Obsession

There's a slew of both cult and popular elements De Palma's toying with here, Hitchcock being the easy choice with the initial plot pieces & evocative score by Herrmann. It goes into some insane territory, yet it hardly seems to matter, it almost seems predestined. Truly twisted.

Its Vertigo shot through Italian genre cinema, but is something unique, a Brian De Palma film, something I haven't seen in a long while. The final twists suspend disbelief, and yet I have to admire a film that a) becomes a beautifully melancholic romance in the middle, and b) has a dreamlike mood that is artificial yet potent, the films of the 1950s (Bernard Herrmann's score links this to its Hitchcockian forefather) brought to De Palma's era where not all is what it seems even more so.

Most of Brian de Palma is for me unwatchable. But here like an oasis is this lovely remix of VERTIGO that really had an impact on me when I first saw it. I can't describe my favorite shot as it would spoil the ending -- but it remains one of my favorite scenes in any film, ever, and Bujold knocks it out of the ballpark. Robertson is given the full emotional palette to play with, and he really delivers. A very immersive and seductive movie, if one is willing to meet it halfway.

The middle act fizzles a little bit, but the rest of the film is an absolutely exhuberant, romantic and marvelously excessive delight.

This is De Palma doing pure Hitchcockian thriller. The plot is clearly inspired by Vertigo, but De Palma and scriptwriter Paul Schrader take their own modern spin on it. The cheesy romance in the second act drags at parts and the characters one-dimensional. But the mystery of it is intriguing enough to keep the movie engaging. The slomo ending is De Palma at his best. The reveal of the twist works surprisingly well. It's painful how much better John Lithgow is than everybody else.

It feels almost if Hitchcock's Vertigo was turned into a glossy and heartwarming melodrama -- but still filled with De Palma's plot twists and visual remarks. More than just a meditation on Hitch's film, Obsession operates as a pictorial study of what we see or what we want to see, which is the very inner tension of every shot in the filmmaker's oeuvre. Schrader deserves a big credit too, as sexuality here (new woman is the daughter!) has a morality that goes beyond beautiful framing.

I've only seen a very poor copy of this but I kinda liked it, it had a soapy, dream-like feel to it reminiscent of the works of David Lynch.

It's decent, sure, but let's be honest here: it's kind of hard to fuck up when your chief inspiration is something as flawless as Vertigo. To Brian De Palma's credit, he's actually found a way to make the story even crazier. And I know I'm retarded for even characterizing this as a flaw, but my god is this cheesy. It's cheesier than a pizza at a Fat Pride convention. It fucking oozes it. That's part of the appeal, I suppose, so if you're in the mood for that, go for it. Fatty.

John Lithgow's version of a Nah'Leans accent had me yelling "Oh Belvedere, Come Here Boy!" at my tv.

As per typical De Palma, this goes from wild opening to something completely different by the film's conclusion. I like my Hitchcock homages with a bit of sleaze and you will get there with this if you are patient. Love to see some 70s New Orleans.

Obsession maintains tribute to Vertigo even in the final act, by being overly expository and a little less than satisfying. I've never been one to think Vertigo is the perfect beast its reputation would suggest, and that's certainly not the case here. Though if De Palma's intent was to mirror the original, warts and all, then in that respect it's entirely successful. He even added more warts... This goes into considerably darker territory.

Great film, but I was hoping for a different ending...

Lots of cheese. Stylish cheese.

More melodrama than horror. The cover art overpromised: "imagine the most terrifying dream you ever had"

Goes from cheesy kidnapping flick to even cheesier Vertigo update, but then Schrader slaps you in the face with a "ooh no, he didn't" plot twist that is all kinds of fucked up as you replay the entire movie in your head. Great score by Bernard Herrmann and that ending is classic De Palma.

kamerayı bu kadar iyi kullanan bir adamın anlatım tekniğinde sese de bu kadar yaslanıyor olması sinemasına dair net bir fikir veriyor. obsession da -schrader'a rağmen- hem tarz hem konu olarak tam bir de palma filmi, ama en iyilerinden ziyade en denemelilerinden biri olarak oturuyor filmografisine. final sahnesi, o dönemeçe rağmen filmin en iyi yanı olmayı başarıyor ayrıca, çünkü çocuk-ebeveyn ilişkisine dair de komik bir katman koyuyor.

