Bernard Herrmann - Composer Of Haunting Music and Treacherous Dreams

<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>by guest contributor Whistlingypsy </i></div><br /><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzF0A5oQmKbye4S5l40RMzi1S22tRf1tKR3yQT52Z3GC3cYEUP853Rq1rdK8G3xerqvqv_NWIKqarXh9DhWrgjyBeOspMPJ0Aq8LZX-JHp3tPM5Ntvj66wSFa-Mck6sTkKueGRM5MhtA/s1600/1aABernardHerrmann1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692811207392367874" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzF0A5oQmKbye4S5l40RMzi1S22tRf1tKR3yQT52Z3GC3cYEUP853Rq1rdK8G3xerqvqv_NWIKqarXh9DhWrgjyBeOspMPJ0Aq8LZX-JHp3tPM5Ntvj66wSFa-Mck6sTkKueGRM5MhtA/s320/1aABernardHerrmann1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0 12px 12px 0; width: 309px;" /></a><br /><i>Just as my fingers on these keys</i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Make music, so the self-same sounds</i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>On my spirit make a music, too.</i></div><div style="text-align: right;">~ <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">excerpt from </span><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Peter Quince at the Clavier</i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> by Wallace Stevens</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"I don’t think Mozart’s going to help at all."</i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: right;">~ Midge in <i>Vertigo</i></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">British composer Ralph Vaughn Williams, who greatly influenced young Bernard Herrmann and for whom he had a great admiration, took the subject of film score composition seriously and in encouraging his contemporaries to do the same said, “I believe that the film contains potentialities for the combination of all the arts such as Wagner never dreamed of, and I would therefore urge those distinguished musicians who have entered the world of the cinema to realize their responsibility in helping to take the film out of the realm of hack work and make it a subject of a real composer.” Music constitutes an essential part of the film experience, yet we often fail to acknowledge its importance to the way we perceive film. This is not to say that music is comprehensible only to those who have formal training; to the contrary the ability to appreciate music is a capacity we all share. The often overlooked genius of composing for film in general, and of Bernard Herrmann specifically, is an ability to work within the parameters of music theory while exploiting the viewer's instinctive knowledge of musical conventions, creating a lush musical landscape perfectly suited to the emotional content of the image captured on film.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Composer and conductor Bernard Herrmann was born on June 29, 1911 at New York City’s Lying In Hospital, the eldest of three children born to Abraham and Ida Herrmann. Benny, as he was known to his family, suffered a major health crisis at an early age in the form of St. Vitus’s Dance, which he barely survived. He spent much of his time as a boy and a young man reading biographies of artists and composers, learning musical works through his father’s collection of 78rpm recordings <img alt="" border="0" height="320" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5692811316891839074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUE6eqeSxpgDsBTEF1yAjFU36TuyqAOhiRy2vGILKV9T8JsBZwGsHVfLKFxSuPG-y_Oxgrf-KmgEzapDH9fxkWGoamGitHo2kQDmsioITBVQ0X8wu02CseB3poB38gmusuDx7kElumNPA/s320/1aABernardHerrmann2.jpg" style="float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0pt 0pt 12px 12px; width: 152px;" width="243" />and attending live performances of the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. His literary discoveries through the New York Public Library included the <i>Treatise on Orchestration</i> by Hector Beriloz (he was familiar with the composer’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Symphonie Fantastique</span> and later claimed the book convinced him to become a composer). Herrmann wrote many small-scale works as a teenager, most of which remain unpublished. He studied music at the Juilliard Graduate School, and at the age of twenty he formed the New Chamber Orchestra of New York.<br /><br />He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1934 where David Ross, CBS’s top announcer, asked Herrmann to compose music for his poetry reading series. Herrmann’s setting for <span style="font-style: italic;">La B</span><span style="font-style: italic;">elle Dame Sans Merci</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span>(a favorite poem at the time) so impressed CBS executives that he was given a job conducting and six years later became Chief Conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra. Through his many and diverse projects for CBS, in 1938 Herrmann was selected composer-conductor for <i>The Mercury Theatre on the Air</i>, which brought him to the attention of Orson Welles. The young director left no room for negotiation in his meetings with RKO executives concerning his choice to score his film, and he insisted Herrmann should receive a competitive salary despite his inexperience, “If he’s good enough to do my score, he’s good enough to get the best price.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1FRrJz3Ksir3QtIA2enzRqsqbptADjyDaA0Q30b9ysUftxO5IEw4z0QtNW5qD1_1DI6ntxGYSWBDtUtNpOGSAxu_oLT-3gmkRr1uQ4YWHhm-39U4NFfmp6k7ESmdoIMBGVFpOv4imyM/s1600/Welles+and+Herrmann+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1FRrJz3Ksir3QtIA2enzRqsqbptADjyDaA0Q30b9ysUftxO5IEw4z0QtNW5qD1_1DI6ntxGYSWBDtUtNpOGSAxu_oLT-3gmkRr1uQ4YWHhm-39U4NFfmp6k7ESmdoIMBGVFpOv4imyM/s320/Welles+and+Herrmann+2.jpg" width="276" /></a></div>Herrmann was no snob about cinema, he was familiar not only with American films and composers but also with their European counterparts, but he was well aware of the obstacles in composing for film. A film composer often completed scores in as little as two or three weeks, rarely had time to do his own orchestration, and once the music was written and conducted had little to say about the sound levels or dynamics of the score in the finished film. Herrmann was confident, however, that working with Welles would be different and it was with no small excitement that he announced his leave of absence to go to Hollywood. His career as a composer for film was demanding and rewarding, in addition to his outstanding scores for <i>Citizen Kane</i> (1941) and <i>The Magnificent Ambersons </i>(1942), he earned his reputation for glorious music on films such as <i>Jane Eyre</i> (1943), <i>Hangover Square</i> (1945) and <i>The Ghost and Mrs. Muir</i> (1947), all of which were about to bring him to the attention of another Hollywood genius, Alfred Hitchcock.<br /><br />The sometimes variable nature of film composition often left the composer without work and Herrmann wrote the score, the first of two "television operas," for a 1954 television adaption of Dickens's classic holiday story. His original compositions for television also included <i>The Twilight Zone</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>from 1959 through 1964, for which he composed the original theme as well as scores for seven episodes (at least three of which were included as part of the Syfy Channel's New Year's Day marathon). His work for <i>The Alfred Hitchcock Hour</i> from 1963 through 1965 included original compositions for seventeen episodes.