“Kim Novak’s Vertigo” (dir. Alexandre O. Philippe, 2025)
Image Credit: Medianoche Productions
Alexandre O. Philippe (“Room 237”) has made a career of looking under the hood of the classics. It was only a matter of time before he got to “Vertigo.” Here’s Christian Blauvelt on a very different look at the Hitchcock classic:
“Kim Novak is certainly a worthy subject for a documentary. She’s not only the last survivor of the film that many consider the greatest ever made, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo,’ but she is the nexus of obsession in a film about obsession that has inspired so much obsession in the 67 years since its release itself. At 92, her star power is as grand and magnificent as ever. But more than commanding your gaze as any great star does, and as Hitchcock certainly did in that ultimate film about ‘the gaze,’ Novak also holds your attention as a uniquely thoughtful artist in her own right.
‘Vertigo’ has clearly haunted her the way that it has generations of film lovers. Aside from its reputation and its inherent artistic greatness on many levels, it’s the one time in any movie that Novak was able to interrogate the very thing that frustrated her so much about her Hollywood career: That the industry was unable to see beyond the surface of her. And so she talks at length about how the characters of Madeleine and Judy speak to her deeply and remain with her and part of her. She talks about ‘Vertigo’ as if both an insider and outsider — yes, she’s in the movie and the very heart of it, but, perhaps because of Hitchcock’s way of moving actors around like chess pieces, as objects for him to control, the way she talks about it is still somewhat removed, like that was another person onscreen and her at the same time.
That means that, when she speaks about ‘Vertigo,’ it’s not that different from what any diehard obsessive of it would have to say, even as her experience is fundamentally singular. Per its title, ‘Kim Novak’s Vertigo’ lays bare the gulf between what’s onscreen and what’s real life, quite potently. Between the surface and what lies beneath. Between Kim Novak the movie star and Kim Novak the person.”
Available to stream October 1
Other highlights:
– “Death Ship” (10/6)
– “Living Dead Girl” (10/20)
– “The Shiver of the Vampires” (10/27)