Original subtitles

FILM POPS AND CRACKLES

OMINOUS ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

KIM NOVAK: I hesitate to even... be recording this

because I don't know what's going to...

..come out of what I say, what I mean.

What do I mean?

Is that...what it's about?

What do I mean? What do I think?

What do I feel?

I...

I don't know what's expected...of me to feel,

or to think,

or even to be, for that matter.

I-I don't even know why I started

to...talk today on this silly thing.

I've been hurting too much lately.

I had a bad fall.

By the way, I know I'm short of breath,

I have a hard time hanging on to it these days.

I could be wrong.

I mean, I might live till 100 and God only knows what,

but right now it's feeling like

I'm very close to the end.

I don't want to...

..be gasping for air in my lungs.

That's hard.

SOFT GASPING

That scares me.

It scares me, but...

SHE CHUCKLES

..it's OK.

It is all OK.

I'm sorry to be so...

It's not easy getting old.

So...

So I've been feeling the need to

free something that's been...

Well, it's been hiding.

Hiding in the closet of my mind.

I think I told you about my dad having downstairs in the basement,

his workshop.

It was like a scientist area.

It had moths and caterpillars and butterflies,

and he had them in little jars

and everything was labelled.

One time I went down in his workshop

and, actually, it was my sister

who said, "What's that, Daddy? What's that in there?"

It was...

It was a foetus.

And my dad then said it was his son,

that it was his only son.

And he always kept him down there - my little brother.

The Depression caused so much hardship.

My mom got pregnant and she just couldn't afford to have a child.

I mean, she tried to abort me

with knitting needles,

but she wasn't able to do in this case.

So I was born,

but I know that she tried to suffocate me with a pillow.

And I always had breathing issues.

I do remember fighting to breathe, to stay alive.

And, uh...

..I won.

I stayed alive. I made it through.

I feel a real kinship with you, Alexandre.

I wish you...

..so much because I feel

you, too, are discovering yourself.

All you can do, all you can be,

all you want to experience,

all you have and still need to express.

What's it like for you looking at this stuff?

ALEXANDRE O PHILIPPE: It gives me goosebumps.

Have you ever done anything like this -

gone up in someone's attic and...? I mean...

Well, certainly not Kim Novak's attic.

What got you into...

Well, what got me into film was, uh,

it was Vertigo.

What do you mean? Tell me.

If you can picture my living room in Switzerland,

it had this wallpaper - this very sort of burgundy,

rich burgundy wallpaper -

which was literally the same as the wallpaper

at Ernie's in Vertigo. Yeah.

You can actually remember seeing the wallpaper

and identifying with that?

My first movie memory...

My first memory of movies...

It's very strange, very strange telling this to you

because it's very vivid.

It's the Vertigo wallpaper against the wallpaper in my living room.

Wow. And you in your black and green dress.

I remember a green satin dress.

Wow. Just coming out of that towards me.

You remember the wallpaper more than my green dress!

Oh, no, I remember you coming out of that.

In retrospect, I'm just wondering,

"Did it make Vertigo real for me?"

We wouldn't be sitting here today

if you hadn't recognised a visual that connected you.

Wow. I think that's... That's right.

To me, that's fascinating.

Here's a picture that just blows my mind.

It's a picture of my grandfather.

My father's father.

He was a lumberman.

Wow.

Look at that.

It shows the rings and the tree.

It's a big redwood tree,

22ft in diameter.

Somewhere...

Somewhere in here I was born.

Somewhere in here.

I so often think of my childhood

as not being a good, healthy childhood,

but it was, you know?

There were beautiful things.

My father was a very strict man, and difficult.

I took those, yeah.

Well, I did a painting of my dad that...

It got burned in the fire - I lost it.

I had him as if he was in the petrified forest -

like, frozen in time.

And I called it The Petrified Forest.

To me, it symbolised a lot of what he was like as a man.

He had so much passion in him,

but it was locked up.

But when he came alive,

with Eastertime, he'd do eggs,

and he made coloured eggs that were so beautiful -

the swirls - it was pure magic.

Hitchcock, of course, was into that.

And I do that in my painting now, I find,

and I know it's going back

to watching my dad make Easter eggs for us kids.

If a person doesn't ever get it out...

..I think sometimes they feel like they failed.

When I took them to Czechoslovakia,

he got these intense migraines.

He couldn't... He couldn't take that I was successful.

I mean, I think I have to assume that he was proud of me,

but he never showed it.

My father was like, "No-one can succeed."

But my mom was very confident.

I mean, her eyes sparkled and twinkled

and she was so full of wanting to express the joy of life.

I can still hear her telling me -

really making me tell me

by looking in the mirror -

that I am the captain of my own ship,

that I can be in charge of myself

and what I do

and how I create my image to the world.

