Movies - Obsession

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	Movies - Obsession

Obsession is a 1976 mystery-thriller directed by Brian De Palma, starring Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, and John Lithgow. The screenplay was by Paul Schrader, from a story by De Palma and Schrader. Bernard Herrmann provided the film's powerful music.

Plot

In 1959, Michael Courtland (Robertson), a New Orleans real estate developer, has his life shattered when his wife Elizabeth (Bujold) and young daughter Amy are kidnapped. The police strongly recommend that he provide the kidnappers with shredded blank paper instead of the demanded ransom, and he agrees to the plan. This leads to a bungled chase in which both kidnappers and victims are killed. Courtland blames himself for the deaths of his wife and daughter.

Fifteen years pass. Courtland is morbidly obsessed with his dead wife, and regularly visits a monument he has had erected in her memory. The monument is a replica of the church where he and Elizabeth had met many years before in Florence, Italy. His real estate partner Robert LaSalle (Lithgow) convinces Courtland to tag along on a business trip back to Florence. While there, Courtland revisits the church, and suddenly comes face to face with a young woman named Sandra (Bujold) who looks exactly like his late wife. The already slightly unhinged Courtland begins to court the young woman, and subtly attempts to transform her into a perfect mirror image of his dead wife. Soon, they make plans to marry...

Production

De Palma and Schrader devised a story with a narrative clearly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, a film that both of them loved. Schrader's original screenplay, titled Deja Vu, was reportedly much longer than the final film, with a coda that extended another ten years past where the film now ends. De Palma ultimately found Schrader's screenplay unfilmable due to its length, and rewrote and condensed the finale himself after Schrader refused to make the requested changes. The film's composer, Bernard Herrmann, agreed with the decision to excise the original ending, telling De Palma, after reading Schrader's version, "Get rid of it--that'll never work". Schrader remained resentful of De Palma's rewrite for years, and claimed to have lost all interest in the project once the change was made.

After the film was completed, Columbia executives expressed unease over the incest theme, especially as it was portrayed in such a heavily romanticized manner. Consequently, a few minor changes were made to a pivotal sequence between Robertson and Bujold, in which dissolves and visual "ripples" were inserted in order to suggest that the consummation of their marriage was in fact simply a dream.

Response

Critical reaction to Obsession was mixed. Reviewers routinely praised the stylish cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, and Bernard Herrmann's beautiful, highly romantic score was one of the most acclaimed in his distinguished career, earning him a posthumous Academy Award nomination (the composer died in December of 1975). But several critics complained that the film was all too clearly a mere homage to Vertigo, without being original or interesting enough in itself as a thriller. Even the film's ardent fans noted that the film's mystery was easy to figure out long before the main character finally realizes what is going on.

The film was an unexpected financial success. Columbia held on to the movie for almost a year before dumping it into theaters in early fall, traditionally the "dog days" of movie attendance. Obsession managed to obtain enough positive critical notices to spark interest, and it grossed over $4 million at the U.S. box office.

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Movies - Obsession

Plot

Production

Response

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