De Palma shows us the terrible consequences of different people being disconnected from their brothers – in the city of brotherly love.

Kate Miller, one of the main characters of Dressed to Kill, is feeling lost, confused and dissatisfied with normal family life. Until she sees an angel in the form of the hand of a mysterious man, luring her into a taxi appropriately branded as ANGELO. An imaginative riff on De Palma’s popular Paradise motif.

When the woman finds out that her wedding ring is missing, she feels exposed, guilty and threatened. Which is a compassionate build-up for one of the greatest suspense sequences, caught on film.

The bloody mess of the elevator murder climaxes with three persons’ hands reaching together and almost touching. This is an intersection of characters that defines the film’s search for undressed humanity in the big anonymous city.

An ethereal shot is presented when Tony is back from the dead and puts his bloody, disfigured hand on her satin bedsheets. This is almost like The Beauty and the Beast, but transformed as far away from fairy tales as possible and thrust into a cynical world. He takes what he needs without feeling or remorse.

In the first dance at the Babylon, Elvira does look like a pink flamingo, but she’s not going to fly. She will be later rudely interrupted when Tony is distracted by the flamingos on screen, mistaking them for pelicans.

His sister shows that only she can be the master of herself, which goes directly against everything that Tony the conqueror stands for. He has drifted too far from his own kin and the psycho-sexual trauma finally gets to him. He can get away from anything, except from himself.

The unforgettable scene where a crippled Montana takes revenge on Frank is particularly interesting. There, we see him deprived of one of his hands, but holding a merciless gun in the other one. The chase for the American ideal to be #1 never stops and consumes the antagonist.

In the welcomed suspenseful depiction of the NYC assassination, the anti-hero has either a vision of humanity, or complete loss of his senses. Both signs of downfall in this world. Everything was cut out for him, but is derailed by a glimpse of his own humanity.

In the closing mansion shoot-out, Tony seems to reach towards immortality, when bullets don’t seem to affect him. This temporary delusion is De Palma’s strongest warning and denouncing of society’s selfish inhumane ways. The other-worldly black angel blows away the illusion. Life after greed is a lie, exposed on film.

In the powerful opening interrogation scene, Tony has the assassin mark on him, which is certain trouble, but the authorities are powerless to stop him for political reasons.

Omar, just like Frank, has big hands with the inevitable jewellery on them. They immediately show high gangster status with something funny and larger-than-life about them.

In the luxury bathtub Tony is immobile except for his hands and everyone around him slips out of reach. The beginning of the inevitable downfall.

The “Say goodnight to the bad guy” scene, with the circling camera that encompasses everything, is the turning point of the film into another dimension. FIrstly, it shows the existentialist void of modern society and secondly, when Tony points his finger to the bourgeois, the director shows us who this film is really about. The grotesque gangsters are an ugly reflection of the current state of Capitalist society, seemingly driven by corruption with dirty cash changing hands all the time. It’s a horrific warning about the down-spiralling values of greed.

In the first scene with Rick and Cyrus, the blood money symbolism is deafening like the storm outside.

The assassination shot breaks the smooth reality that Rick glides through so smugly. The first thing he sees after this wake-up call is blood on his hands. They are shown in a slow motion shot, that makes this moment a deep realisation of things gone very wrong. The ultimate existential problem is death and this is why Brian De Palma uses blood – to show the mortality of the characters.

The hands that erase the evidence are no longer under control of the human being attached to them. They are controlled by the insane mission that has taken him over. This obsession, like the corporate new world, doesn’t have any human values at all. This is also underlined by the tormented grin on the actor’s face. It’s disfigured and removed from who he used to be.

The final shot is a close-up of a construction worker’s hand caressing the concrete column, a part of the building that has swallowed the beauty of humanity. Maybe we’ll have one last flash of it, to remember what we’re missing?

In the legendary voyeuristic opening sequence, the whole further drama is spelt out with the shot of the hands injecting the medicine. By resurrecting the woman, the agent is playing God and will have to pay for it dearly.

When contacting HQ, he has blood on his hands. This is undeniable and visible guilt. Soon he is the only suspect and there’s nothing he can say to deny the blood. He clenches his fist in the decisive moment in the aquarium, when balance is broken and all his energy and skill will be dedicated to redemption. Later, the blood is washed and the game of restoring the balance is on.

In yet another tense “rope” tracking shot, De Palma shows how the fate of the character is held by the hands of the team, infusing wild paranoia and multiplying the suspense.

The dangerous drop of sweat in the heist scene is another symbol of how he can’t escape his humanity, even though he has excelled to be a ghost. But being flesh and blood ultimately helps – his hand gets him out of the impossible situation.

In the ultimate action sequence, Ethan arms his hand with the explosive and pushes aside the psychological torment from his conflict with the Father figure. Then he flies away completely on his own, reborn.

Femme Fatale blinds us with the eyes and light symbolism so much, that we can be forgiven for overlooking the hands. But they are there and play a major part.

The patsy of this story takes things into his own hands by operating the recording device. This means that in order to break the cycle of pessimism and negativity, we can only count on our inner creativity. No more, no less.

Having our hands on the breasts of the prize (girl), it’s clear that we are focused on a certain path: sex, money and power. In this context, the miraculous development of the story shines brighter.

In the seduction scene, the hand that caresses is the hand that betrays. This is a bitter observation, overshadowed by the excitement.

In a more amusing turn of events, there is a scene where the paw of a cat reminds us of the omnipresent nature (like the rat in Mission: Impossible) and that we are never truly alone, for better or worse.

Intense violence begins with the navigator’s hand punctured by a wild chance of nature, a theme so deeply rooted in De Palma’s work. Of course, the central idea of this “naive” humanistic film is that “Life reaches out to life” and is presented clearly in the video memory of the damaged main character. While the film hopes that we can have such memory from the future instead.

In the stunning climax, we have different species – life itself – stretch out and hold hands, ultimately proving that the universe is connection, not chaos.

In the very little seen, uncompromising war drama Casualties of War, we are reminded that we don’t want to see the truth. In the rape scene, we see only what the powerless character sees through the rain. He sees what the barbaric hands of power really do. And he is society’s only witness, but his hands are tied.

Here, the grotesque shot allows us to see beyond the hands that manipulate society and see the face behind them. Obviously, Reverend Bacon has a golden chain and rotten soul.

If only we could get a grip on our vanities and show a little decency…

When Ethan holds the murder weapon in the beginning, he already has all the clues he – and we, as the viewers – will need to uncover the truth. It’s another sly game on behalf of De Palma. When Ethan holds Krieger’s hand, itself holding the knife, he makes it abundantly clear that he’s on a new path and will not cross moral boundaries. Also, we might have a clue for the puzzle.

In the fabulous shot where the camera zooms on the speeding train and shows the window, we can see only the hands of the manipulator, but we’re still not sure whom they belong to.