"I'm the captain of my own ship, Mom.

"I'm the captain of my own ship."

We lived downstairs.

My grandma and grandpa lived upstairs.

She was kind of my idol, I guess, at that time in my life.

Can you imagine?

I mean, she was from the 1800s, and she...

..had a bluebird tattooed on her arm.

I remember being in her arms and seeing that tattoo.

I guess the lesson I learned on that

is that if you really feel

you want to do something, do it.

Jeanne! Come back!

And so she gave me the courage to be able to speak up

when it's something that really mattered to me.

My grandma shows up in my paintings,

oftentimes as a winged creature - mostly a butterfly.

Another big blue bird became part of my life.

I mean, such a big part of my life.

I can't tell you how much.

He fell out of his nest at the back of the barn.

This baby broke his wing.

My husband was a veterinarian, pinned his wing and got it back.

And then we thought he would just go off,

but he didn't want to.

He decided to make me his mate.

He fell in love with me

and I fell in love with him, let me tell you.

When I'd go to take a bath or something,

he'd get up on the perch and just be watching.

I mean, he was totally in love with me,

mentally, physically.

Would you like me to scrub your back?

No.

And you needn't bother peeking through the keyhole.

He would dance in and out under my desk and around my face.

Oh, it was magical.

Totally magical.

So I surrounded myself with animals that...

I mean, I learned so many lessons from these guys.

It was important to me that,

when I left Hollywood -

I mean, because people always judge you by how you look

or how you dress,

or how much money you have in the bank -

and I needed to know that I was authentic.

Pretty girl doesn't have long.

Just a few years.

Then she's the equal of kings.

She can walk out of a shanty like this and live in a palace...

..but if she loses her chance when she's young,

she might as well throw all her prettiness away.

Listen, I don't have to do this.

I can do lots of things, I paint, I...

You think the glamour life will last forever.

Well, nothing lasts forever.

When the face goes, you go.

When the house was being built,

I just decided to paint the walls. Why not?

And I didn't know where I was going, just like in my art.

I'm on this wall.

I'm up there.

And then I come around the corner to my idol.

I just love Greta Garbo.

I mean, to me, she was...

She was someone I looked up to as a...

As not just for what she stood for as an actress,

but I loved what she stood for,

that she honoured

her own personal being,

her right to do as she chose.

In my home I'm very constrained.

Everything is arranged very formally.

Ah, a conventional household.

Very. Hm.

I like to get away from it sometimes, to be free.

She was a special lady.

She meant a lot to me.

I could sure identify with her

because she felt what I felt.

You could see it in her performances,

and I think you could in mine.

Am I great, Chancellor?

I feel so little and helpless...

..and futile.

That same insecure little girl

that wanted approval

and knew the price was high.

I mean, she was born vulnerable

and lived vulnerable

and probably died vulnerable,

as I think I will, too.

I was always vulnerable on screen, as well,

because I gave myself openly.

I love you.

Will you leave me alone, George?

Will you cut it out?

Just say it. Just say what?

That you've still got a thing for me.

All right, I still have a thing for you.

It's two months after you married this old man,

you'll be meeting me tonight anyway, so why bother getting married?

George, will you leave me alone?

I felt part of, I felt like I knew her

and like she knew me.

Well?

I want to be alone. Where have you been?

I suppose I can cancel the Vienna contract.

I just want to be alone.

You're going to be very much alone, my dear madam, this is the end.

I never thought about it before,

but she did remind me of my grandma.

When I saw her once -

I think it was in Paris -

and she was walking and I thought,

"Oh, my God, I think that's her."

And I looked down to her shoes and then I knew it was her.

She always wore comfortable loafers and things, and...

I mean, it had to be her.

Who could be so glamorous and beautiful and yet...

..need comfort, you know,

needed to feel rooted to the earth, as well?

I had to be glamorous, as she did - so on film -

but when she'd get home, she could put on her cosy, fuzzy slippers

that she could wiggle her toes in.

Reminds me of Jimmy Stewart's toes.

He had wonderful, long, skinny toes.

Looked just like him.

Tall and skinny and honest

and who they were.

They were real toes.

I know, because when we made Bell, Book and Candle,

when they turned off the lights on the set,

we'd put up our feet on the table

and just look at our toes.

He was such an incredible friend to me.

He was the man next door.

He was the comfortable slippers

you put on at night because they're fuzzy and warm.

It was when I left Hollywood, I thought,

"This is something Greta Garbo would do, too,"

because she had to respect her own being,

and if she felt her life in any way was being threatened

of who she was, she had to protect herself.

I am your destiny, Christina.

Are you?

I long to escape my destiny.

And so, in a way, I justified my leaving

by saying, "She did it, so why not me?

"Why not me, Greta?"

Oh, my God.

