I think all directors steal ideas from their heroes. DePalma is his own director at this point, he is def influenced by Hitch, but hes influenced by alot of other directors too.
Also if youre working in certain genres (as DePalma works in the thriller genre often), theres almost no way you can not re-work or steal certain themes/visual forms that were originally used by Hitchcock, since he was the guy who essentially created that genre.
If you want to see more where hes coming from, heres a really great interview with The Master:
- YouTube
