Vertigo: The Making of a Classic PDF
Preview Vertigo: The Making of a Classic
Vertigo is Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece and perhaps his most personal film. To view it once is to be devastated. With each subsequent screening, most viewers notice bits of business, depths of thought, and stunning ironies that had previously eluded them. Vertigo is a riveting experience, haunting its fans in the same way that Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) is haunted by the mysterious Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak).
Upon researching the film, author Dan Auiler found that "this odd, obsessional, very un-matter-of-fact film was created" under "systematic, businesslike, matter-of-fact circumstances." His book gives us the opportunity to witness the construction of a film that seems at once amazing complex and absolutely seamless. He discusses the painstaking development of the screenplay (including its controversial explication of the mystery only two-thirds of the way through the film), the decision to cast Novak instead of Vera Miles opposite Stewart, the typically meticulous Hitchcock shoot, the film's amazing special effects and extraordinary credit and dream sequences, and the legendary musical score composed by Bernard Herrmann. Upon finishing the book, readers will appreciate the various contributions of Hitchcock, Herrmann, Stewart, Novak, actress Barbara Bel Geddes, Thomas Narcejac and Pierre Boileau (who wrote the book upon which it is based), uncredited scenarists Maxwell Anderson and Angus MacPhail, screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, cinematographer Robert Burks, editor George Tomasini, costume designer Edith Head, and many others. The book includes a list of cast and crew, an appendix discussing the VistaVision process in which it was shot, a forward by Vertigo enthusiast Martin Scorsese, and hundreds of production photos, reproductions of memos, storyboard sketches, and posters. Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic has enhanced even this avid fan's appreciation of a film he's long known and loved.
When the newly restored print of Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller, Vertigo, was released nationally to sold-out theaters in 1996, New York Times critic Janet Maslin called it "the deepest, darkest masterpiece" of the director's career. That couldn't have been obvious to those behind the scenes during the film's turbulent production four decades ago, according to Auiler, a film collector and teacher. In this splashy companion/study guide, Auiler traces the "matter-of-fact circumstances under which this odd, obsessional, very unmatter-of-fact film was created." He reconstructs the sometimes uneasy give-and-take between Hitchcock and his playersAactors Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes; screenwriters Samuel Taylor and Alec Coppel; Robert Burks and his second-unit cameraman who created the now-famous Vertigo effect (a forward-zoom/dolly-out shot); and Bernard Hermann, who composed the mesmerizing score. Interesting factoids abound, from details of the intermittent hospitalizations of Hitchcock and his wife for various ailments, to a list of inane titles suggested by Paramount executives unhappy with calling the film Vertigo; from information about a pop song of the same name commissioned by the studio but never released, to details of Novak's widely reported off-screen dalliances with Sammy Davis Jr. and the son of the dictator of the Dominican Republic. Interspersed throughout are sections of dialogue from the film, notes and memos from Hitchcock, an interview with the restoration team and more than 50 b&w photos and eight pages of color photos. This is a fittingly levelheaded history of a film whose dizzying complexity continues to fascinate.
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