Wow!

All of this is from my very first time abroad,

very first time seeing the world.

I was not a good student.

I mean, my mind was always looking out the window,

thinking about other things.

But then I won this art scholarship.

Suddenly, I had a life.

It was like, "Wow, I have something to offer.

"I have something to connect to."

So, for me, it was a big deal.

I took a modelling job during summer vacation from junior college

and it was to model refrigerators, of all things!

Ended up in San Francisco.

And this other girl said, "Gee, we're all the way in California.

"Why don't we see Hollywood?"

I got this job to walk down

the staircase in a movie.

The man from Columbia Pictures was there,

and he said, "I want to do a screen test" - he said that of me.

And it was Richard Quine, who I fell in love with, of course.

And it was perfect cos it was a monologue about what I wanted

out of life is just to be loved.

And so I was able to really put my passion in it.

I never felt like I was a movie star, you know?

I mean, here I left as Marilyn Novak from nowhere,

and the next time I came back was on a train

and I'd already done my first movies that I was starring in.

I so much identified with Madge.

Everyone just thinks of her as pretty

and didn't take her seriously.

La di da.

Madge is the pretty one,

but she's so dumb they almost had to burn the schoolhouse down

to get her out of it.

That is not so!

You have to work in the dime store.

Well, Bomber was right, you are a goon!

And I had a sister, like she had a sister,

who was the real smart, intelligent one.

And it was like being at home.

She is looking through a camera for the first time, a big camera.

Oh, my God, I think it was my birthday on that set.

Pushover - it was my very first movie.

Oh, my goodness, look at that.

Fred MacMurray.

Can you imagine how it was

to come out of Chicago?

Small-town Chicago.

A big city, but where I was, it was...

I mean, oh, my gosh.

I wasn't even a year under contract

and I didn't know anything

about acting or anything.

TRAILER VOICEOVER: The word is out. She's the find of the year!

You're also a cop.

LOUD SLAP

All of a sudden you're there

and you're wearing a low-cut sweater

and a fur coat and all.

I mean, it was such a transition.

It was difficult because he was wearing this trench coat

in the first scene,

and inside - it was specially made for him -

and it said, "1933".

I said, "Oh, that's the year I was born!"

That was not the right thing to say on the first day of shooting.

But it's also the very first draft,

and it's called The Killer Wore A Badge.

Oh, wow.

Look at the pictures.

Oh, it's amazing to be able

to go over all of this,

and to think that I was part...

I was Lona.

SHE CHUCKLES

I say, "I like your place."

He says, "Four walls and a bed."

I like that!

"I don't see the bed," she said.

"You're sitting on it."

"Oh, Sorry."

"For what?"

"For picking me up."

"Is that what you call it, a pick-up?"

"Well, don't you?"

SHE CHUCKLES

I was a disappointment to my father,

and so when I got into movies,

he was very against it.

You know, he felt it was an evil place, Hollywood and all.

UP-TEMPO JAZZ MUSIC

APPLAUSE AND WHISTLES

I mean, the character in Jeanne Eagels,

she would do anything, in a sense, to get ahead.

Well, that's not me at all.

Not at all.

She was great, so real.

And everybody is talking about her performance.

I loved playing that role.

She gave me sort of the courage

to be perhaps more vocal about my feelings,

more expressive.

Jeanne! Keep your hands off of me!

I don't want your help.

I don't want you to wait for me or to take me home.

I don't want you to worry about me

and I don't want you to love me!

But I learned by playing that role

that I could go farther,

and that was scary.

In Hollywood, you're always playing so many different roles.

By the time you've done ten, 12 movies or more,

you've got traits of all these others

so that you start to lose who you are.

And, of course, that happened

with so many celebrities,

so many movie stars.

And then, of course, Marilyn.

I didn't want that to happen to me.

SHE SOBS

I think the worst thing

that I feared,

becoming an actress,

was that I'd become Kim Novak.

That was scary,

cos I didn't even fully know who Kim Novak was,

let alone see my name up in lights,

which wasn't my name.

But part of it was.

It's all right, it's all right.

ANGUISHED CRY

And you look in the mirror at yourself,

it's like you almost couldn't see who you were at all.

You can't imagine what a really big star she was.

I mean, really big.

Everybody loved her,

worshipped her.

She had a strange kind of appeal, didn't she?

It was scary,

thinking of losing myself.

Like becoming the number-one box-office star in the world.

They thought, "Oh, she's got something special,"

but then as soon as they have you under contract or whatever,

they want to change you, want to make you over.

And of course, it's the story of Madeleine and Judy,

but of course, it's my story, too, you know?

Why am I here if you don't need me

or want me, let alone love me, you know?

But that's, of course, why for me it was important.

It took my father...

It didn't happen till the week before he passed.

