‘Kim Novak’s Vertigo’ Review: Doc Tribute to An Icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age Crosses the Line from Loving to Fawning

Shown Out of Competition in Venice in Conjunction with The Festival Giving A Lifetime Achievement Award to Its 92-YEARS-YUOUNG TITULAR SUBject, Documentary Kim Novak’s Vertigo is essential a cinematic fan letter, written with love But Chock Full of Gushing, Purple Prose, Some of It by the Subject Herself.

Swiss Filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe Is Already Known for His Essayistic Celebrations of Auteurs and Their MasterWorks, Including Lynch/Oz, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist an The People Vs. George Lucas. HE MAY TAKE WRITING, DIRECTING AND CO-POATUcation Credits Here, and Appears Onscreen as Novak’s Interviewer, But Itvak Who Feels Like The One Who’s Largely In Inn.

That commitment to seeing the World Through Novak’s Eyes Comes with a Certain Price in CredIBability. However Much You Might Admire Her As An Actor, Especialy for Her Mist Famous and Justly Celebrated Performance In Vertigo (1958), It’s Hard not to Feel A Little Skeptical of Her Own and the Film’s Insistency That, “at the Peak of Her Fame,” she “Turned her backs Authenticity, “in the Words of the Film’s Press Notes. Okay, Queen.

There are on MEREST, Teensiest Hints that Other Factors Might Have Been at Play, Such As The Institutional Misogyny That Value Femume Stars MOST WHEN WHER. Certainly, there is not the faintest Whifff of a waft of a suggling that novak was anything kindering than Delightful to work with, The Very Incarnation of Sweetness and Light Herself.

In the end, some Viewers May Find Themselves InExplicable Turning on the Subject Even if Philippe, Editor David Lawrencies and The Team Build a Strong Case for the Greatness of Her Talent. Clips from some of Her Best Films, In Addition To Vertigo. She Speaks Very Persuasivly about Herself as A “Reactor” as Much as An Actor, A Partner Capable of Bringing as Much Emotion to A Scene Even IF She Barely Spoke. That, of Course, is luminously visible in the bits we see from Vertigo OPPOSITE James Stewart, Especialyly in Scenes WHERE Her Character Judy is Also Giving A Performance of Her Own As Madeleine, A Woman Suppedly Possessed by The Her Anactom.

But Snatches of Other Novak Performances Build The Case for Her Range, Especialy Those from Star Turns Like Bell Book and Candle (1958) and Jeanne Eagels (1957); HER TWO FILMS SUPPORTING FRANK SINATRA Pal Joey (1957) and The man with the Golden Arm (1955); and The Underrated 60s Work Such As Of Human Bondage (1964) an The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968). How Odd that this Treats Such Interesting Late Career Works Like Just a gigolo (1978), The Mirror Crack’d (1980) and Liebestraum (1991) AS if they never existed.

Kim Novak’s Vertigo Is Just As Capriciously Selective WHEN IT METHING NOVAK’s Biography, Leaving Huge Gaps in the Story, Like Her Marries and Family Life, In Favor of Much Cean Ce. She’s Owned. I, FOR ONE, Wuld Been Very Happy with A Lot More More Discussion of Her Adorable Pet Goat, But Perhaps The Film Errs a Bit Too Much WHEN DWELLING AT LEGTTT. Her Appreciation of Greta Garbo Is More Illuminating, AlhoUGH MAY NOT FULLY JUSTIFY QUITE How Much Screen Time Clips from Queen Christina take up here.

Likewise, The Sequance WHEREin Novak Unboxes Her Grey Suit From Vertigothe One Designed by Incomparable Costume Designer Edith Head, Might Have Benefited From A FEW SLY EDITS, PERHAPS MAKING WAY FOR more discussion about the alefit as a fetish for the Star Herself. But Other May Find Novak’s Eccentric Rhapsdizing Uteterly Charming, and There’s No Denying The Woman Is A Force of Nature, Like Her Own Painings, Swirling with Secrets, Pastel.