Kim Novak’s Vertigo

Premiering in Venice as she is honoured with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Alexandre O Philippe’s Kim Novak’s Vertigo explores Hollywood legend Kim Novak’s life and work – part documentary, part autobiography, and wholly Novak’s.

The title is purposefully misleading – this is not a tribute to Hitchcock’s thriller or a new excavation of one of cinema’s most dissected films. Instead, it is Novak’s act of reclamation. At 92, she speaks with clarity, wit and disarming honesty about the life behind the image – a career defined by glamour and fortune but never, she insists, by the feeling of being a “movie star”.

Philippe wisely lets Novak lead the way. The interviews, filmed in the warm light of her Oregon home, with windows framing her against an ever-changing sky, are intimate to the point of confessional. She recalls the remarkable decision to abandon Hollywood in her 30s – not because of dwindling roles, as the industry cliché might suggest, but because she wanted something different: to paint, to live quietly, to escape the machinery of fame. She speaks, too, with striking frankness about ageing, mortality and the serenity she finds in the rural life she chose.

The film is, admittedly, full of gaps. Entire decades of Novak’s life glide past with little more than a sentence, and there are no outside voices to contextualise her story. In another portrait, this might feel indulgent. Here, however, the absence of commentators feels like the point: this is Novak, telling her story her way, at her pace, on her terms. Philippe’s presence is felt only in the questions – thoughtful, at times worshipful, but never obstructive. The clear narrowness in scope is redeemed solely by Novak’s stature, and Vertigo stands not as a definitive biography but as something rarer. 

Christina Yang

Kim Novak’s Vertigo does not have a release date yet.

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