My sister and I were there to visit and see him,

and we knew he was dying.

And he looked at the two of us, and he said...

.."I love you two."

I found something really interesting

and really cool in the attic yesterday.

OK, what did you find?

It's a memo that is dated April 24th, 1953.

It says, "For Kim, first days in movies,"

and it's a list of 16 points

from your dad...

Ah!

..about his wishes for you.

Oh, my God.

Oh.

Wow.

He cared and he understood.

See, sometime maybe I've given you the wrong impression about my daddy,

because, I mean, this is all such caring, loving advice

that makes sense.

I mean, to me, that's showing he loved me, you know?

I've always felt like...

..like I was born at the wrong time

or somehow just never really fit in.

I was a shining star,

but in the wrong galaxy somehow.

It's as though I were walking down a long corridor that...

..once was mirrored.

And fragments of that mirror still hang there.

And when I come to the end of the corridor...

..there's nothing but darkness.

It was a period also where

everything was very theatrical.

Everything to me was overdone,

and it didn't feel right to me.

You know, you're not even a little bit like him.

You're more the quiet, moody type. Hm.

In some ways you're very cute, though.

Well, I'm afraid this is awfully dull for you.

So I always just brought myself to it,

and I didn't feel appreciated.

There was such a need to always want

to express yourself and be yourself

but it wasn't, uh, wasn't the time.

Of course, you came under the wing - if that's the right word -

of Harry Cohn, who was either described as a mogul or a monster,

whichever way you look at him.

But he was one of the last great impresarios, wasn't he,

of picking out stars like yourself

and making them in his image?

Stop!

Now, when you come down, you will not be Elsa Brinkmann,

and you will contrive, just for a moment,

to give the impression of a lady with some modicum

of sophistication and poise.

Harry Cohn had someone following me all the time,

so I didn't stop too long getting coffee or stopping for a doughnut.

I mean, every part of my life was controlled.

It felt sometimes like a prison

just because it was so controlled.

What I wore, who I went out... Everything.

What he would do - call me in the office

and he'd read me the review.

He'd say, "And here's what they

"said about you, fat Polak."

He always called me the "fat Polak".

He loved to get under your skin with something.

Very interesting.

Oh, that's really brilliant.

We are moving like a deeply offended Tibetan yak!

Aren't we?

How much do you think she weighs?

Oh...

Guess.

May I?

Help yourself!

They were giving me these scripts

that were not what I wanted to be part of.

They were so much into glamour and everything being flashy

and it's not who I was or what I felt.

I'm so grateful that I don't have

to be the pretty one now.

And don't you tell me how beautiful I am.

And don't tell me how much you desire me

cos I'm sick of being desirable.

I'd like to think I had something more to give a man than this.

And that's kind of what, you know, Josh Logan in Picnic -

he said, "For Kim, it was like being pretty

"was like wearing a crown of thorns."

And that is so true.

What good is it just to be pretty?

What a question!

Maybe I get tired of only being looked at.

So, I mean, that had a lot to do with why I left.

You were right.

I do have a good shape.

Pal Joey, God, I loved everything about it.

Confidentially...

..I'm stacked.

But the ingenue role that I played in it,

it didn't feel like I had enough to get into.

Now to start with we'll take the word mouse.

This is a mouse.

A beautiful mouse called Kim Novak.

# Stay

# Each day is Valentine's Day... #

I kind of like the duality,

I kind of like a sort of push-pull,

negative-positive.

I like to get that contrast.

And now it's so much freer.

My God, you could run your hands through your hair

and not worry about screwing it up.

# I just go along for the ride

# They call me the life of the party

# They don't know that I'm crying

# Inside... #

And I totally respect actors,

but to me,

I feel more proud of having been a reactor.

You know the risk you're taking?

I don't want to frighten you...

..but have you ever seen anybody die of syphilis?

Mildred, look at me.

I want to help you.

I don't want anything from you.

I just want to help you.

I thought a lot about you while I was away.

About you and me and Zosh.

How it would never work out between you and me

as long as she was upstairs sitting in that chair.

It'd be different if she didn't love me

and she wasn't so helpless.

You can't make a fool of somebody who loves you

and they're so helpless.

That's why I didn't come around sooner.

And that's why I ain't coming around no more.

You understand?

Sure.

Sure, I understand.

You're a good girl, Molly.

Sure. Real good.

I see a lot more actors

reacting than acting now.

They touch me, they touch me.

Is it my dad?

Oh.

SOBS: Oh...

Philip Seymour Hoffman - what a loss!

It's not fair!

All my life I've been afraid of becoming like him.

All my life! All my life with you, and it's not fair.

He can't just say he's sorry and make it all go away.

It's too late. It's not that easy.

It's not fair!

It's not fucking fair!

