Obsession

In New Orleans, the businessman Michael Courtland lives with guilt after his wife and daughter die in a botched ransom operation. Sixteen years later, in Florence, he meets a young woman who resembles his wife. Brian De Palma directed, from a screenplay by Paul Schrader, who built the story with him. Both named the source openly: Hitchcock's Vertigo. Some critics found the film derivative for it. Pauline Kael dismissed it as no more than an exercise in style, with the camera whirling around nothing; Vincent Canby put it plainly: to be frank, Obsession is no Vertigo. A lasting resentment formed between Schrader and De Palma. Schrader's screenplay was much longer and ended with an extended section set in 1985. De Palma rewrote and condensed it heavily, and Schrader said he lost interest after that. The full three-part script was published in 2011. Cliff Robertson and Geneviève Bujold star, with John Lithgow opposite them. Bernard Herrmann wrote the score and considered it his finest; he died in December 1975. The first reviews were mixed and turned more favourable over time; Rotten Tomatoes now sits at 77 percent. Who it is for: viewers who like De Palma's formal obsessions and Herrmann. Who it is not for: anyone who knows Vertigo. The resemblance is so open that it makes judging the film on its own difficult.