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><object height="359" width="485"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/H6W_MSxnPAw?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/H6W_MSxnPAw?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="359" width="485"></embed></object></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bernard Herrmann's "Concerto Macabre," <i>Hangover Square</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Much has been written regarding the turbulent end to the collaboration between Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock, both from the composer’s and the director’s perspective. Herrmann and Hitchcock were, for most of their eleven years of collaboration, friends as well as associates and Steven C. Smith, author of <u>A Heart At Fire’s Center</u>, observes, “The rapport between the two was strong from the start.” The Hitchcocks often played host to the Herrmanns; Benny and Lucy were invited to spend the weekend at Hitchcock’s secluded Bel Air home, where days were spent in leisurely conversation and evenings spent enjoying Alma’s superb cooking.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiHR5I1R3U9pf-KFcUE8CswIgi4S9qfkvljaXvo2gqRx4OReNcZ5I3o3fFp1TohTW2ENDYZ9D0Rla-JuYbbt7tHReDkSb3xASAmHbhyZft_Ihnr_9ThkPXn8how6kCmi_vRsJTYWJswck/s1600/hitchcock+and+herrmann+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiHR5I1R3U9pf-KFcUE8CswIgi4S9qfkvljaXvo2gqRx4OReNcZ5I3o3fFp1TohTW2ENDYZ9D0Rla-JuYbbt7tHReDkSb3xASAmHbhyZft_Ihnr_9ThkPXn8how6kCmi_vRsJTYWJswck/s320/hitchcock+and+herrmann+2.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>Jack Sullivan, author of <u>Hitchcock’s Music</u>, suggests the director’s relationships with his composers were often passionate, and as often troubled, in part because the director was "intoxicated by and knowledgeable about music.” Hitchcock's music and sound notes for <i>Vertigo</i> were more specific than on past projects, but what finally emerged as Herrmann’s film score is very different from what Hitchcock had planned. The film’s original title, <span style="font-style: italic;">From Among The Dead</span>, was a reference to the French novel on which the story is based, and Herrmann’s composition was to be supplemented by passages from a lost score that had haunted the director for decades.<br /><br />Hitchcock had seen <span style="font-style: italic;">Mary Rose</span>, a dramatic tale of lost love regained written by J. M. Barrie, during the play’s London run in 1920 and became enthralled by the music of Norman O'Neill.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGO28CkdNePKhUtOI7YTTv0KY1qsCRoqqGkml6ocOHQ59SQanPQDF-2es2Yfio9KW82Am6nkw8s3j5hjEj6Cr7qzj9U53QOSlec40v8G25MnVg12LUDA3NUd0mN89thuqo0pkk3tZ5J6c/s1600/herrmann+conducts+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGO28CkdNePKhUtOI7YTTv0KY1qsCRoqqGkml6ocOHQ59SQanPQDF-2es2Yfio9KW82Am6nkw8s3j5hjEj6Cr7qzj9U53QOSlec40v8G25MnVg12LUDA3NUd0mN89thuqo0pkk3tZ5J6c/s320/herrmann+conducts+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i>The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular,</i><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span>Volume 62 dated March 1, 1921, described the composer and his work for <i>Mary Rose</i> as follows: “A dreamer of dreams and a mystic, Norman O’Neill has the power of expressing in his music the ethereal world in which he dwells. His flights of fancy, intangible though they are, touch a responsive chord in the hearts of the imaginative. . . .The ‘Mary Rose’ call continued to haunt the ear with gentle insistence long after it had reached echo-land.” Hitchcock was especially struck by 'the Call' connected with the heroine's disappearance, he later remembered the sensation as "celestial voices, like Debussy's <i>Sirenes nocturne</i>." Hitchcock twice failed to uncover the music, which he had also intended to use as part of the <i>Rebecca</i> film score, and as usual he deferred to Herrmann with memos and notes reflecting his confidence in the composer, "Mr. Herrmann may have something to say here" and "All of this will naturally depend upon what music Mr. Herrmann puts over this sequence."</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div face="Verdana,sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"><object height="359" width="485"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/E5Y7mbfS5r8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/E5Y7mbfS5r8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="359" width="485"></embed></object></div><div face="Verdana,sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Debussy's "Sirenes nocturne"</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />If there is truth in the notion that music is the language of the inexpressible; Bernard Herrmann’s film score for <i>Vertigo</i> has given a voice to an ordinary man who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Herrmann’s main title sequence intentionally avoids an identifiable melody, exploits unpredictable rhythmic changes and flirts with tonal ambiguity. Kathryn Kalinak, author of <u>Settling The Score</u> observed, "The combination of violins and tubas played in alternately ascending and descending arpeggiated chords (played in succession rather than simultaneously)" and moving in contrary motion creates an asymmetry (if you will) of sound keeping the viewer continually off guard musically. Herrmann's main title music is heard first, but the musical effect in combination with Saul Bass's visual imagery in the opening credits reinforces the feeling of vertigo. The visual acts as counterpoint to the music; the spiraling images create a visual vortex in the same manner the music creates a spatial vortex and the viewer enters the world of the film suspended between two possibilities. Film criticism often invites the amateur “to see into” the life of a film, which results in as many interpretations of dramatic themes and visual cues as there are viewers. Film music makes a distinction between the life experienced by the characters and the life viewed by the audience.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="goog_150159566"></span><span id="goog_150159567"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffgMiJHmdpQq54wolT32s51Bn9jSEmVfZO_yWlGXRk0-fiktrDIPjOah_lXEu7CeZLPIrT7TdVAIyT8lGpftU3U1tjdlPabNCb5H1sWunRbuqI0o1VkLyks0RVq4oswX4ATZfQaWEshA/s1600/Stewart+hangs+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffgMiJHmdpQq54wolT32s51Bn9jSEmVfZO_yWlGXRk0-fiktrDIPjOah_lXEu7CeZLPIrT7TdVAIyT8lGpftU3U1tjdlPabNCb5H1sWunRbuqI0o1VkLyks0RVq4oswX4ATZfQaWEshA/s1600/Stewart+hangs+b.