When I was working on the script,

it helped me get into the character by sketching it, actually.

To feel like Madge in Picnic, you know?

And she was doing that dance.

I knew that both Bill Holden and myself were a little nervous

about doing that dance,

because you start out apart,

and I just kind of wanted to get

a feel of what Madge was feeling, you know?

And I remember working just before we did that dance

on a little drawing just of her

out there in the pink dress with a skirt blowing in the wind.

It gave me the courage to go out there

because I was always a really shy person.

It made it personal to me.

It allowed it to become part of my core,

part of my being.

And I was also starting to lose myself in these characters

because every time I'd draw them, they became real.

ALEXANDRE: So your art was always sort of carrying you in a way,

even then. Oh, it rescued me.

I mean, I do think Hollywood,

it swallows people whole, you know?

And so, this was my saviour.

I felt like movies was a detour, really.

At the time I left, I was really at the top of my game,

and I was young enough still to do lots more work.

I got a sense of guilt.

The guilt got me, of leaving Hollywood.

That...and the guilt that maybe

I didn't fulfil my destiny,

that I didn't follow through

when I really was just getting ripe to be more.

So I had to think of my survival mode,

and my survival mode was to paint.

It was powerful.

Powerful.

Leaving Hollywood,

coming here, it was so liberating.

I was working on a film and this place had a "for sale" sign.

My sister saw it. She said,

"Oh, my gosh, something I've got to show you."

And Fred Astaire and I walked on over here

from next door, where we were filming.

And it was heavy, heavy fog.

And just as we were coming around the bend here, walking,

I hear this seagull calling out.

And the next thing I knew, the fog lifted

and here was this castle -

this little castle.

You see that point out there?

It's just the other side of that other point.

I think that's Point Lobos across that we see,

and then my house was the next range of rocks in the ocean.

I bought the house sight unseen,

but I knew it was meant to be.

You know, some things are destiny.

Actually, I used to sit here with my Great Dane.

We'd sit out here, the goat Warlock and me,

and Pyewacket, my cat.

Look at this.

Oh! Just too much.

Oh, it's incredible.

It's incredible.

Oh, such memories I've got here.

Oh, such memories.

I had to get reborn.

I had to learn to trust myself,

to believe in myself,

and to stand alone by myself.

And of course, here's where I came to start working my art again.

And it was like all of these influences

were able to come to play.

The childhood influences,

the movie influences.

Alfred Hitchcock was a big influence in my life.

Oh, look, there's my house

and I'm painting down on the rocks.

There's my bedroom right there,

looking out the window.

I'm looking out my window right now

from my office, and all the leaves

are flying off the trees.

The wind is blowing and it's cold

and it's raining.

And it's all the way you don't want it to be,

but it's complete.

It's fulfilled, it's fulfilling.

It's happening, it's real.

It's me and it's you.

And it's... It's...

It's everything. It's life and it's death and it's everything.

Everything.

Oh, God.

Makes me love life so much.

I mean, it makes me love life so much

that I want to keep on living and keep on giving.

Keep on receiving all this inspiration

that I want to paint about.

I mean, I never want to stop painting.

It keeps you interested in life,

it keeps you moving.

I can't believe some of the things that show up in my painting.

I don't know where it's coming from,

but it's like it shows up and then I have to go with it, you know?

I'm putting out one thing

and it's reacting back to me,

and then I have to react to it - its response.

I was going to use this knife,

but it needs to be sweeps again.

It's very hard when you're trying to make it be two things, you know?

MUSIC: The Tower by Bernard Herrmann

Like Alfred Hitchcock had to make two people

and have them make sense

and to believe they are two people,

but yet they're not.

They're one.

And so that's kind of what this poses to me - a problem.

I kind of like making it a riddle.

I feel his influence.

I feel, you know, his love of mystery,

which I've always had, in a way.

But he just stimulated it enough, that mystery...

..is always part of my life now.

I paint a lot of birds in my pictures

and my birds, I've always felt, in every respect,

that they're my messengers.

I mean, it's almost like when a bird starts to appear

on one of my paintings,

it's telling me I'm in the right direction,

in a way.

ALEXANDRE: Wow. That's interesting.

That motif shows up in his work and in yours

in totally opposite ways.

Every time birds show up in his movies -

always a signifier of danger.

Sit down.

GULLS CRY

LOUD SQUAWKING

Watching all the devastation

that is going on with the wildfires...

..it touches me in so many ways.

And it brings back memories -

memories of the fires I survived in.

I've been in three house fires in three different houses

of where they burned to the ground in two of them.

And I had to decide what I could try to salvage

before it was too late and before it all became ashes.

I mean, I felt I needed to save history -

MY history -

even more than my art, cos I lost a lot of my paintings.

But saving boxes of memories and pictures - that mattered.

