The Cosford Cinema is proud to present a screening series of the top 10 films of the 2022 Sight & Sound Top 100 Poll: The Greatest Films of All Time.
Launched in 1952 and conducted every 10 years since, the poll includes filmmakers, critics and journalists from around the world. The results are published in Sight & Sound, a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute.
VERTIGO | YEAR: 1958 | DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock | 4K Digital projection | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RATED: PG (for adult themes)
An ex-police officer (James Stewart) who suffers from an intense fear of heights is hired to prevent an old friend’s wife (Kim Novak) from committing suicide, but all is not as it seems. Hitchcock’s haunting, compelling masterpiece is uniquely revelatory about the director’s own predilections and hang-ups and is widely considered to be one of his masterworks.
“Vertigo” took the number two spot in the Sight & Sound poll. Admission is $5 per film or $40 for a series pass. Students with Cane card use code UMSTUDENT at checkout for free admission. Tickets available at link.
“One of the two or three best films Hitchcock ever made, ‘Vertigo’ is the most confessional, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art. It is *about* how Hitchcock used, feared and tried to control women. He is represented by Scottie (James Stewart), a man with physical and mental weaknesses (back problems, fear of heights), who falls obsessively in love with the image of a woman–and not any woman, but the quintessential Hitchcock woman.
“When he cannot have her, he finds another woman and tries to mold her, dress her, train her, change her makeup and her hair, until she looks like the woman he desires. He cares nothing about the clay he is shaping; he will gladly sacrifice her on the altar of his dreams.” – Roger Ebert