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />The classical film score can often combine <span style="font-style: italic;">nondiegetic</span> music, music heard by the audience but not experienced by the characters, and <span style="font-style: italic;">diegetic</span> music, music heard as part of the world in which the characters move and live. The two instances in which diegetic or “live” music occur in <i>Vertigo</i> are scenes of emotional significance for Midge and Scottie. The first occurs after a bit of magical thinking on the part of Hitchcock, when Scottie is inexplicably delivered from hanging precariously between life and death. The scene opens on a cozy domestic setting, the man and woman could be husband and wife, could be brother and sister. We learn about both through their comfortable exchanges and through the use of music. John-O, as she calls him, and Midge share a past but appear uncomfortable in their present relationship. Her choice of music, an <span style="font-style: italic;">Overture by </span><span style="font-style: italic;">J. C. Bach</span>, and her taste in contemporary furniture slyly hint that she is comfortable making brief visits to the past while living very much in the present. He is uncomfortable sitting in her Eames style chair and tells her the music is the cause of his vertigo (all important cues in the events that will soon engulf Scottie). The second, and perhaps more significant, occurs in the use of <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Mozart’s 34th Symphony</span> </i>as “a rope from heaven” to draw Scottie from his abyss of acute melancholia with guilt complex.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKULmIfmVoPicvrIXw_WcbMqmiYxCFSYEE1Gt42zSWDtYbu-TGnQdAyWrciWknlv3yMMUOW4QfDzNAj_tNq-w1dnzLUQYdbTVbRdbfr9uAUJlMj9v1rjDiMDx-NA2gUPall7xmilkhYE/s1600/midge+and+scottie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKULmIfmVoPicvrIXw_WcbMqmiYxCFSYEE1Gt42zSWDtYbu-TGnQdAyWrciWknlv3yMMUOW4QfDzNAj_tNq-w1dnzLUQYdbTVbRdbfr9uAUJlMj9v1rjDiMDx-NA2gUPall7xmilkhYE/s400/midge+and+scottie.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Musical therapy was first used after World War I in an attempt to reach veterans suffering from profound mental trauma, and Scottie's musical therapist has told Midge that Mozart is the boy for him (Author and physician Oliver Sacks relates in <span style="font-style: italic;">Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain</span> not only is music haunting, irresistible and unforgettable, but "music occupies more areas of our brain than language does and humans are essentially a musical species"). Scottie responds to Midge, following her with his eyes and turning his head in her direction, but we can't help but agree with Midge that Mozart isn't going to help at all.<br /><br />James Stewart’s Scottie is half enthralled to possibility, but remains half captive to reality. A man no longer content with his passivity in the face of life’s acting on him; he is trapped in a sort of tenacious, immaterial fantasy rendering him incapable of action. In his ability to capture the ineffable quality of this character’s waking nightmare, Herrmann essentially created a film score that can be heard on two levels simultaneously. His use of leitmotifs reminiscent of both Wagner’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Tristan and Isolde</span> and Berlioz’s<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Symphonie Fantastique</span>, share thematic similarities but are by no means derivative. Herrmann is here demonstrating his comprehension that some members of his audience will recognize the reference to these musical passages, while all will understand the emotional content of his music (an equivalent can be found in the screenwriter who includes lines of poetry by John Keats which reference the Romantic era against which the film is set. Those familiar with Keats’s life will understand the specific reference; those unfamiliar with Keats’s life will hear the beauty of the poet’s words).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWqLDczLa6WhX3ggvxkXTVyD3HQz6L4lhEX3TAn32awLWaRWOZ8UTD7i4naxhr85CAc8FaUsSXMuRr2cAE8EaXGe3gB2ptjqgpjEjUiAfnLUxqrUK_ixIbTHdZ8zqonPsfg_OhHvDbT5s/s1600/scottie+and+madeleine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWqLDczLa6WhX3ggvxkXTVyD3HQz6L4lhEX3TAn32awLWaRWOZ8UTD7i4naxhr85CAc8FaUsSXMuRr2cAE8EaXGe3gB2ptjqgpjEjUiAfnLUxqrUK_ixIbTHdZ8zqonPsfg_OhHvDbT5s/s400/scottie+and+madeleine.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Bernard Herrmann has been called "Hitchcock's Maestro," and while he might have been uniquely suited to capture the spirit of the dark and troubling tales the director brought to the screen, his work before the famed collaboration would establish his reputation. His affinity for the Romantic era, equally the composers as the poets, his "pastoral poetic gloom" and artful mourning of that which is irrevocably lost can all be heard in the hauntingly similar <span style="font-style: italic;">Portrait of Jennie</span> (1948) for which he composed the theme song but was not credited. An observation regarding <i>Vertigo</i> highlights the intrinsic nature of Herrmann's score in the film's storytelling: close your eyes and listen to any passage and be immediately transported to locations and scenes in the film. The true power of Herrmann's score is in the music's ability to be heard independently from Hitchcock's images (the dream fades, the music lingers). Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, recognized the art of Bernard Herrmann's film music, performing and recording many of Herrmann's compositions. <span style="font-style: italic;">Scene D’Amour</span> is the moving heart of a poignant film portrayal of a man suspended between action and despair, death and life, love and obsession, themes worthy of any Romantic era composer.<br /><br /><i>In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song</i><br /><i> Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong</i><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>~ excerpt from <i>Piano</i> by D. H. Lawrence.</div><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><object height="359" width="485"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/_naJH44Lk3I?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/_naJH44Lk3I?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="359" width="485"></embed></object></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, "Scene D'Amour" from <i>Vertigo</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br />~</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9vyqpnmvdPbpAmXB30r_oEdlFzZy-ouKK40C0laQ3fzQhg_Hw4nqLCkk-3zos_Lx6iCUb2XcABgSGtForp04NuaUbp78yuhNoYpAtzOiRp9h_Y_SyY1-jd4sCOcFkEIfLRu5h1HSkop4/s1600/Whistlingypsy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9vyqpnmvdPbpAmXB30r_oEdlFzZy-ouKK40C0laQ3fzQhg_Hw4nqLCkk-3zos_Lx6iCUb2XcABgSGtForp04NuaUbp78yuhNoYpAtzOiRp9h_Y_SyY1-jd4sCOcFkEIfLRu5h1HSkop4/s200/Whistlingypsy.jpg" width="147" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><i><b>Whistlingypsy</b>/aka/Karin of </i><a href="http://distant-voicesandflickering-shadows.blogspot.com/" style="color: #990000;">Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows</a><i> is a technical writer working on a contract/freelance basis who lives in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas. She was inspired by The Lady Eve (the blogger not the movie) to begin a blog and share her fascination for Jazz Age music and Silent Era films. She considers herself an enthusiastic amateur with an interest in films, music and writing.</i><i><br /></i></div>