Opening this up,

I get chills just remembering the first time that I read the script.

This was the original script and it's been through fires,

my God... I almost lost it,

but I didn't.

I didn't, it was here.

This is a wonder that it has survived.

The script survived two fires,

but it didn't burn up.

There was the fire in Bel Air -

one of the biggest fires ever in Hollywood.

We lost... The whole fire burned down in 13 minutes.

But this script was here

and it got saved again.

It was called originally "From Among The Dead"

and they changed it to Vertigo,

which I think is much more appropriate.

So, I've got a marked page here.

Let's see what this is about.

Oh, my gosh.

It's almost like it's happening today, I mean...

She says, "Thank you for the fire,"

and he says...

Where were you before?

When? This afternoon, I mean.

Oh, I'm remembering.

She's feeling a little...

A little intoxicated with the whole thing of being looked at

and being important,

being part of a mystery.

She's very much Judy, but starting to feel good in her skin.

You know, it's almost like stepping into another being.

And it's like starting to feel

that the fit is right.

It's like, "Oh, I can wear your clothes. I could..."

"And then he'll look at me."

"And he'll like what he sees, so I must look good to him.

"Oh, I like... I like being Madeleine

"cos I'm getting to feel...

.."warm all over."

TRAILER VOICEOVER: What was the strange attraction

that brought these two together

in spite of the dark forces that tore them apart?

The spectre from the past that drew her

to the ancient headstone in the mission graveyard?

Somehow, she is getting attracted already,

even though she's not looked at him.

She's attracted and kind of excited

by being watched.

I mean, she can feel his eyes.

But, you see, that's the thing,

especially when you're a reactor as opposed to an actor,

you are reacting sometimes

to what you feel he's feeling.

I mean, I could feel him there

and almost experience

what he was experiencing

while I was experiencing

what I was experiencing.

Let's face it, Hitchcock was very complicated.

But then, I'm complicated, too, I must admit.

I was like, "Oh, don't let me go there.

"Don't let me go there. I've got to go there.

"I've got to go there. Please don't let me go there.

"I've got to be there. I've got to go.

"I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this,

"but I've got to do it, I've got to do it.

"I've got to do it."

Before I read the script, Harry Cohn said,

"I'm going to loan you out to do a movie with Alfred Hitchcock.

"He's a great director, so you can do it," he says,

"but it's a terrible script."

Can you imagine?

TRAILER VOICEOVER: The story of a love so powerful

it broke down all barriers between past and present,

between life and death,

between the golden girl in the dark tower

and the tawdry redhead that he tried to remake in her image.

I was so green in the business

that I had never seen an Alfred Hitchcock movie,

so I didn't fully appreciate

what I was getting into until I got into it.

But when I read that script,

I just felt it was so right for me.

I was Judy, do you know, in a lot of ways.

I think I've always sort of resented being made over.

That's why I was so right for the role in Vertigo,

because it's all about that.

The colour of your hair.

Oh, no!

Judy, please. It can't matter to you.

If...

If I let you change me, will that do it?

If I do what you tell me...

..will you love me?

Yes.

It reminded me a lot of why I left Hollywood.

It became more than I could endure

and I could see how it affected so many actresses.

Young actresses, old actresses,

everybody.

Yes, it's like that at the door.

I'm her now.

Won't you love me? I want...

You're looking at me like you love me.

I'm so glad...

You love me.

We're good. I did it. I did it and it's still...

Oh, God, it's still as it should be.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I'm his. He's mine.

Ah!

Look at all those things going by - the past.

ALEXANDRE: The ghosts creeping back in. Yes, look at that spiral.

Of course it's there.

I left that movie,

and I had the weight of Carlotta,

the guilt of Judy,

and the fantasy, love,

beauty, transition of Madeleine.

Wow. Yeah.

How do you ever shed that,

I mean, at some level, right? I mean, you can't.

No, no, no, and you're never free of it.

I still have Madeleine and Judy, but...

..I certainly found...

..more of me to balance that.

So, Vertigo has...

It's good, what it did for me and gave me,

but it also has what I had to leave.

I couldn't survive any longer in that environment.

Look at that shadow on the wall of my hand.

Hi, Hollywood. Hi, Hollywood.

You made magic in my life

and I hope I made magic in Hollywood.

Do you know where the Vertigo dress is?

It's in that box.

Which one? I don't know. Where is it?

Is it one of those boxes here?

One of those? Oh, this one. It's got to be.

Still wrapped. I've never opened it.

Marilyn, Malloy. OK.

That's it. This is it. OK.

Hello, Alfred.

You should come down here, Hitch.

They're doing a movie and you're part of it.

So, Hitch, you just know that you're part of their movie.

Are we ready for opening this?

I think so.

