Susan and I saw Vertigo at the NY Philharmonic on Jan 24, 2024. It was a screening of the Hitchcock movie with the orchestra playing the Bernard Herrmann score live. I've been to many of these screenings and they're always so rewarding, it's a thrill to hear a world-class orchestra play this fantastic music.
Let's start with the hall! David Geffen Hall was closed during the height of the pandemic, like cultural institutions all over the world. The timing was good for them because they had planned on the hall being closed anyway for a complete renovation. It reopened in Sept 2022 and I was amazed to see that they weren't playing a SINGLE concert I wanted to hear in that first season. But Vertigo, that's a definite Yes. Thank you.
The public spaces are much more inviting, warmer, more intimate. Amazingly, the hall feels that way, too. We were sitting in the nosebleeds (where I always sit) and the vibe was so different from the previous hall. They moved the stage forward quite a bit and added seating behind the stage. I'd love to sit there sometime, to watch the conductor the whole time. Best of all I hear the acoustics are so much better than they were before. A friend of a friend plays in the orchestra and says it's night and day, it's an amazing change. They can hear each other and hear themselves in a way they never have before. I honestly am rather tone deaf to acoustics so I didn't notice a change but I'll believe the experts!
I've seen Vertigo probably ten or twelve times, it's a movie I love. Sight and Sound magazine named it the greatest movie of all time in 2012, knocking Citizen Kane off its pedestal. It's one of those rare movies that gets better every time you see it.
As I said before it's always a rewarding experience seeing a movie at the Phil. Each time I've done it it's been a movie I've seen before (often many, many times before) but I always notice things that I hadn't noticed before. Yes, hearing the score live brings out lots of hidden colors in the score but seeing the movie on such a huge screen brings out other things in the film. I got one of those surprises before the movie even started - - the first thing that came up on the screen was the standard Paramount logo from the 50s, the oil painting of a mountain top with the word Paramount across the screen. The surprise was that this image was in black and white, and the movie is in sumptuous color. The opening credits start with a woman's face, gradually zooming in on her right eye, then this image becomes flooded in a stunning red. I hadn't noticed before that the shot of the woman was done in a grayish sepia tone, not really in color. The use of color is very deliberate in this movie so it's interesting that Hitch would start the movie in black and white.
I won't give you any spoilers but let me say that one of the central themes of the movie is the idea of artifice, something not really being what you think it is. The artifice was heightened by seeing it on a huge screen and having the score play a central role. Another thing I hadn't noticed - - there are a number of longish sequences with no dialogue at all. Of course in those sequences the music becomes more overt. On the flip side there are other talky scenes with no music.
The score was, of course, magnificent. Norman Huynh seemed to have more of a sense of suppleness and flexibility than previous NY Phil movie conductors. They're all bound to a rigid sense of timing since the movie won't wait for the orchestra but Huynh made it feel like it was loose and free.
It's interesting seeing a movie over the course of a lifetime. I was telling someone recently about my history with Sunset Boulevard. When I first saw it, in my 20s, I thought it was hilarious high camp. Now I see it as a profoundly sad and human drama. Norma Desmond isn't ridiculous, she's deeply wounded and tragic. When I first saw Vertigo, also in my 20s, I thought it was lush, romantic, and sorrowful. It still is all of those things but now I see it as also upsetting and disturbing. The Jimmy Stewart character is one sick dude, a real sadist, and it's heartbreaking that the Kim Novak character is so easily manipulated and seemingly eager to be degraded.
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