Nominees: Touch of Evil, The Music Room, Sweet Anna, The Hidden Fortress, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Une Vie, Cairo Station, Man of the West, Giants and Toys
Oscars pick: Gigi
Nominees: Auntie Mame, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Separate Tables
The musical Gigi was cute, but it wasn't the best picture. Of the Academy's nominations I liked the adaptation of Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and the Defiant Ones more. Even better were movies that failed to catch Oscar's eye. Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, the scathing Giants and Toys, my favorite from Anthony Man, Man of the West, as well as 2 from a couple masters of form and composition - Orson Welles, with the expertly directed Touch of Evil, and Alfred Hitchcock with his magnum opus, Vertigo...
Which was only one real choice to my mind.
Vertigo has the trappings of a mystery, but the mystery is just the MacGuffin - a tool to get the stars aligned, get these characters together and dig into the heart of the matter - that heart is obsession. The entire film is about that psychological spiral: From the haunting music to the Saul Bass credit sequence... it's all about circles, turning around into themselves. James Stewart does his best, most shaded work as a man sinking further and further into a kind of madness. He as much objectifies this woman (Kim Novak), as he does genuinely love her. He will reshape another (he assumes) into her image and lose himself completely.
The movie is archetypal Hitchcock - the expressionistic techniques, the mattes and rear projection, and every detail -from sound to color to editing- is vital to the theme, character, and narrative of the feature. It’s loaded with eerie subtle moments that become even more apparent in repeat viewings (note the look in Madeleine's face when Scottie speaks of the past. A past she is familiar with but can't acknowledge). All of this makes the movie timeless.
It's a film that crept up on me - on my first viewing I was not as impressed. Later I discovered that a lot of us do this on a first go through, we misread the picture, and only on further viewings do we get it. This probably explains its trajectory, from mixed reviews and lower than expected box office, to it becoming a sort of lost film, as it was kept out of distribution for over a decade. During that time the master print faded and shrunk - leading to a restoration, rerelease, and reevaluation, which saw its reputation rise (a 4K restoration was done in 2014). Of course, there's always going to be pushback, are we champions over-evaluating it, as a handful of critics accuse? Obviously, I say no. Vertigo is appreciated as it always should have been appreciated, as the director's crowning achievement.
Memorable Scenes: Scotties vivid nightmare - the bits at the psychiatric hospital with Midge - Judy becomes Madeleine, bathed in a glow of sickly green light – The contra-zoom when Scottie's vertigo kicks in as he climbs the stairs - The John Whitney and Saul Bass title sequence, the first in film history to use computer animation.
Memorable Quote: Stewart & Novak are in the forest, looking at the rings of a tree, Novak's Madeleine points to a spot on the tree... "Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice."
I've written about Vertigo on so many occasions I’m starting to sound like a broken record. So, I'll just stop and say what the Academy should have said - "And the Oscar (and Felix) for best picture goes to... Vertigo!"
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Honorable Mentions:
Max Von Sydow, The Magician * Poitier & Curtis, The Defiant Ones * Paul Newman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof * Toshiro Mifune, The Hidden Fortress * Gary Cooper, Man of the West * Youssef Chahine, Cairo Station * Chhabi Biswas, Music Room * John Mills, Ice Cold in Alex * Teiji Takahashi, Ballad of Narayama
Honorable Mentions:
Maria Schell, Une Vie * Susan Hayward, I Want To Live * Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof * Kim Novak, Vertigo * Ingrid Bergman, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness * Jean Simmons, Home Before Dark * Kinuyo Tanaka, The Ballad of Narayama * Shirley MacLaine, Some Came Running
I also adored Paul Douglas in Fortunella
Supporting Actress: Ingrid Thulin, The Magician
Also, Irene Worth, Orders to Kill
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Also, Irene Worth, Orders to Kill
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