A Month of Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock Barbara Bel Geddes Bernard Herrmann James Stewart Kim Novak Vertigo Whistlingypsy (author) Bernard Herrmann - Composer Of Haunting Music and Treacherous Dreams

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy Just as my fingers on these keysMake music, so the self-same soundsOn my spirit make a music, too.~ excerpt from Peter Quince at the Clavier by Wallace Stevens"I don’t think Mozart’s going to help at all."~ Midge in…

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Deadly Obsession: Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO

<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>by guest contributor R.D. Finch</i></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Q461R4v6TaoOiZsNb__lq68SMG7t1x6WOayngCaFhVkhfU2MWnIGy6ZoP_1OmzNlbfTSTC9aXvLv8MwQVI4sbq5-sADXjD3FcW0bxx6vYYDBryIM0fdWvmKyscbhnKaamrzd0GCZmK_J/s1600/RD+vertigo+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Q461R4v6TaoOiZsNb__lq68SMG7t1x6WOayngCaFhVkhfU2MWnIGy6ZoP_1OmzNlbfTSTC9aXvLv8MwQVI4sbq5-sADXjD3FcW0bxx6vYYDBryIM0fdWvmKyscbhnKaamrzd0GCZmK_J/s1600/RD+vertigo+8.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">"What's that old Oscar Wilde thing? 'Each man kills the thing he loves...' That I think is a very natural phenomenon, really."</span></i><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;">Alfred Hitchcock, in a 1963 interview</span></div><br /><span style="font-size: small;">In his fifty-five year long career in films, Alfred Hitchcock directed sixty-seven movies. At least a dozen of these are bona fide masterpieces, and about an equal number are excellent movies that fall just short of the masterpiece mark. By any measure that's an impressive record, one unequaled by any other filmmaker I can think of. Even more impressive is that Hitchcock's pictures are not rarefied works of art of interest mainly to aesthetes and film scholars, but full-blooded movies that appeal equally to ordinary filmgoers looking for accomplished entertainments and to cinephiles looking for an intellectually and artistically stimulating film-viewing experience. Of all Hitchcock's pictures, none managed to combine these two modes—entertainment and art—so skillfully, so intriguingly, and so pleasingly as his 1958 film <i>Vertigo</i>.</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: small;"> Most people are familiar with the plot of <i>Vertigo</i>. A retired San Francisco police detective, John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart), psychologically traumatized after a rooftop chase to apprehend a criminal ends badly, is targeted as a dupe by his old college friend Gavin Elster, who exploits Scottie's crippling fear of heights to bring off an intricate scheme to murder his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak). The film's plot is a clever one and since this is a mystery thriller with hints of the supernatural (can Madeleine really be the reincarnation of her ancestor, as she believes?), neither the audience nor Scottie realizes what is really happening until quite far into the film. This allows the viewer's understanding of the situation to be manipulated, just as Scottie's is, to create a mood of suspense and, after the truth is revealed to the viewer about three-quarters of the way through the film, for that suspense to be prolonged as the film proceeds in a completely unexpected direction right up to its shock ending.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzUFAe1aYlBpATnyvewIqIhDd87pwj_0Fq4llaSlw5J3YxCFT5sEG4wLdKrkcg0B1uwRWunVg11MMEUDKSXdgqmDOdTdEXEPuH5KJsfi5WkB4FN0aovjxlOshmns6lqcB_XIxmR_57Vfg/s1600/RD+vertigo+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzUFAe1aYlBpATnyvewIqIhDd87pwj_0Fq4llaSlw5J3YxCFT5sEG4wLdKrkcg0B1uwRWunVg11MMEUDKSXdgqmDOdTdEXEPuH5KJsfi5WkB4FN0aovjxlOshmns6lqcB_XIxmR_57Vfg/s320/RD+vertigo+5.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;">Such a narrative strategy requires that the viewer's reactions be precisely guided at every turn, and nobody was more expert at this than Hitchcock. Well known for his need for absolute control over all aspects of his films from conception to release, Hitchcock was by temperament the epitome of the film auteur, the director who puts his stamp on every element of his work. The way he accomplished this was by meticulous attention to detail. Because each shot was storyboarded in advance, the final film essentially needed no editing and thus was immune to tampering with by producers and studio executives. Like most filmmakers who began by directing silents, Hitchcock viewed cinema storytelling as essentially a visual process, with dialogue, music, and sound used to augment the film's imagery. Because the way he chose to show the action—placement and movement of the camera, the use of visual effects that formed his famous set pieces, the exact way images succeeded one another to form a spatial and narrative continuum—was the product of his own imagination, his films always seem expressions of a personal and very distinctive vision. Many directors have made movies in the Hitchcock style, but I can't think of a single one of these films that on close viewing could actually be mistaken for the work of the master himself.<br /><br />Because of the convoluted and deceptive nature of its plot, <i>Vertigo</i> is even more dependent on Hitchcock's almost obsessive attention to detail as a means of controlling audience response than any other film he made. But in <i>Vertigo</i> he uses his working methods as much more than merely a practical means of telling a story in his own way. He amplifies his control-freak approach to directing until it becomes an all-encompassing aesthetic used to suggest a great deal more than is apparent in what at first seems little more than a deftly contrived suspense melodrama. It is this effect of using every device in his vast panoply of cinematic tricks to evince the complex psychological and thematic undertones of the film that makes <i>Vertigo</i> Hitchcock's greatest achievement. It's a haunting film that can be watched again and again and still continue to entertain and thrill and deliver new revelations.<br /><br />Perhaps the most powerful and resonant thing about the film is the way Hitchcock uses repetition to emphasize the idea of doubling. Elements in the first part of the film recur later in the film, and elements in the later part of the film mirror those in the first part, giving the film a strange pattern of symmetrical associations. Scottie seeks out places where he saw Madeleine in the beginning of the film and revisits them later in the film: the missions, the florist's shop, the museum, Ernie's restaurant. He watches Judy at her hotel window the same way he watched Madeleine at her hotel window earlier. His transformation of Judy into Madeleine exactly duplicates Elster's transformation of Judy to pass her off as his wife.<br /><br />Near the end of the picture Hitchcock expresses the complete fusion of Madeleine and Judy, of past and present, of Scottie's memories and his dreams, in the most striking of several memorable set pieces in the film—a long, passionate kiss between Scottie and Judy after he sees her for the first time as the fully re-created Madeleine. The camera swirls, Scottie and Judy swirl, and the room appears to revolve around them. The background fades from Judy's room to the stable where Scottie and Madeleine kissed for the last time and finally back to Judy's room again, while Bernard Herrmann's glorious music—clearly inspired by Wagner's <i>Tristan und Isolde</i>—surges and pulses in unison with the intense emotions of the passage. It's the most rapturously erotic scene in a Hitchcock movie since the kiss in <i>Notorious</i>.</span><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASvzr1-h-M6YtpfVA_PbFsm8wxDUuQFoVPi2O4mx85GoDSZlJ2nlWEIoi-bLYuWRtj9wFgFuFp947ix19nr22Fe1YS4-2pEV8iwjXBbLPStuCB0frUKFcK2N8iiT7V5XAsr4mdheRHvPd/s1600/RD+Vertigo+3+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASvzr1-h-M6YtpfVA_PbFsm8wxDUuQFoVPi2O4mx85GoDSZlJ2nlWEIoi-bLYuWRtj9wFgFuFp947ix19nr22Fe1YS4-2pEV8iwjXBbLPStuCB0frUKFcK2N8iiT7V5XAsr4mdheRHvPd/s1600/RD+Vertigo+3+b.