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Vertigo

Vertigo

"Vertigo" is Alfred Hitchcock's beautifully stylized psychological thriller about a man in love with a fetishized romantic fantasy invented by another man. Following "Rope" (1948), "Rear Window" (1954), and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956), "Vertigo" is the last of four films James Stewart made with Hitchcock. Here Stewart's quintessential depiction of mid-20th century amiable masculinity plays Scottie Ferguson.

Scottie is a retired-cop-turned-private-investigator who suffers from a debilitating case of vertigo. Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), an old college buddy who knows about Scottie's condition, hires him to follow his potentially suicidal wife Madeleine (Kim Novak) around San Francisco during melancholy days of brooding self-reflection. Madeleine routinely goes to the Legion of Honor Museum in order to gaze upon a haunting painting of her grandmother Carlotta Valdes, whose grave she also visits daily.

A despondent leap into the cold waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge affords the film one of cinema's most iconic images and gives Scottie permission to rescue Madeleine and win her tragically wounded heart. Noir elements of deception and material artifice are a constant throughout this mystery. Madeleine's staged suicide from a Mission bell tower turns Scottie into an inconsolable man filled with lust for the deceased wife of his former client. When Scottie spots a woman named Judy Barton who is the spitting image of Madeleine (also played by Kim Novak), he pursues her with a twisted romantic motivation that borders on insanity.

Hitchcock's brilliant use of Bernard Herrmann's lush music, camera movement, dream sequences, a strict color palate, and precise framing, draws the audience into the mystery with a scintillating blend of cinematic structure. Gravity is its primary image system, bringing Scottie and Judy to equally unsure footing in a relationship that cannot by definition exist. To see the restored version of "Vertigo" (1958) on the big screen is to enter into the prolific mind of one of cinema's most accomplished masters. Sublime.

— C. Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

Vertigo

Mon October 15, 2012, 7:00 only, Muenzinger Auditorium

USA, 1958, in English, Color, 128 min, 1.50 : 1

recommend

Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus

International Film Series

(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.

First Person Cinema

(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

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(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil Grillo.

Celebrating Stan

Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.

C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.

Thank you, sponsors!
Boulder International Film Festival
Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

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