This opens up the past

and brings it into the future and into today, actually,

cos today I am opening up

Madeleine and Judy's, their...

Wow. I don't know what's going to come out!

Oh, let's see.

Let's see.

Oh, my God, another box.

Another mystery to open.

Oh, we're really down to it, I can tell.

I can tell. This is funny.

I can tell by the feel of it.

Cos I used to wear this,

so I'd pick it up to put on,

and this is what it feels like.

Oh, my God.

Oh, I'm so...

I'm so happy.

I mean, I haven't seen it since I wore it.

I can feel the energy from here.

I mean, I feel it, I feel the weight of it.

I'm a little nervous about opening up this box because it's like...

..like ghosts are going to come out.

And, of course, they will.

I feel like they're going to all come flying out

like a cloud of smoke.

SHE GASPS

BIRDS FLUTTER AND SQUAWK

It's like a Hitchcockian mystery again.

I think some of her clothes are still in this wardrobe.

Am I ready?

I'm going to open the lid without looking.

Oh, still paper.

Wait a minute, I got to see...

Oh!

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

There's my suit. My grey suit.

And, of course, I'm in the flower shop.

It's so funny, the expression that I see on my face...

..is interesting because it's...

Is it Judy?

Am I looking at Judy or am I looking at Madeleine?

I'm looking at Madeleine.

I mean, she was supposed to only be pretending.

But Judy, unconsciously,

really became Madeleine, unconsciously.

Madeleine...

..where are you now?

Here with you. And it's all real.

I remember when they go back to San Juan Bautista

and she's sitting in a horse buggy.

I had my hand up here, holding the suit,

and we had to make another shot.

The script girl said, "Don't forget, your hand was here."

And it always felt so artificial to me.

And yet it was so perfect.

It was a Hitchcockian moment.

I was shown the sketches by Edith. I had to wear this.

But you said grey, sir.

Now, look, I just want an ordinary, simple grey suit.

But I like that one, Scottie.

No, no, it's not right.

The gentleman seems to know what he wants.

All right, we'll find it.

And I didn't want to wear this,

but I wore this.

Yes, that's it. I thought so.

I don't like it. We'll take it.

And I grew from something that I thought I hated,

because of the style and all,

into something I...I love.

I love it.

I mean, it's...

It's part of me.

Oh, there's mixed emotions, mixed feelings,

but it's all love.

It's all...

It's all part of me.

Part of me.

My body was in this.

And my heart and my soul were in it.

Well?

It should be back from your face and pinned at the neck.

I told her that, I told YOU that.

We tried it.

It just didn't seem to suit me.

Please, Judy.

What's scary, and it was scary to me,

of course, is losing myself,

losing my own identity.

But they became so real, in a way, that it became tempting.

It was a temptation to go farther.

It was arousing in me

all of these different parts of me.

I'm bipolar, but I didn't know that then.

I had no idea.

But it's like all of these things

were connecting with different parts

of me on different levels.

So, it's like it awoke all kinds of...

Things that were happening to me,

were really happening to me.

Even though she was Judy pretending to be Madeleine,

it was really...

It was also, at the same time,

me having to become Judy,

having to become Madeleine,

touched by Carlotta.

Phew.

Oh.

It's a wonder it didn't blow my mind back then!

You know? I was possessed by it.

It threatened taking over my whole being.

And I think about Jimmy Stewart.

Madeleine...

Madeleine.

We were really close in that movie.

He was always so...

Here, I'll get you some more coffee. BELL RINGS

..Jimmy Stewart. You know, he was always himself.

He always brought something to...

We had so much to react to with each other.

He was reacting off of me, I was reacting off of him.

We weren't acting. We never acted.

It's nice having you over me.

I mean, it's reassuring having a man near one...

..in case he's needed.

I didn't like the word "acting"

because it made me think

you have to be pretending.

But I always found that I WAS the character.

You were the copy, you were the counterfeit, weren't you?

Was she dead or alive... Dead! He'd broken her neck!

He was really reacting

to his obsession.

You know? He really got into it

cos it was real to him.

You shouldn't have been...

You shouldn't have been that sentimental.

I mean, that crackle in his voice,

he didn't plan that.

It happened.

I loved you so, Madeleine.

Saving her in the water,

rescuing her,

and then bringing her in and so tenderly,

beautifully undressing her

in a respectful, beautiful way.

I mean, of course you don't see it, but I lived it.

PHONE RINGS

Yes?

No, it's all right.

I'll call you back.

Yes.

I lived it, knowing that he rescued me and then brought me...

But the tenderness he showed,

the respect he showed to her, to me,

it was like, "Oh, my gosh,

"a man doesn't have to just want you for sex."

Hey, Polly, we're just wondering,

how do you get that thing to stay in there?

I glue it in.

THEY LAUGH

What would happen if I unglued it?

