[screenings] Vertigo Love Affair

“But when she left, gone was the glow of
Blue velvet
But in my heart there'll always be
Precious and warm, a memory
Through the years
And I still can see blue velvet
Through my tears”
- Bobby Vinton, Blue Velvet

“It’s about reliving a moment lost in the past, about bringing it back to life only to lose it again. One does not resurrect the dead, one doesn’t look back at Eurydice. Scottie experiences the greatest joy a man can imagine, a second life, in exchange for the greatest tragedy, a second death. What do video games, which tell us more about our unconscious than the works of Lacan, offer us? Neither money nor glory, but a new game. The possibility of playing again. ‘A second chance.’ A free replay.”
- Chris Marker on ‘Vertigo’

To all about to enter the gates of the city of Vertigo, there is much advice to be given. You will also receive pointers, maps, compasses, survival kits and other impressive and sleek accoutrements that would seemingly last you in the deepest, darkest Amazon or the driest, hottest Atacama. And yet most have made the journey to the inside of this ancient city have never made it out. Those who returned found the reality of the outside world so unbearable that they escaped back into the gates the first chance they got. Perception is usually the first casualty. Immediate horizons and time-space aligned along a Mobius strip. A land of illusion- labyrinth streets of the mind where smoke and mirror mesh with secret memory and intense desires to haunt the lonely, lost souls- the wanderers. And redemption, that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, she’s a femme fatale.

Bangalore Film Society declares 2010 open with a three day tribute to one of the greatest of films of all time- Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, whose influence on films and generations of fans and admirers has been close what some describe as ‘religion’ and others as an ‘obsessive preoccupation’ and some others as a ‘confounding addiction’. Proudly presenting ‘Vertigo Love Affair’, a weekend along the spiral of love, longing and madness buffeted only by the vision romantic.

Friday 22nd January, 2010 Time: 6.30pm
Vertigo (1958/128min) Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

Unheralded at the time of its release, ‘Vertigo’ was a visionary film truly ahead of its time, a cryptic personal statement by Hitchcock on his own and our collective longings and anxieties coded into the vessel of a ‘Hitchcockian’ thriller. The almost surreal tale of a cop who develops agoraphobia, a fear of heights and is set on a trail of a seemingly disturbed or possessed women by his old friend, ‘Vertigo’ plunges into depths of what makes us and breaks us as human beings, as creatures of obsession and passion. Every bit of the film is iconic from the hallucinatory title sequence to the chemistry between James Stewart and Kim Novak to Bernard Hermann’s piercing score to the locations around San Francisco shot in a palate of colors that we can watch yet again for the first time in history since its release thanks to a complicated restoration process lobbied for by one of the film’s most committed obsessives- Martin Scorsese.

Saturday 23rd January, 2010 Time: 6.30pm
In the City of Sylvia (2007/84min) Dir: Jose Luis Guerin

Nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice 07’, the dreamily named ‘In the City of Sylvia’ announced debut director and former film critic Jose Luis Guerin as a talent to be watched out for and confirmed him as yet another soul who thrived in the enchantment of ‘Vertigo’. Guerin distills some of the essence of the Hitchcock classic into a beautifully told tale of a wanderer who has returned to a relive a fateful encounter six years ago where he met the girl of his dreams and she drew a map for him to lead him to her. Director Guerin achieves an almost alchemical result as he picks up the rhythms of winding streets and cafes and infuses it with the pangs of love and longing. Even just to look at, it is one of most gorgeous films around.

Sunday 24th January, 2010 Time: 6.30pm
The Green Ray (1986/98min) Dir: Eric Rohmer

The enigmatic auteur Eric Rohmer passed into the light on 12th January, 2010. Bangalore Film Society remembers him not only as a great director of droll and eccentric cinema but also as a great film critic, one of the first to experience and declare the genius of Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks (whom we will be screening quite shortly). ‘The Green Ray’, one of Rohmer’s greatest, features a lost soul, a girl named Delphine searching restlessly and obsessively for that one ineffable abstract just like Scottie in ‘Vertigo’ and the anonymous protagonist of ‘In the City of Sylvia’. The frail and weepy Delphine emerges as one of Rohmer’s most complex characters as she wanders across France in the search of……………………
'The Green Ray’ was the Winner of the Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI at Venice 86’.

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