88/100 (118 min, 1958)Plot: A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Alec Coppel (screenplay), Samuel A. Taylor (screenplay)
Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes
It's only a movie, Kim!
Over the last few weeks I've been reading a little bit about the history of cinema. Apparently both Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchock had a lot in common - they both weren't particularly nice for their actors, they were obsessive when it comes to movie making process - apparently the scene where Kim Novak is staring at the portrait in gallery took a week to shoot, because Hitchock was waiting for the right light - and some of their finest movies had been criticized upon their initial release, only to be hailed as masterpieces decades later. That happened to Kubrick with "The Shining" and to Hitchcock, with among others, "Vertigo". The movie was also selected as the best mystery movie ever by the American Film Institute.
53 years after it was made, the movie remains fascinating and feels extremely unique. The way the movie is filmed still amazes with technical virtuosity, although all those years ago the technology filmmakers take for granted today, wasn't even available. It's such a wonderful and ambiguous picture - for most of the time you have no idea what exactly is going on - is it a ghost story? a romance? a thriller? "Vertigo" is a mixture of genres, but it focuses a lot on its characters, who are deeply disturbed.
