Sabotuer - One of Hitchcock's earlier films, centers around a man falsely accused of being a sabotuer at a airplane factory during World War 2. Has a clever tense scene involving using a car to break a pair of handcuffs.
Oh man, what a great film. I remember watching a lot Hitchcock movies a year ago and getting my mind blown at how great they all were (well except Vertigo probably).
Really? I find Vertigo an awesome experience. It's so different. I showed it to a friend of mine and he said it felt as though he were watching a book in that it was the same experience as reading a novel but he was watching it instead.
I think the biggest thing is Bernard Herrmann's score. It's such a hypnotic melody of great sadness and longing. Without it, than I think the movie is probably a disaster. Although, considering the movie Obsession, maybe not. But that music just puts you in a trance for what unfolds. And when it swells up at the end of the movie after James Stewart has recreated Judy into Madeline and she enters the hotel room and they embrace with the camera whirling around them, utter perfection. It's a movie that always leaves me feeling very blue after it is over.
Interestingly enough, years later, Brian De Palma made a movie called Obsession, with the sort of same idea of a man who loses a woman he loves and years later finds someone else who looks just like her. He had even stated it was made because of his love of Vertigo. He actually got Bernard Herrmann to score the movie. It was the last great hurrah of his career and the score was nominated for an Acadamy Award after he died. Despite having that plus to the movie, the rest of it just doesn't compare to Vertigo. If you've seen Vertigo, then you sort of suspect right away what you think is going on and the movie doesn't seem to be trying to hide it at all. But then, nothing happens for a long time. And so I began to think that maybe this movie would be Vertigo but without the twist. A different examination of the theme of just trying to reduplicate a past love in one's life. Unfortunately, the movie does have a bit of the Vertigo solution although with its own twist that is frankly, so wrong, which is a shame because the first hour and 10 minutes were actually ok but it just shoots itself in the foot in those last 20 minutes. And then it seemed like it might go for the really tragic ending as which might have kind of bouyed my opinion back up but it went for the happy ending of which I did not feel happy about.
In the end, I still can't help but feel it is an ok and interesting enough movie to see. To me, it's Herrmann's show because once again, his score works so well with the dreamy, sort of etheral images on the screen and it's his score that carries the movie but man, it's just such a shame that movie stumbles so much at the end.
After seeing Obsession, it just further illustrates how well Hitchcock knew his craft. Even a movie like Marnie which has so many things about it that seem-outdated or just goofy (like Sean Connery playing the son of a wealthy American family despite his clearly scotish accent) you just gloss over those things because of how compelling and enjoyable he makes the picture.
Topic: Rate the last movie you've seen (Read 1553162 times)
