Recommended reading – Vertigo (novel & book of the movie):

D’entre les morts

translation: From Among the Dead

By Boileau-Narcejac (Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac).

Filmed as Vertigo (1958), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Published by Pushkin Vertigo.

First published 1954.

ISBN-10: 1782279741

ISBN-13: 978-1782279747

Description:

In World War II-era Paris, a troubled-ex policeman is entangled in a web of deceit and lies when he investigates a woman’s strange behavior.

Flavières doesn’t really want to investigate his old’s friend’s wife, but he doesn’t feel he has much of a choice. Madeleine has been behaving strangely, and her husband wants answers – answers that she isn’t willing to give him.

As WWII rages around him, Flavières is drawn into an obsessive cat-and-mouse chase across Paris. Soon his intrigue is replaced by obsession and his dreams by nightmares, as he edges towards discovering a dark, terrible secret.

The most celebrated collaboration of a ground-breaking crime-writing duo, Vertigo is the timeless story of morality and revenge, and the inspiration for Hitchcock’s iconic film.

Vertigo

By Charles Barr.

Published by British Film Institute.

Published 2012.

2nd edition.

ISBN-10: 1844574989

ISBN-13: 9781844574988

Description:

Vertigo (1958) is widely regarded as not only one of Hitchcock's best films, but one of the greatest films of world cinema. Made at the time when the old studio system was breaking up, it functions both as an embodiment of the supremely seductive visual pleasures that 'classical Hollywood' could offer and – with the help of an elaborate plot twist – as a laying bare of their dangerous dark side. The film's core is a study in romantic obsession, as James Stewart's Scottie pursues Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) to her death in a remote Californian mission. Novak is ice cool but vulnerable, Stewart – in the darkest role of his career – genial on the surface but damaged within.

Although it can be seen as Hitchcock's most personal film, Charles Barr argues that, like Citizen Kane, Vertigo is at the same time a triumph not so much of individual authorship as of creative collaboration. He highlights the crucial role of screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor and, by a combination of textual and contextual analysis, explores the reasons why Vertigo continues to inspire such fascination.

In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Barr looks afresh at Vertigo alongside the recently-rediscovered 'lost' silent The White Shadow (1924), scripted by Hitchcock, which also features the trope of the double, and at the acclaimed contemporary silent film The Artist (2011), which pays explicit homage to Vertigo in its soundtrack.

Joseph Addison, on reading:

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

- Joseph Addison.

On this day in movie history - Dead Man (1995):

Dead Man

directed and written by Jim Jarmusch,

was released at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 27, 1995.
Music by Neil Young.

Cast:

Johnny Depp, Mili Avital, Gary Farmer, Crispin Glover, Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott, Eugene Byrd, John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Gabriel Byrne, Jared Harris, Jimmie Ray Weeks, Mark Bringelson, John North, Peter Schrum, Mike Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton, Michelle Thrush, Gibby Haynes, Richard Boes, George Duckworth, Thomas Bettles, Alfred Molina, Daniel Chas Stacy, Todd Pfeiffer, Leonard Bowechop, Cecil Cheeka, Michael McCarty, Steve Buscemi, John C. Carlucci.

Born on this day – Antonia Bird:

Antonia Bird

Director

Producer

May 27, 1951 – October 24, 2013

Born on this day – Lewis Collins:

Lewis Collins

Actor

May 27, 1946 – November 27, 2013

Born on this day – Zack Norman:

Zack Norman

Actor

Comedian

Painter

Film producer

Art collector

May 27, 1940 – April 28, 2024

Credits:

America (1986); Baywatch (1993); Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1971); Bullit: The Documentary (2013); Cadillac Man (1990); Chief Zabu (1988); Christmas Evil (1980); Crosscut (1995); Hollywood Dreams (2006); Daughters of Darkness (1971); Déjà Vu (1997); Director's Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein (2015); E.N.T.E.R. (2018); Emma Blue (2008); Face to Face with David (2020); Festival in Cannes (2001); Fingers (1978); Get a Job (1998); Gone (2014); Gums (1976); Has-Been (1998); Irene in Time (2009); La tele de tu vida (2007); Le moine (1972); Love with the Proper Stranger (1963); Lucky Ducks (1993); Lush Life (1993); Mojave Moon (1996); Ovation (2015); Overnight (2012); Queen of the Lot (2010); And the Bombs Keep Falling (1974); At Home with the Webbers (1993); Az áldozat (1994); Az aranyifjú (1987); Sitting Ducks (1980); Skeeter Hammond: Handles, Hops and the Fourth Dimension (2003); Ragtime (1981); Romancing the Stone (1984); Terror of Frankenstein (1977); The A-Team (1985); The David Frost Show (1969); The Flash (1991); The Hunted (1972); The M Word (2014); The Nanny (1993–1995); The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1969); To Kill the King (1974); Tracks (1976); Venice/Venice (1992); Weekend Retreat (2020); Who Is Henry Jaglom? (1995); Zenabel (1969).

Born on this day – Louis Gossett Jr.:

Louis Gossett Jr.

Actor

May 27, 1936 – March 28, 2024

Credits:

10 Minutes (2014); 17th Annual Trumpet Awards (2009); 1997 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards (1997); 2003 Trumpet Awards (2003); 20th NAACP Image Awards (1988); 22nd NAACP Image Awards (1990); 25th Anniversary Essence Awards (1995); 25th Annual Trumpet Awards (2017); 26th NAACP Image Awards (1994); 38th NAACP Image Awards (2007); 42nd NAACP Image Awards (2011); 43rd NAACP Image Awards (2012); 45th NAACP Image Awards (2014); 4th Annual Young Entertainer Awards Red Carpet Interviews 2019 (2016); 4TH NAFCA: African Oscar (2014); 78th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade (2009); 7th Annual American Cinema Awards (1990); 7th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards (1992); 80th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade (2011); 81st Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade (2012); A Celebration of Life: A Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. (1984); A Father for Charlie (1995); A Fighting Man (2014); A Gathering of Old Men (1987); A Good Man in Africa (1994); A Love Story of Today (2008); A Party for Richard Pryor (1991); A Raisin in the Sun (1961); A Special Kind of Love (2008); ABFF Awards a Celebration of Hollywood (2016); ABFF Honors (2020); AC Green: Iron Virgin (2016); Aces: Iron Eagle III (1992); ADHDtv: With Lew Marklin (2008–2009); AFI Life Achievement Award (1992–2006); AFI Movie Club (2020); AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies (2006); African Redemption: The Life and Legacy of Marcus Garvey (2022); Afternoon Delight Live on Hollywood and Vine (2015); Alias Smith and Jones (1971); All In (2006); Amazing Racer (2009); American Experience (1992); American Masters (2017); American Playhouse (1990); An Evening of Stars: A Celebration of Educational Excellence (1998); An Officer and a Gentleman (1982); An Officer and a Gentleman: 25 Years Later (2007); Asthma: Fighting to Breathe (2003); Backstairs at the White House (1979); Benny's Place (1982); BET Awards 2014 (2014); Bicentennial Minutes (1976); Big Fish, Little Fish (1971); Bitte umblättern (1985); Black Bart (1975); Black in the 80s (2005); Blue Chips (1994); Boardwalk Empire (2013); Boiling Pot (2015); Bonanza (1971); Breaking at the Edge (2013); Breaking Brooklyn (2018); Bring Your 'A' Game (2009); Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush (2007); Canaan Land (2020); Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1991–1992); Captive Heart: The James Mink Story (1996); Caribbean Cool (1991); Caribe (1975); Carolina Skeletons (1991); CBS News Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley (2020); Celebrity Close Calls (2011); Celebrity Ghost Stories (2014); Celebrity Page (2018–2020); Cinerockom (2014–2015); Circus of the Stars #8 (1983); Club Soda (2006); Come to the Garden (2016); Companions in Nightmare (1968); Cover (2007); Cover-Up (1991); Cowboy in Africa (1967–1968); Crimes of Violence (1988); Curse of the Starving Class (1994); Daddy's Little Girls (2007); Daktari (1968); Deceived (2002); Delancey Street: The Crisis Within (1975); Delgo (2008); Diggstown (1992); Dish Nation (2014); Dog Jack (2010); Don't Look Back: The Story of Leroy 'Satchel' Paige (1981); Double Play (2017); Dr Lucille: The Lucille Teasdale Story (2001); E! 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