Obsession

Director: Brian De Palma

1976 / 98min / DCP

De Palma’s twisted twist on Hitchcock’s Vertigo stars Cliff Robertson as a wealthy New Orleans real-estate developer still mourning the loss of his beloved wife (Dead Ringers’ Genevieve Bujold) and daughter years after their abductions until, on a visit to Florence, he encounters her exact double. (In addition to Hitch, screenwriter Paul Schrader drew inspiration from Dante and his infatuation with muse Beatrice.) With lusciously gauzy cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, a richly romantic score by Hitch regular Bernard Herrmann, and Big Easy Baroque location shooting, this is moviemaking as ultrarich confection, a swooning transport “to a more romantic era… and the simple, touching pleasures denied the audience by the current antiromantic spirit of the movies” [Richard Schickel].

Distributor: Sony Pictures Entertainment