About

Obsession will screen from an imported 35mm print.

Hitchcock devotee Brian De Palma flexes his hyperstylised muscles in this Vertigo-inspired thriller about Michael Courtland (Academy Award winner Cliff Robertson), a man whose wife and daughter are killed after a botched kidnapping. Distraught for years, he finds himself in Italy on business, where he spots a doppelgänger of his late wife his visiting a church. Courtland immediately becomes fixated on this new woman – and disturbed by his overwhelming fear that she will somehow met the same fate as his family.

A major hit upon its release, Obsession successfully merges the broodiness of Schrader’s script with De Palma's endless bag of cinematic tricks. Building on the obvious parallels to Vertigo, De Palma enlisted regular Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann to provide a soaring score to accompany the many twists and turns of this gripping, darkly romantic mystery.