Hitchcock complained that he would have preferred Vera Miles, as originally planned, over Kim Novak for the dual lead role in Vertigo. The director lamented what he considered himself a "flaw in the narrative" at the moment when the husband throws his wife's body from the bell tower ("How could he know that James Stewart wouldn't climb the stairs?"). He even regretted that the film, for which he had put in so much effort and risk, barely "covered expenses". Kim Novak also had her reservations about the film, which over time turned her into a legend. She expressed her concerns to the director. She couldn't make sense of certain inconsistencies in the script. "I said, 'I don't understand why you see Madeleine in the hotel window and then she disappears. How does she leave the hotel?'. And he replied: 'Oh, darling, not everything in a mystery movie has to make sense'".
The director's words could pass as the true storyline of the actress who, at 92, appeared in Venice in two different yet identical ways. Just like her characters, Madeleine and Judy, from the 1958 film starring Stewart. First, she did so in the documentary Kim Novak's Vertigo, by Alexandre O. Philippe, in the way actors appear in films, like a ghost of eternity. And then she appeared perfectly in her fragile yet indestructible body on the red carpet to receive the Golden Lion for her entire career. In truth, the order should have been reversed. Novak was scheduled to meet with the media at noon, but she excused her presence. Perhaps due to the rigors of age or, who knows, the rebellious spirit that has guided every step of her Hollywood journey.
Indeed, we are talking about the star who, after having it all, left it all behind. Tired of being only considered for roles in a swimsuit, in 1966, after a marriage to English actor Richard Johnson that lasted less than a year, she retired without further explanation. She was fed up, fed up with the cinema, fed up with fighting against her own myth, fed up with being fed up. She later confessed that she had spent too much of her life battling depression and could not afford to return to that hell. "When you're happy, you're on a cloud higher than anyone can see. Suddenly, the cloud turns gray and starts to press down on you, and before you know it, you're back at the bottom of the pit," she declared not long ago.
The documentary Kim Novak's Vertigo shows her at her Oregon home surrounded by canvases that occupy most of her time. Yes, Novak was an actress and now she paints, creating paintings that blend unreality and dream without giving up a slightly kitschy aroma of an artist unimpressed by academia. The director revisits her life with her, but without overstepping boundaries. Allowing time and measured words to flow without the inquisitorial imperative of questions, self-examinations, or uncomfortable recriminations. "What I discovered with her, and what I hope the audience understands, is that Kim is much more than a movie star. She is a painter, a poet, a survivor: a deeply misunderstood actress, decades ahead of her time. In many ways, she has always been Judy: transformed, renamed, and always yearning to be seen for who she truly is. My love for Hitchcock brought me here, but it was Kim who made the journey transformative," said the director.
A scene from the documentary 'Kim Novak's Vertigo', by Alexandre O. Philippe.Gull House Films
Once again, we see the radiant image of a woman who entered the film industry at just 21. Born Marilyn Pauline Novak in Chicago to a Czech family, her father had been a history teacher who survived the Great Depression by working on the railroad. Meanwhile, her mother worked in a girdle factory to escape poverty. It was her mother who kept her with pigtails throughout her childhood and did not allow her to wear makeup to avoid drawing attention. Later on, she caught attention in a beauty contest to become Miss Deepfreeze. During a visit to RKO Studios, she was invited to be an extra in two films and was eventually signed by Columbia Pictures, led by the formidable Harry Cohn.
Her first role was in the film Pushover in 1954, alongside Fred McMurray, who was a quarter-century older than her. Later, The Man with the Golden Arm, with Frank Sinatra. A year later, she starred in the Oscar-winning film Picnic as Madge, the young woman who falls in love with the drifter played by William Holden. And so on until Vertigo. Hitchcock's masterpiece, which, as may be the case for Novak herself, was scorned at the time. Or simply ignored and labeled as Hitchcock's most baroque and artificial film. Not long ago, the British Film Institute voted it as the best film of all time.
The documentary does not dwell on the most harrowing episodes of her life, but neither does it avoid them. It recounts that she was an unwanted child, that her mother first attempted to abort her and even tried to suffocate her as a baby with a pillow. She barely remembers the most brutal episode when she was raped by a group of men, but it somehow lingers. "I inherited my mental illness from my father, but the rape must have exacerbated it," she commented not long ago. As she tells it, everything happened in the back seat of a stranger's car. She never told her parents about the suffering she endured at the hands of other children, let alone the rape.
Later, in Hollywood, she experienced racism in a somewhat deferred manner. When rumors circulated that Novak was dating Sammy Davis Jr., the head of Columbia Pictures decided to put an end to it. "Sammy had lost an eye in an accident, and Harry Cohn threatened to take the other one. I'm sure he would have convinced his mobster friends to do it," she commented some time ago.
Now, in retirement, the prophecy of Vertigo is somehow fulfilled. But in reverse. If in the film she suffers from being the object of desire imposed by others, it seems that now Kim Novak is exactly herself, against Hollywood, against everyone. Without resentment. "When I left Hollywood, I felt it as a liberation," she says. Rarely has the Golden Lion of honor shone so brightly.