Obsession

Underrated masterpiece by De Palma was basically disregarded due comparisons to "Vertigo". Sure, the basic premise is the same, but De Palma takes it in a totally different direction. Technically, this is among his best works, with the beautiful camerawork complimenting a haunting, disturbing story. The story takes it's time, and while the slow pace may bother some viewers, patient viewers will realize that it works to draw them in. By the time it is over, it feels like you have just come out of a trance.

Brian De Palma once again shows his obsession for Alfred Hitchcock. He brings in some overwrought music from Bernard Herrmann.

This is another stylish but flawed film from De Palma with a dreamlike romantic mystery to cover up a controversial strand of the storyline.

Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson) is a real estate developer in New Orleans whose wife Elizabeth (Geneviève Bujold) and daughter Amy are kidnapped. From the advice of the police, he does not pay the ransom. A botched rescue attempt leads to his wife and daughter's death.

Michael is left devastated. 16 years later, he goes on a business trip to Italy with his business partner Robert LaSalle (John Lithgow.) To his astonishment he meets Sandra Portinari, a woman who looks like his late wife at the same church he originally met her in Italy.

Michael becomes obsessed with Sandra and asks her to marry him. When he brings her to New Orleans, his friends and colleagues are worry about Michael. Fate plays a cruel twist on him as Sandra disappears one morning.

This is a moody, uneven and a slow moving thriller. De Palma is yet to master suspense and the script he co-wrote with Paul Schrader is choppy.

Bujold is very good in a difficult role. Robertson looks like a television actor who struck it lucky with an Oscar. He is just too bland. Lithgow on the other hand is too fruity who signals his nefarious hand in any twist in the plot.

...or rather nightmarish,this is probably De Palma"s finest achievement.Here his obsession with Alfred Hitchcock is subdued or thoroughly mastered.Of course we cannot help but thinking of "Vertigo" but De Palma's work is made with taste :two good leads -Cliff Robertson,whose eyes seem to reflect fatality,and Genevieve Bujold whose beauty seems to plunge the audience into a dream(the sequence in the church makes her look like a madonna)-.Besides,Bernard Herrman's score is absolutely mind-boggling,enhancing the strangest sequences in an almost religious incantation.The cinematography is up to scratch,and the directing remains sober.The Hitchcock quotations take a back seat to De Palma's talent:compare this work with the grand guignol of "Carrie" the follow-up,the sensationalism tinged with melodrama of "fury" (no,it's not a remake of the Fritz Lang classic),the plagiarism of "dressed to kill" or "Body double".

One may regret the last pictures in slow motion.But that's minor quibble.This is De Palma's magnum opus,and it will be "blow out" before he puts out a genuinely personal movie.Do not miss it.

I revisited "Obsession" recently because I've always been a fan of the late, great Bernard Herrmann. In the late 1970's, I bought the "Obsession" soundtrack on LP because, as one critic so aptly wrote, "Herrmann's score would make even blank film compelling." As for what happens on the celluloid, it's obvious that this movie was a lower-budgeted rush job (example: mid-70's automobiles in scenes of 1959 New Orleans). It's also quite a feat to make Florence look so drab and gray, while the middle third of the film bogs down tremendously. And the excessive use of filters by Vilmos Zsigmond makes the film look less ethereal than out-of-focus.

In my opinion, the only other positive for the film is Genevieve Bujold's performance. It stands in marked contrast to the one given by Cliff Robertson, who is leaden throughout and provides no shades or nuances of a conflicted man. And a young John Lithgow fares no better, with his outrageously syrupy Southern accent.

Five stars out of ten. For Benny and Genevieve.

"Obsession" is truly the best movie Hitchcock never made.

It came out the same year as the great master of suspense made his last movie, the disappointing "Family Plot", it has a classy, brilliant soundtrack by the legendary Bernard Herrmann that fits nicely in with the work he did for Hitchcock, it has a wonderful script by Paul Schrader that will keep you guessing till the last frame, and last but not least: it's directed by Brian De Palma, who despite being slammed by some (stupid) critics for ripping off Hitchcock should in stead be praised for being able to copy the master better than any other living filmmaker.

Hitchcock is my favorite director of all times, and "Obsession" is so much like one of his films that it's difficult to accept that it was put together by another man. But De Palma doesn't deserve criticism for honoring his idol, he deserves praise for delivering a movie that, had it been made by Hitchcock, would rank among his finest films.

That's quite a feat! If you are a fan of De Palma or Hithcock you are almost guaranteed to love "Obsession", a highly underrated thriller that left me an even greater fan of Robertson, Bujold, Lithgow, De Palma, Schrader, Herrmann and every one else involved. Sit back, enjoy it and watch out for those wonderful last 20 minutes!