Kim Novak's Vertigo

Alexandre O. Philippe: Kim Novak's Vertigo (US 2025) with Kim Novak as Madeleine. Falling in his death dream: Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart).

Alexandre O. Philippe: Kim Novak's Vertigo (US 2025) with Kim Novak at home.

Country and year: USA 2025

Producer(s): Terri Piñon

Director and writer: Alexandre O. Philippe

Cinematographer: Robert Muratore

Music: Jon Hegel. Soundtrack: Bernard Herrmann: Vertigo.

With: i.a. Kim Novak, Alexandre O. Philippe

Duration: 77 min

Language: English

Format: DCP

Night Visions (NV) Maximum Halloween 3025

Hosted by Mikko Aromaa

Viewed at Kinopalatsi 9, Helsinki, 20 Nov 2025

NV 2025: "Alfred Hitchcockin Vertigo (1958) nousi vuonna 2012 ykköseksi maailman kaikkien aikojen parhaiden elokuvien äänestyksessä, jonka Britannian arvovaltaisin elokuvalehti Sight and Sound järjestää  kerran vuosikymmenessä. Surrealistisen noir-jännärin voitto oli kunnianosoitus koko lajityyppielokuvan perinteelle, jota taidehiippailuja suosivat ranking-listat usein ylenkatsovat."

"Hitchcockin magnum opusta on luettu ohjaansa nerouden ilmentymänä. Siksi genreanalyytikko Alexander O. Philippen (78/52 – Psykon salaisuudet, Lynch/Oz) päätös lähestyä klassikkoa sen pääosatähden Kim Novakin silmin tuntuu freesiltä. Novak (s. 1933) oli 1950-luvun lopussa Yhdysvaltain suosituimpia elokuvatähtiä, joka tympääntyi lopulta Hollywoodiin ja vetäytyi omiin oloihinsa keskittyäkseen maalaamiseen. Philippe käy pikakelauksella läpi päähenkilönsä uran ja keskittyy sitten pääasiaan: Vertigoon."+

"Hyvävireinen yhdeksänkymppinen muistelee eloisasti mestariteoksen syntyprosessia ja pääosakollega James Stewartin kanssa muodostunutta kemiaa. Ohjausmetodeistaan myös kritiikkiä saaneesta Hitchcockista Novak puhuu arvostavasti. Muistelun lomassa Philippe käy läpi näyttelijän aarreaittaa muistuttavaa arkistoa."

"Nyansseja ymmärtävä dokumentaristi syventyy Vertigon maailmaan seinätapetin kuvioiden tarkkuudella ja laajentaa havaintonsa oivaltavaksi analyysiksi. Tuloksena on poikkeuksellisen tarkka ruumiinavaus yhdestä kaikkien aikojen elokuvista. Kim Novak’s Vertigo on myös omaperäinen näyttelijämuotokuva ja harvinainen näkökulma Alfred Hitchcockin työskentelytapoihin." (NV 2025)

NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE:

"★★★★

“Intensely personal”

– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Feels like an act of love from the director of 78/52 and Lynch/Oz.”

– Brian Tallerico / RogerEbert.com

“Unapologetic and, right from the start, impressively unfiltered.

– Damon Wise / Deadline

“Resonates as what is today a vanishingly rare first-hand window into the joys, terrors and vagaries of Hollywood’s golden age.”

– Guy Logde / Variety

“”I needed to know that I was authentic”, says Kim Novak at one point in Alexandre O. Philippe’s affectionately revealing documentary about an actress who turned her back on Hollywood at the height of her career.  That phrase could serve as the logline for a film that is both the celebration of a remarkable woman and an attempt to connect the actress with her most iconic role – that of Judy in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. It feels at times like a kind of exorcism, as the 92-year-old Novak grapples with the ghosts of the past – given prominent visual form here in the grey suit Hitchcock famously forced her to wear in the film, which she is seen handling for the first time in over half a century.”

– Lee Marshall / Screen International" – NV 2025 QUOTATION MONTAGE

AA: Kim Novak is the subject of her own story in Alexandre O. Philippe's film historical essay Kim Novak's Vertigo. Of Philippe's former work, I have only seen last year's remarkable Chain Reactions (US 2024). Having seen these two I need to see the rest, as well.

Kim Novak's is also the voice of her story, in effect a first person narrative. It is also her story as an artist: creator of watercolours, oil and pastel paintings, photographs and poetry. She loves nature and animals. She loves to ride. We meet her as a dancer and singer in her movies.

She has undertaken cosmetic surgery but regrets the fat injections. "I should have known better, but what do you do? We do some stupid things in our lives." (Source: Wikipedia).

Novak invites Philippe to her home for an in extenso conversation. We get glimpses into her personal archives, family photo albums and movie scrapbooks. 

Memory is fragile. Three of Novak's houses have burned to the ground.

As a child she idolized Greta Garbo: "she felt what I felt... the same insecure little girl". James Stewart: "he was always himself". He never acted. "It was real to him". He projected tenderness and respect. Of more recent actors, Novak admires Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Richard Quine (Pushover, Bell, Book and Candle, Strangers When We Meet, The Notorious Landlady) was an important director and mentor.

But Alfred Hitchcock was the big influence. The double performance in Vertigo, the thriller about a loss of identity, became a signature role. Vertigo was not much noticed during its first run, but its fame kept rising and reached its height 50 years after the movie was released when it was voted the best film in the world.

Included in the movie are generous helpings of clips from Novak's movies such as

1954 The French Line, Pushover, Phffft

1955 5 Against the House, Picnic, The Man with the Golden Arm

1956 The Eddy Duchin Story

1957 Jeanne Eagels, Pal Joey

1958 Vertigo, Bell, Book and Candle

1959 Middle of the Night

1960 Strangers When We Meet

1962 The Notorious Landlady, Boys' Night Out

1964 Of Human Bondage, Kiss Me, Stupid

1965 The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders

1968 The Legend of Lylah Clare

The selection is excellent, and the clipreel experience is alone worth the visit. 

It gets deeply emotional as we enter what for a cinephile is holy ground. Novak opens her personal copy of the screenplay of Vertigo, at the time still called From Among the Dead. When Madeleine's gray suit is revealed from a box that has not been opened since the film was made, Novak falls into tears.

We are in the territory of fetishism, but the experience reaches beyond that. Already at the time, it was clear that Vertigo was a project personally meaningful for its star. It is about a young woman full of life being transformed into a spectacle by patriarchal authority.

In this house of mirrors, Judy / Madeleine was lost and perished. But Novak is still haunted by the stardom experience which both elevated and entrapped her. "You start to lose who you are". "Kim Novak" was a creature of the Hollywood star system. "I did not know who Kim Novak was". "It was scary losing myself". They did not hear the little girl crying inside.