When a film's twist is this insultingly obvious, it seems the characters have to act in the most ludicrously oblivious ways that has you screaming at them through the TV screen. Robertson's acting is perfect for this, as he can barely register any grief or longing, his face is just an ambiguous quandary throughout the whole film. Only Lithgow manages to have fun with the more Schrader-esque lines, but the rest of the script is naff, wasting the awesome music and quality editing.

Movie 1100. Lets hope this gets a good release soon, so that the nice cinematography could be better appreciated. De Palma uses a slew of crazy shots in this one - some of them could be construed as superfluous, but some of them serve a good purpose and they all look cool. The performances are all great - the always-reliable Lithgow, Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold who, given this twisted material, gets to go a little crazy and shines as a result. Definitely going to rewatch this one.

This is quite a suspenseful film - a real chilly thriller of sorts. It features a heavy use of stringed instruments to really bring home the Hitchcockian tension. Its, needless to say, quite claustrophobic and I noticed towards the end there appeared to be a mistiness around the bottom of the screen, which gives it a bit of a dream like sense. I felt John Lithgow gave a particularly good performance in this film and its somewhat memorable - certainly not a bad film, I'd recommend it.

Competently twisted riff on Vertigo. Pulpy and cheesy but in a very measured and stylish way.

It benefits from De Palma's usual flair, but the story is far-fetched, and the twist is predictable.

De Palma does not give a shit how much he rips off Hitchcock, and it's great. If you are this good, I don't mind seeing a wilder Hitchcock. I don't usually criticize actor's performances, because I just like people having fun, but I have to agree with De Palma, Robertson is the weak link to this film.

A gloriously bogus story (again) from De Palma who, unfortunately, buggers it up with oddly lackadaisical pacing, as opposed to the far more entertaining Dressed to Kill. I've been convinced for a while that, if all it takes to ruin a film is to have the conclusion revealed to you, it can't be a very good film. I think this film falls into such a category. I was enjoying Bernard Hermann's overwhelming score until it became totally inappropriate as the story unfolded.

On man's secret desire to kill off his wife so he can marry his daughter (touched on as well in AGUIRRE), this seemed less to follow a dream logic than to have been a somnambulistic experiment conducted under hypnosis (as Herzog, again, did in fact do, with greater success). Overall, a VERTIGO-type melodrama that was too overwrought, silly and predictable for this viewer's taste.

zsigmond's soft dream-like cinematography, hermann's sumptuous score and a vertigo inspired narrative add up to quite the no holds bar ode to hitchcock's masterpiece. the first big box office film from mr. de palma. a must see for any hitch fan.

Well, that seemed a bit far-fetched. lol More over-the-top crap from DePalma, culminating in that merry-go-round final scene (making me even queasier than the prom whirligig in Carrie). When oh when will I learn to stop getting suckered in by a DVD box from that guy?

Blatant Vertigo ripoff.

73.500

gerilim, gizem, kacirmak, fidye, rehin, patlayan araba, polis, ölen ese benzeyen kadin (vertigo), esin yerine eve gelen kadin (rebecca), sirtindan vurulmak, ortak, entrika

watched: 2011, 2019

Obsession

"Another of De Palma's fearlessly experimental whims." - Eric Henderson

68.000

A very interesting movie that deceptively misrepresents itself as hard to believe... and I don't expect you to get what that means until you've watched this. The filtered picture and awkwardly minimal dialogue help make this look a bit like a soap opera. I am not a De Palma fan, but strangely, this movie is actually helped by his otherwise corny kind of filmmaking.

MVPs: Bernard Herrmann, Vilmos Zsigmond

Well that was predictable (and totally ridiculous).

best ***** ending ever. and how freakin awesome is that childhood flashback?!?!?!

Wonderfully made piece of camp. The ending is particularly amusing.