Vertigo ranked highest in the latest Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll of film scholars and critics. Although a critical and box office flop when released, through the years, Hitchcock’s complex erotic thriller about the death of love and its possible return has gained an enthralled audience. James Stewart stars as a retired detective who attempts to re-fashion his lost love, as Kim Novak plays both the lover and her apparent double. The complexities of grasping the image of the beloved, the pain of loss, and the perils of recovering the past through control of costume have never been so stunningly visualised.
USA 1958. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Costumes Edith Head.