Popcorn in Bed - Vertigo

 Another classic. Another Hitchcock classic.

If you haven't seen the movie, this will all be spoilers.

One of my favorite observations about "Vertigo" is from a Roger Ebert article that is hard to find and not very well known:

Let's close by returning to "Vertigo." Every time I've gone through any film a shot at a time over several days, someone in the audience has noticed something amazing. When I was at the University of Virginia, we got to the point when Scottie (James Stewart) rescues the unconscious Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) from San Francisco Bay and takes her unconscious back to his apartment. He gently undresses her and puts her into bed.

"His action is incredible," I said. "He's changing an unconscious stranger."

"She's not unconscious," said a voice in the dark.

"What?"

"She's pretending. That wasn't Madeleine attempting suicide, but Judy playing Madeleine. She's pretending to be unconscious."

And Scotty saved her, did not ravish her, treated her gently, and tucked her in. That may help explain why the next time we see her, coming into the living room and joining Scottie, she has a glow in her eyes. Madeleine went into the bedroom, and Judy came out. It's then she starts to love and pity him. Oh, this is an even deeper film than it seems.    

And here is Roger Ebert's analysis of the color palette of "Vertigo" and what each means: link.

Read Roger Ebert's full review: here.

And here's a video "How Hitchcock Blocks a Scene" where the scene, of course, is from "Vertigo:"

Movie Review: Russian Ark (2002)

Russian Ark (2002)

Alfred Hitchcocks' classic "Rope" was famously made to look like it was shot in one continuous take. The actors would do long sequences of 6 minutes, or sometimes 10 minutes each, where, if anything went wrong, the whole thing had to be redone. By beginning and ending these sequences by focusing on static objects (and some other tricks) the long sequences could be edited together to appear to be one continuous shot. Hitchcock was limited by the maximum amount of film a camera could hold.

Alexander Sorkurov, armed with new digital camera technology, created "Russian Ark" - a 90 minute film - entirely contained within one continuous shot. With a cast of literally hundreds (perhaps a thousand or more) extras, the movie took six months of rehearsal in order to film the entire movie in one day. And given that that day in Russia only allows 4 hours of sunlight, and given that the movie is an hour and a half, they had only a few chances to get everything right.

We view the movie through the eyes of a Russian man (who is probably dead or perhaps dreaming) who finds and speaks to another man, a Frenchman, in the same situation. From the visual point of view of the Russian, we float through a palace and examine the world of the Russian aristocracy - we barge into diplomatic ceremonies, we glide through extravagant balls and drop in on masquerade parties. Most of the world we see is from the Tsarist Russia period but characters from all of Russia's history inhabit the same spaces.

The movie is avante-garde, mostly plotless and mostly characterless. Nothing is certain and nothing is explained. It's obviously not going to be most people's cup of tea. But it is also looks absolutely beautiful and the movement of the camera with the first-person point of view creates a dreamlike sensation. And, let's face it, part of the enjoyment is the appreciation of how it was done - it's about the spectacle and the feat of making something we've never seen before.

6/10.