Obsession

Brian De Palma admits that his 1975 romantic thriller Obsession , starring Cliff Robertson, Genvieve Bujold and John Lithgow, is a direct homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo. (Look closer and you'll also find a little Rebecca and Marnie thrown in there too.) Concerning a New Orleans businessman whose life is irrevocably changed when his wife and daughter are ostensibly killed during a botched kidnapping, De Palma's take on Vertigo's story of a man obsessed and driven by a dead woman is as sumptuous and glossily lyrical as anything the filmmaker has ever put on film--incestuous themes notwithstanding. Laurent Bouzereau's 36-minute documentary Obsession Revisited offers interviews with most of the production's principals, including DePalma, Robertson, Bujold, producer George Litto and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who offers his acclaimed insight into the Obsession's dreamy, diffused look. The film has been remixed from its original mono and can now be heard as it was or with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, which should definitely please fans of Bernard Hermann's luxurious score. --C.P.