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hitchcock was famous for his lack of interest in the acting of his performers, and for saying that actors should be treated like cattle, that is, prodded into doing what he needed for the shot he was working on. This was perhaps a holdover from his silent days, when facial expressions, body language, and movement were more important than character development and line delivery because the director essentially created the performance visually, through the staging and editing of the film. This is one reason experienced theater actors often found working with Hitchcock such a frustrating experience. Yet for all this, in <i>Vertigo</i> he gets two remarkable performances from his stars.<br /><br />It is well documented that Kim Novak was not Hitchcock's first choice to play Madeleine/Judy; Vera Miles was. But by the time he was ready to begin shooting, Miles was pregnant and so somebody else had to be cast. I have no idea how he hit on the idea of casting Kim Novak, but I did notice that just as Elster and Scottie transform Judy into the image of Madeleine, Hitchcock almost seems to transform Kim Novak into an uncanny image of Grace Kelly, right down to her hair and makeup, and her accent and diction. I can't help wondering if one of the reasons <i>Vertigo</i> seems to be Hitchcock's most personal film is his own understanding of the compulsion behind Scottie's Pygmalion-like behavior.<br /><br />At any rate, Novak, who under the right conditions could be a much better actress than she is generally given credit for, does a tremendous job as the mysterious, spaced-out Madeleine. But her more demanding incarnation as Judy is even more impressive. If Madeleine is an enigma, Judy is a fully defined character. Hitchcock and his writer, Samuel Taylor, make a daring narrative decision that happens soon after Scottie meets Judy. The conventional thing to do would have been to conceal the truth about the murder plot from the audience until the end then reveal it to the viewer and Scottie at the same time, in the kind of twist ending typical of films of this kind. Instead Hitchcock and Taylor devise a situation in which Judy writes a letter to Scottie explaining everything to him then impetuously tears it up before he sees it.<br /><br />The audience is now aware of the true nature of events even if Scottie isn't, and the entire tone of the movie has changed. Now that we know the truth, the point of view shifts much more in Judy's direction. The crux of suspense is no longer what really happened, but how long will it take Scottie to figure it out and what will be his reaction when he does. What all this means for Novak's performance is that she can no longer play her character as an enigma, but must externalize the conflict Judy feels about what she has done to Scottie and the ambivalence she feels about his controlling attitude. Novak's role immediately becomes much more demanding, and she handles the requirements of those demands admirably. If only she looked less like a caricature of a rather common shopgirl!<br /><br />But the real center of the movie is James Stewart's Scottie, a character who inspires Stewart to give one of the most remarkable performances of his career. We tend to think of the screen persona of James Stewart as that of an optimistic, boyish everyman. But in truth Stewart's characters often had a dark side to them, a willfulness that threatened to cause the passion of their emotions to spill over into obsession. We tend to forget this because until <i>Vertigo</i>, even though that dark side might threaten to take over whatever character Stewart was playing—George Bailey or even Jefferson Smith for Frank Capra or one of the revenge-driven men in the Westerns he made with Anthony Mann, for instance—at the end of the film his character always managed to pull back from the brink before he went over the edge. Hitchcock himself perceived the latent darkness in Stewart's screen image and used it as a sort of dangerous recklessness in the characters Stewart played in <i>Rope</i> and <i>Rear Window</i>. But in <i>Vertigo</i>, for the first and only time I can think of, Stewart's character is completely overcome by the darkness in him and propels the film to a catastrophic conclusion.<br /><br />During the course of the picture, Stewart must convincingly go through a series of changes that illustrate the stages of the disintegration of Scottie's personality. At the beginning of the movie, he seems like the familiar James Stewart. He has experienced a traumatizing event, his life has been drastically changed by it, and he must live with the handicap of disabling acrophobia. But his resilience and sense of proportion intact, he seems able to cope with the changes in his circumstances. As he reluctantly follows Madeleine, he finds his detective's curiosity about this mysterious woman aroused. Curiosity soon turns to fascination and then to passionate love. At this point he is already beginning to lose his objectivity as he desperately tries to rationalize Madeleine's delusional behavior.<br /><br />After Madeleine's death, he is a broken man, a state he conveys in his scenes in the mental hospital through his dazed expression and total lack of affect. If he seems to have regained a precarious sense of balance after several months of treatment, he begins to lose it as soon as he first spots Judy. As he grows closer to her, he progressively loses control of himself until he has become an emotional juggernaut moving inexorably toward the annihilation of both himself and the object of his love. This idea that external and internal forces could collude in such a way to transform a person's ego into an unstoppable engine of destruction is a chilling one indeed.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQpiNl0Djp-SxMcLF7OPyWZmjxRhZDFv7AaDfJH1qNYFdFHJadf5Egp6OKAvAPc9d3aNlpHrOu7TIISMR8uAovvwHNhO39J7iG4u8CwhcpEyyHb2fXT_2ECCT0qqvLu96G4NYuF02Ou7SH/s1600/RD+vertigo+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQpiNl0Djp-SxMcLF7OPyWZmjxRhZDFv7AaDfJH1qNYFdFHJadf5Egp6OKAvAPc9d3aNlpHrOu7TIISMR8uAovvwHNhO39J7iG4u8CwhcpEyyHb2fXT_2ECCT0qqvLu96G4NYuF02Ou7SH/s1600/RD+vertigo+9.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">By the film's conclusion, Hitchcock has carefully guided us to a place where he is at last able to make the point he has been aiming for all along: the fine distinction between passion and obsession, between real life and dreams, between creation and destruction. The death of Judy at the end makes real the fake suicide that was staged for Scotty's benefit earlier. What began as make-believe has taken on a terrible life of its own and become reality, a reality born of the destructive potential when love overpowers reason.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">~ </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><i>A nearly life-long cinephile, <b>R. D. Finch</b> lives in rural Northern California. His favorite films are the classics (roughly 1930-1980), both American and foreign. His blog,<a href="http://themovieprojector.blogspot.com/" style="color: #990000;">The Movie Projector</a><span style="color: black;">, was honored with two CiMBA Awards in 2010 from the Classic Movie Blog Association: Best Film Review (Musical or Comedy) for his post </span></i><span style="color: black;">Love Me Tonight (1932)<i>, and Best Classic Movie Article for his piece </i>The Best Fred Astaire Musicals Without Ginger Rogers. </span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnTmRO1yjFf66xDkJjVVVGxWhfpebXHMz7G6WoPVXm9PV1LDeJz7KSV_g3gt-yyAR_OV8J5C3iaDc2LeQgo9azZkZ4PKlbgxey9WqoVrCKKK5sPKjO8F7pcIqxJrKBy73Uh2jZb0YFb0/s1600/The+Movie+Projector+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="77" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnTmRO1yjFf66xDkJjVVVGxWhfpebXHMz7G6WoPVXm9PV1LDeJz7KSV_g3gt-yyAR_OV8J5C3iaDc2LeQgo9azZkZ4PKlbgxey9WqoVrCKKK5sPKjO8F7pcIqxJrKBy73Uh2jZb0YFb0/s320/The+Movie+Projector+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div></div>

