The Green Fog

The 2017 film Guy Maddin made with Evan and Galen Johnson retells Vertigo without using a single frame of it. All the images are taken from other films and television series shot in San Francisco, and Maddin arranges them along Hitchcock's narrative structure. The result is an odd sense of recognition: you remember the scenes, and none of them is that film. The dialogue is largely removed and the characters are cut off before they speak, which turns the film into a ghost story. Faces spanning decades, from Chuck Norris to Karl Malden, stand side by side. It is an experimental work and says very little to anyone who does not know Vertigo. Who it's for: viewers interested in experimental editing and in Hitchcock. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative, or who has not seen Vertigo.