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It's Saturday December the 3 around 7:15PM and

Saturday Night Vertigo

veritgo-kimnovak.jpg

We still can't believe that Turner Classic Movies is on in Vancouver these days. We also can't believe we are using the third person to write, but more about that problem later. Much later. Tonight, we had the pleasure of watching the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock classic, Vertigo. What is fascinating about this movie, besides just how completely beautiful this masterpiece is, is how it has gotten better with age, like a fine wine.

It was a box office failure when released. The New Yorker called it, "farfetched nonsense." But by 1982, it appeared on Sight and Sound's best films of all time poll in the #7 slot. By 2002, it had moved up to #2, right behind Citizen Kane (1941) the film that has been at the top of the list since 1962.

And that is just one part of a great story and about something that gets better each time you view it. That is why the lore of this film continues to grow. Is because it is as some call the "ultimate aesthetic experience"? Is it because of the amazing location provided by San Francisco (serioulsy you have to check out Vertigo: Then and Now which compares the city of 1958 to 2003)? Surely that is why there is a book called "Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcocks San Francisco." Is it because Kim Novak is the personification of sexy cool? What about the best Bernard Hermann score ever? Or the title sequences by designer Saul Bass? Or maybe it is just a really well written and crafted but complex plot?

Posted by Jackson Murphy | Link |

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