A Month of Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock Bernard Herrmann James Stewart Kim Novak R.D. Finch Vertigo Deadly Obsession: Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO

by guest contributor R.D. Finch"What's that old Oscar Wilde thing? 'Each man kills the thing he loves...' That I think is a very natural phenomenon, really."Alfred Hitchcock, in a 1963 interviewIn his fifty-five year long career in films, Alfred Hitc…

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North by Northwest - free to the public...

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr637xG2iyQ_sRktVwa9aEU8Zvq6KuG0SUPERY3uaNJYOQWJP5tDcVNJhZuNEB8d7XMX8uxPQjtczN1SEX8dJsiZlajboQ7Jeg7y0gOswjWpQ0xTvHld3ON4JkaKk91gn6ElX0UtTckIAO/s1600/NxNW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr637xG2iyQ_sRktVwa9aEU8Zvq6KuG0SUPERY3uaNJYOQWJP5tDcVNJhZuNEB8d7XMX8uxPQjtczN1SEX8dJsiZlajboQ7Jeg7y0gOswjWpQ0xTvHld3ON4JkaKk91gn6ElX0UtTckIAO/s320/NxNW.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83aD-6R-rdZTEsPdUtZICQS45Vc1oWGtSvEEZOXg9q-_VzGytTEii0RAMSWQTTT-Wy5ilXYHrCrAQcD4Gu5O_0xILq0jDF1-b2sBfjVLnmedqK1IagbcGezl684kMwhe2A-Kn7xyR-MnK/s1600/nxnw+audience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83aD-6R-rdZTEsPdUtZICQS45Vc1oWGtSvEEZOXg9q-_VzGytTEii0RAMSWQTTT-Wy5ilXYHrCrAQcD4Gu5O_0xILq0jDF1-b2sBfjVLnmedqK1IagbcGezl684kMwhe2A-Kn7xyR-MnK/s320/nxnw+audience.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">When I was a little girl, the only director whose name I knew was Alfred Hitchcock. Though I didn't see any of his signature films of the era in a theater - <i>Rear Window</i> (1954), <i>To Catch a Thief</i> (1955), <i>Vertigo</i> (1958), <i>North by Northwest</i> (1959) - I must've seen the trailers, because I was well aware that he made exciting, colorful and glamorous movies.</span><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Psycho</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> (1960) was the first Hitchcock film I watched on in a theater. I saw <i>Psycho </i>(a far cry from his elaborate VistaVision/Technicolor creations of the 1950s) second-run (I was <i>finally</i> old enough) at the local movie house, the Ritz Theater, with a friend who'd already seen it. Pal that she was, she nudged me just as Arbogast, the detective, reached the staircase landing of the Bates home and a figure with a knife darted toward him...naturally, I shrieked long and loud...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">I was fortunate enough to see <i>Rear Window</i> when it was re-released into theaters in 1984, but have seen most of Hitchcock's films on television. There's no question that his work comes through powerfully on TV, but his films were made – carefully - to be seen on full-size theater screens.</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjDVlIn6pkex3gmKtAHxtjk1_8AYLjZY_3SmPVd3gyMMbsloLcphtilF64YL6aneiN_gBBTLXtoAEmcjqQfRWAbUGpo0cuXTF_zDgJ8E0zmNJNnFK-1O1pAWOQ-X4_M0vBuJ9OIlEozJo/s1600/Rafaelatnight-300x225%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgjDVlIn6pkex3gmKtAHxtjk1_8AYLjZY_3SmPVd3gyMMbsloLcphtilF64YL6aneiN_gBBTLXtoAEmcjqQfRWAbUGpo0cuXTF_zDgJ8E0zmNJNnFK-1O1pAWOQ-X4_M0vBuJ9OIlEozJo/s1600/Rafaelatnight-300x225%255B1%255D.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rafael Theatre, San Rafael, California</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Last July the nearby <a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/search/label/Rafael%20Theater"><span style="color: #990000;">Rafael Theatre</span> </a>screened the silent version of Hitchcock’s <i style="color: #cc0000;"><a href="http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/search/label/blackmail" style="color: #990000;">Blackmail</a> </i>(1929). The film exceeded my expectations in just about every way possible. I was surprised that it as well-crafted and fluid as it was and that it contained so many elements that were to become Hitchcock trademarks. Live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra underscored the action and added dimension. And it was thrilling to be surrounded by an appreciative SRO audience.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Six weeks later, at noon on Sunday, September 5, the Rafael presented <i>North by Northwest</i>, free to the public, as part of its quarterly "Everybody's Classics" series. At 11:40 a.m. the line was long, but good seats were still to be had. By show time Theater 1 was packed and anticipation ran high.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Then Bernard Herrmann's pulsing score began and the crisscrossing lines of Saul Bass's title sequence filled the screen. <i>North by Northwest</i> was upon us and in just a few exhilarating moments I was whisked into the adventure.</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncfTwxhlJ2LRmR7Js0ElvhCP0rydU3WwiZlcaNajjCjteH2h-thupKtdDIKMMWhqDVOae1u3vYpADTARrMJn1gVzZ1b2WssACPfp3TBJfeR46TrNQl3knU-mnnua1ISQmQn54Akoy3td6/s1600/North%252520by%252520Northwest%252520movie%252520image%252520%25283%2529%255B1%255D+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncfTwxhlJ2LRmR7Js0ElvhCP0rydU3WwiZlcaNajjCjteH2h-thupKtdDIKMMWhqDVOae1u3vYpADTARrMJn1gVzZ1b2WssACPfp3TBJfeR46TrNQl3knU-mnnua1ISQmQn54Akoy3td6/s320/North%252520by%252520Northwest%252520movie%252520image%252520%25283%2529%255B1%255D+b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cary Grant - the adventure begins</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Possibly Hitchcock's quintessential thrill-ride, <i>North by Northwest</i> incorporates many familiar themes and plot devices - an innocent man accused, a romance complicated by mistrust and betrayal, a double chase (the police after the innocent man and the innocent man after the true villain), a backdrop of international espionage...</span><br /><br /><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">North by Northwest</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> has been linked to two of Hitchcock's earlier classics, <i>The 39 Steps</i><b> </b>(1935) and <i>Notorious</i> (1946), but by 1959 the director, at the height of his powers, was in a position to control just about every aspect of his films, much more so than he had been 10 and 20+ years earlier.