“After stepping away from the limelight, Kim Novak returned to Venice Film Festival on Monday after releasing a documentary about her poverty-stricken upbringing”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
The documentary explores her life, highlighting her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and her journey from stardom to a reclusive life as an artist in Oregon.
And critics have praised the documentary, directed by Alexandre Philippe, with Variety describing Kim as a ‘magnetic subject’.
Beginning with her own narration, Deadline writes, ‘it gives Novak an excuse (she humbly calls it ‘permission’) to look back on her life and give us her side of the story — unapologetic and, right from the start, impressively unfiltered.’
Despite The Guardian noting she sounds ‘poignantly frail’ in the opening voice note, when you then see her in the person ‘she is sensational; articulate, vibrant, youthful in ways that have nothing to do with cosmetic work, very engaged with the questions that Philippe puts to her – but concerned also to discuss her own life and personality, particularly her interest in painting and what she owes to her parents.’
Critics noted that the film presents Alfred Hitchcock in a positive light, with Guy Lodge writing Variety: ‘If you’re wondering whether the title “Kim Novak’s Vertigo” is a dig at the legendary director of the actor’s single most celebrated film, it isn’t:
‘Alfred Hitchcock is fondly recalled throughout the doc, to the point that his ghost is even thanked in the closing credits, for being “undeniably present during the making of this movie.’
Guy also commended on Kim’s vulnerability as she confesses: ‘I feel like I’m very close to the end,’ adding, ‘I need to free something that’s been in the closet of my mind.’
Reminiscing on starting out in the film industry she adds: ‘I feel more proud of having been a reactor than an actor.’
She began under contract to Columbia Pictures, with the companies head Harry Cohn calling her ‘the fat Polack’ and making her change her first name from Marilyn to Kim.
The documentary is full of heartbreak as she admits her mother tried to abort her and her father kept the miscarried foetus of her brother in a jar in the garage.
In the film she says: ‘The Depression caused so much hardship. My mother got pregnant and she could not afford a child.
‘She tried to abort me with knitting needles and it failed. So she tried to suffocate me with a pillow.
‘I remember fighting to stay alive. I won, I stayed alive, and made it through.’
She added that it was her sister who found her brother’s foetus in the basement, amid her father’s collection of animals and insects.
‘The foetus, his only son, in the basement. He kept him,’ she said.
After retreating from Hollywood she describes herself as being ‘reborn’ as she turned to work as an artist, which she calls her ‘survival mode’.
Meanwhile Indie Wire adds: ‘The documentary is most interesting when it doesn’t linger on clips from her movies, but when it focuses on her in the present at her home in Oregon.’
Clips focus on Kim painting at her house as she expresses herself through her art after she wasn’t allowed to be expressive during the peak of her fame.
She tells the camera: ‘I hesitate to even be recording this because I don’t know what’s gonna come out of what I say, what I mean.
‘What do I mean? Is that what it’s about: What do I mean? What do I think? What do I feel? I don’t know what’s expected of me to feel, or to think, or even to be, for that matter.’
Her tell-all documentary about her extraordinary life tells of her upbringing in Depression-era Chicago, followed by ten years of Hollywood superstardom, and then a retreat from showbusiness.
She says of the revelations: ‘I have been feeling the need to free the memories that have been hiding in the closet of my mind.’
Filmmaker Alexandre Phillippe said that he was astonished to have the voicemail from Novak outlining these stories. ‘I gasped, and said, is it too dark?’ he said.
He added: ‘It is a privilege to share all these very powerful secrets and memories.’
Novak journeyed from her 13-acre horse ranch in Oregon to accept the honour from the festival.