In the summer of 1989, Brian De Palma was feeling defeated in every way.

The woman he was in love with broke up with him.

He'd sprained his ankle at a film festival in France,

and the movie he dreamt of making for 10 years,

a war epic set in Vietnam, had flopped.

Then on Labor Day, De Palma flew to New York.

It was a week before he turned 49.

His agent called and told him to get back to work.

He'd been offered the project of a lifetime,

a film adaptation of Bonfire of the Vanities.

Since it appeared in 1987,

Tom Wolf's New York novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities,

has become not only a major bestseller,

but also a work symbolizing the end of a decade.

You can't exaggerate what a big deal Bonfire was

when published in 1987.

Elacerating satire of money, power, and New York life in the 80s.

The book wasn't just a massive hit.

It became a metaphor for everything that was wrong

with New York in the decade it was written,

greed, racial politics, the criminal justice system.

It was an instant sensation in a way that's hard to imagine

...