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">He was able to cast his favorite actor/star, Cary Grant, in the lead. And though he was unsuccessful in enticing Princess Grace back to the screen as his leading lady, he transformed Academy Award-winning method actress Eva Marie Saint into a stunning and complex femme fatale. James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G. Carroll and Jessie Royce Landis rounded out his first-rate cast.</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLm5_dVQc_8P3zWLK5BEr_R1Tz5jlUh_VZVlsnINBG7Gqa80U-UgV_u3ix8BcNzpWIigkkar68CB7NvSlGN5uEDSMGZqZXGUUByPgOnNvbnc9v3toGPGV8MBOS6OOwSWbTTL1oVSftLfi/s1600/nxnw+hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLm5_dVQc_8P3zWLK5BEr_R1Tz5jlUh_VZVlsnINBG7Gqa80U-UgV_u3ix8BcNzpWIigkkar68CB7NvSlGN5uEDSMGZqZXGUUByPgOnNvbnc9v3toGPGV8MBOS6OOwSWbTTL1oVSftLfi/s320/nxnw+hands.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, hands on </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Bernard Herrmann, who by now had worked with Hitchcock on several films, was just completing the score for the pilot of "The Twilight Zone" when he began <i>North by Northwest</i>. Ernest Lehman wrote the sophisticated and clever script that earned an Oscar nomination. Academy Award winning cinematographer Robert Burks, production designer Robert F. Boyle (also Oscar-nominated for this film) and other Hitchcock stalwarts joined in the collaboration.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">All of these ingredients plus glorious VistaVision and Technicolor added up to produce one of Hitchcock's most successful and exciting films.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">I'd seen <i>North by Northwest</i><b> </b>countless times and felt I knew the film well, but to finally see it on a movie screen was akin to seeing it for the first time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">To begin with, Cary Grant's starpower was almost overpowering - his screen presence was that commanding. What grace, what confidence…and how impossibly handsome he was. It's not surprising that Bernard Herrmann adjusted his score to match what he described as Grant's "Astaire-like agility."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">As might be expected, the suspense seemed magnified on a theater screen, and so did everything else - the humor was more direct and the seduction scenes more intense in their intimacy and erotic implications. The film’s pacing is acutely precise – with suspense building to an exquisite pitch, then, at just the right moment, relief - via wit or romance. Then, once more, the suspense begins to build…</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdsZttYxl-0L4WHyQTs4Fcc1DhOSajvG0gixaqFzmqLNqD1Xs_a0dNjO1k2VV8YgGAVhg8MvaFLMm42kTbYlpNKJ9t4F6SuWzbsqpTOlEFbO764Ez5_RCDRgBe-FwZwfX9vK6tAaW0eX4/s1600/NorthBrand%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqdsZttYxl-0L4WHyQTs4Fcc1DhOSajvG0gixaqFzmqLNqD1Xs_a0dNjO1k2VV8YgGAVhg8MvaFLMm42kTbYlpNKJ9t4F6SuWzbsqpTOlEFbO764Ez5_RCDRgBe-FwZwfX9vK6tAaW0eX4/s320/NorthBrand%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Climax of a classic chase scene</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">The crop-dusting sequence with its truck-in-flames finale and the moonlit chase across the face of Mount Rushmore are striking set-pieces on a screen of any size. Via the big screen I could almost feel the heat of the truck’s explosion and smell South Dakota’s night air. These scenes are legendary and, for obvious reasons, much imitated. The early James Bond films emulate the crop-dusting scene... Steven Spielberg's <i>Close Encounters</i> (1977) includes a well-known homage with its replication of Hitchcock's night-time Black Hills.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Afterward, I couldn't help wishing I'd been able to see <i>North by Northwest</i> back in 1959 at the Ritz. The kid I was then would've come out of that theater exhausted and elated, convinced she'd just been on the greatest rollercoaster ride of her life.</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoihabE6skbsSXUgz8BYBgbrbge-kESZRwqe64NIDi9ldGw2fQW-buTDBrsvEbl9I4TgdIA2BIK_Hl_BIJjkR7xKt3P_x7xfjsrenzHciIQ6fqQS-bow7sC_uSAkm6_j25btSHHNVQiIoY/s1600/nxnw_great_cast%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoihabE6skbsSXUgz8BYBgbrbge-kESZRwqe64NIDi9ldGw2fQW-buTDBrsvEbl9I4TgdIA2BIK_Hl_BIJjkR7xKt3P_x7xfjsrenzHciIQ6fqQS-bow7sC_uSAkm6_j25btSHHNVQiIoY/s320/nxnw_great_cast%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">Alfred Hitchcock has been widely acknowledged for his matchless ability to maneuver an audience's emotions and point of view with ease, and it's hard to maintain much distance from Hitchcock's best films. This could be why I enjoy the <i>experience</i> of his films as much as I enjoy the exercise of <i>studying</i> them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">As with all Hitchcock films, <i>North by Northwest</i><b> </b>has a few things going on beneath its slick surface. But last Labor Day weekend, inside a darkened theater filled with laughing, sighing, cheering people, I was a child again for a while. Happily immersed in a suspenseful, clever, sexy adventure, I didn't really notice that, from the first note of Herrmann's score to the final shot of a darkened railroad tunnel, I was being swept along as if aboard a sleek 20th Century Limited under the command of a very crafty locomotive engineer.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc_eDVg712jVxSH8zKidSYldd3z-4A5O1JdxsUl31TOYTc-3O9sXaHvQtaQOdcWJm3q_kVu0p4IgQVbTrYkGlx0LhM2qJUKEH11HBXDrTQ75ICTRO6McAx9MGwcjc8yfgQGPDdWtN-u6Oz/s1600/nxnw+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc_eDVg712jVxSH8zKidSYldd3z-4A5O1JdxsUl31TOYTc-3O9sXaHvQtaQOdcWJm3q_kVu0p4IgQVbTrYkGlx0LhM2qJUKEH11HBXDrTQ75ICTRO6McAx9MGwcjc8yfgQGPDdWtN-u6Oz/s400/nxnw+poster.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></div>

