Current Mailing List news and information update: VERTIGO   This week is the 50th anniversary of the original release of “Vertigo”. Don’t miss a chance to see an archival print of one of the most critically admired films ever made. Monday (5/12) 7PM Thursday (5/15) 9PM VERTIGO 1958 James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore. Arguably Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo is the quintessential 20th century artwork, an exploration of identity, love, loss, and death. Its glories are many: Stewart’s haunted performance as a detective destroyed by obsessive love, Novak’s sensual screen presence in her enigmatic and earthy dual roles, Bernard Herrmann’s darkly romantic score, the film’s moody northern California settings. This is the director’s most personal film, and quite possibly his most moving. (Linda DeLibero) 128m. Technicolor. Restored. Archival Print. When Blue Velvet opened, the people who loved it best didn't immediately take apart its narrative, but settled into the movie as into a Roman bath. I think that's probably the best way to enter Vertigo, too. As a thriller it abjures the momentum and cathartic release of Hitchcock's peak suspense film, Rear Window. But as an expression of racking emotion, and as a trip into an eroticized universe, Vertigo is nonpareil. (Michael Sragow) ------------------ Sight & Sound: What is your favourite film soundtrack music and why do you like it so much? Scorsese: "A big question. There are so many, and they all work so differently....I suppose that if I were hard-pressed to answer this question – and I suppose I am – I'd have to say Bernard Herrmann's score for Vertigo (1958). Hitchcock's film is about obsession, which means that it's about circling back to the same moment, again and again. Which is probably why there are so many spirals and circles in the imagery – Stewart following Novak in the car, the staircase at the tower, the way Novak's hair is styled, the camera movement that circles around Stewart and Novak after she's completed her transformation in the hotel room, not to mention Saul Bass' brilliant opening credits, or that amazing animated dream sequence. And the music is also built around spirals and circles, fulfilment and despair. Herrmann really understood what Hitchcock was going for – he wanted to penetrate to the heart of obsession." ------------------------ "For those who have never seen Vertigo, here is evidence that movies can occupy the highest plane of artistic expression." Dave Kehr