Obsession (1976)
Cliff Robertson, Genevive Bujold, John Lithgow; d. Brian DePalma; C-

Boy, that derned Brian De Palma sure is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock! He's like the wannabe who always tries to act like the most popular kid in school. He tries to do everything that person does in hopes that he'll actually be like that person and be liked like that person.

But I remember a discussion I had about art in my English class. Art, I said, was a reflection of the human experience, and that people with different experiences will produce different forms of art. To try and recreate someone else's piece of art would be futile, because the replicate does not hold the same experiences as the artist who they are replicating.

That is why De Palma's Obsession falls flat on its rip-off face.

Why try to recreate one of the most personal works of a master director? I don't know much about De Palma's personal life, but I severely doubt it mirrors anything that Alfred Hitchcock went through. Was De Palma an obsessive director like Alfred Hitchcock? Let me shake my magic 8 ball... "All signs point to no." Oh, darn. I'm not even sure he obsessed over cool blondes the way Alfred Hitchcock did.

Oh well, I guess De Palma thought all the stuff he learned in film school would lead him to the proper brushstrokes and colors that would make one heck of a copy. But I don't know what he was thinking. I really don't care. All I think is that he was insane to try and recreate the haunting (and highly personal) Vertigo in this mess of a Tristan and Isolde (on crack).

Here's the story: There's this guy (Cliff Robertson) who's married to this woman (Geneviève Bujold) who dies. He goes batty for nineteen years and then goes to Italy where he meets this young Italian woman who looks exactly like his wife. They fall in love and he gets even more crazier. In the mean time, she goes crazy, too, and his good Southern fried friend (John Lithgow) may have something to do with it.

Obsession holds none of the allure or the craft that Vertigo exemplifies. As a Hitchcock rip-off it's much stiffer than his upper lip. Robertson has none of the guilt ridden obsession or the accessible warmness Jimmy Stewart had in Vertigo. He's such a flat-liner it's almost funny. In fact, at times when I look at his perennial poker face I nearly burst into a fit of laughter. Is this an actor, or a set of statues they just moved around and captured on camera? Bujold on the other hand seems an unworthy object of unfaltering obsession, though her performance is marginally better than that of her rigid costar. Lithgow is simply a pleasant riot in his campiness. If the movie was going to stink, why not have more of him? That way it could stink but still be thoroughly entertaining.

Well, at least De Palma had the late great composer Bernard Herrmann to flag around like a badge of honor. Luckily for him Herrmann is the film's saving grace. I wish that John Williams, my least favorite film score composer, would've scored it so Obsession could've plunged into the depths of stinkyness, where it would've been hadn't it been for Herrmann's hauntingly romantic and tragic score. Someone please, please release a full soundtrack recording of this score so I don't have to keep watching this movie just to hear it.

OK, so maybe there are some other things that are good about Obsession than just ol' Benny Herrmann. It sure does look great indeed (and what movie partially set in Italy doesn't). There are some amazing shots, and the hazy cinematography does add a ghastly romantic tone to a movie that otherwise couldn't produce that feeling itself.

But otherwise, this movie stinks. Go rent Carrie. Or better yet, go rent Vertigo.