Alfred Hitchcock Bernard Herrmann Cary Grant Ernest Lehman Eva Marie Saint James Mason Jessie Royce Landis Martin Landau North by Northwest Rafael Theatre The Lady Eve (author) North by Northwest - free to the public...

When I was a little girl, the only director whose name I knew was Alfred Hitchcock. Though I didn't see any of his signature films of the era in a theater - Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) - I mu…

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic Performs Bernard Herrmann...

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5fuZmHXT7cBUDQug3GbNkCKNlDlIey7KjXcqHPT8sqIv-uqpGwnhmaxKVH5fkQr_8Fad0x7h9oe1hC6hqBH95wVEaLd0rpQkW4rnvARMS-wcRtWGq0twfjRpsKEL-gxeR9j6g3YDZkzGF/s1600/avert2%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5fuZmHXT7cBUDQug3GbNkCKNlDlIey7KjXcqHPT8sqIv-uqpGwnhmaxKVH5fkQr_8Fad0x7h9oe1hC6hqBH95wVEaLd0rpQkW4rnvARMS-wcRtWGq0twfjRpsKEL-gxeR9j6g3YDZkzGF/s320/avert2%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Stewart and Kim Novak in <strong>Vertigo</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>While perusing <em>YouTube</em> the other night I happened on the video below of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, performing Bernard Herrmann's "Scene d'Amour" from his score for Alfred Hitchcock's <strong>Vertigo</strong>. I watched and listened several times, swept up in it...and then, afterward, remembered something I'd nearly forgotten...<br /> <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKqK7HtkC4m9Kk-K5ak39mBwbU2A9ZBAj6QN43c3lrC94gaLi4BK8MYDtF9yRN7C1Cn9BpeBwrknQappVWCbJhfgLWjy1H5dCQqsK2Mpq70ag0kuQw4PWbnS-oY26dlCuZORVzLPNcbEG/s1600/900%252520Lombard%252520entry%255B1%255D%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEKqK7HtkC4m9Kk-K5ak39mBwbU2A9ZBAj6QN43c3lrC94gaLi4BK8MYDtF9yRN7C1Cn9BpeBwrknQappVWCbJhfgLWjy1H5dCQqsK2Mpq70ag0kuQw4PWbnS-oY26dlCuZORVzLPNcbEG/s200/900%252520Lombard%252520entry%255B1%255D%255B1%255D.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">900 Lombard, San Francisco, today</td></tr></tbody></table>Just about a year ago a videographer friend and I toured and shot footage of San Francisco film locations. I later recorded a voice track and hoped to post the video online, but had problems uploading it. Naturally, we got footage of <strong>Vertigo </strong>sites (the film includes many locations in the city) and I also took some still photos of 900 Lombard St., "Scottie Ferguson's" apartment in North Beach. The building had changed so little in the 50+ years since the movie was made that I almost expected a vintage green Jaguar to pull up and an elegant, ethereal blonde to slide out...<br /><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_naJH44Lk3I?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_naJH44Lk3I?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Alfred Hitchcock Bernard Herrmann Esa-Pekka Salonen Los Angeles Philharmonic The Lady Eve (author) Vertigo The Los Angeles Philharmonic Performs Bernard Herrmann...

James Stewart and Kim Novak in VertigoWhile perusing YouTube the other night I happened on the video below of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, performing Bernard Herrmann's "Scene d'Amour" from his score for Alf…

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