You'd get beer in your eye.

From there?

From here.

I mean, how many men would be in that position

and not want to take advantage of the situation?

And of course, Jimmy Stewart gave that in his own persona.

I mean, as Jimmy Stewart, not just the role of Scottie.

Who are you? I'm somebody that

you wanted to make love to.

Some people might think that had

a certain amount of responsibility.

Oh, would they?

You don't own me, you don't control me.

On the contrary. You be on the set at 9:00 in the morning

and do exactly as I say because you're an illusion.

Without me, you don't exist.

You're nothing. Do you understand? Nothing!

She'd never been treated that way before.

Neither Madeleine or Judy.

And so they both fell in love with Scottie that night -

Judy and Madeleine.

And so, of course, now she's back to working

and she's completely trying to let it go behind...

And then all of a sudden, there's Scottie.

The man she was in love with and is still in love with,

that she has been fighting her own demons.

So, when she sees him, it's like...

It's...

I mean, it's a mixed feeling, again,

of her love and her fear.

And it's, "Oh, my God, I don't want to be caught."

It's all of that.

When he wants to start seeing her,

it's like she knows she shouldn't do it.

But by the same token, she wants to be close to him.

Then when he starts trying to make her over...

SHE SIGHS

..she doesn't want to go there. She wants to be loved for herself.

She wants to be seen as herself.

She wants him to look at her like he looked at Madeleine.

But he doesn't.

And so then the impulse becomes,

"I'm going to do whatever he wants because I don't want to disappoint."

Is that what happens?

Yeah, but it's true. She would - and I would -

do anything for love, real love.

I mean, it's like you're willing to totally sacrifice yourself

and sacrifice what you believe in, what you think.

You're willing to turn yourself over, body and soul.

Of course.

And she does.

But opening up that Pandora's box,

the price she paid...

Yeah.

Yeah.

But then, of course,

I have to go back to my revelation from it,

of when I needed to free myself

of all of these ghosts, you know,

because they were haunting me.

Are you talking about personal ghosts?

Now I'm talking about... Well, I'm talking about Hollywood ghosts.

You know what I am?

I am a star.

I don't need Actors' Equity.

I'm going to Hollywood.

I'll be a star there, too.

Well, it has everything to do with why I left Hollywood, of course,

you know? Because, I mean, the ghosts were overwhelming.

I was afraid of losing myself in Hollywood

because of what you're expected to be and to do.

Probably the most important thing in my life

is maintaining a sense of who I am,

of not getting lost in that.

Playing both of those roles -

probably more than in any other movie I did -

was unravelling things in my own life at the same time.

It's like you get carried away.

It is like Hitchcock's circles

because it's like you get carried away and then you go back

and each time it takes you back and forward and sideways

and gets you dizzy.

You get dizzy cos you're caught up in it,

but by the same token,

I felt dizzy much of the time from life.

Love...

..makes you dizzy.

Oh, my God.

VOICE BREAKS: It's almost too much to handle.

I don't want to get tears on it.

Although...

I don't know what to say.

SHE SNIFFS

I wondered if I could smell me.

I was afraid it was going to be too stiff.

It doesn't feel stiff any more.

Now it feels soft.

I don't know if it's over time that it got soft or...

Do I..

Am I...

Is my touch different?

Do I feel different enough that what felt...

What felt...

..foreign to me...

..when it was right to, I mean, it was Judy...

..Madeleine.

I'm so grateful for this grey suit.

Isn't it funny how things that you think...

Things that you think you don't like -

or not...not like,

but that aren't what you feel,

don't feel right -

that you can get to feel

when looking back?

That's a good thing about getting old.

The good thing is,

you can look back, and everything is beautiful cos it's life.

I am so blessed cos I have led such a big,

beautiful circle of life.

Yeah.

It takes a lot of strength, really,

to be able to hold on to yourself

and what you stand for,

what you believe, what you think, what you do.

My energy and everything does not come from these characters.

My energy - I found my own.

I feel good about myself. I mean, I feel I'm strong,

I'm courageous, I'm adventurous.

Also, you give me permission, you know?

Permission to...

You're giving yourself permission.

Yes, but you're giving me permission to...

..to...

..to...

..to appreciate myself,

to appreciate that reacting was good,

that you didn't have to act.

I mean, you know, I always felt like,

"Well, gosh, I should be able to do what they're doing."

But part of me was saying, "I'm doing something even better."

What you've given me is,

you've given me an appreciation of myself.

Do you know that? Well, you're telling me now.

I'm very moved by it. I'm very, very moved by it...

I'm very moved by it because it's like,

I mean, after all these years of living,

I can appreciate myself.

Well, I mean, to know that you lived all these years

and you can - before you die, you can feel appreciated,

that's a biggie.

I'm still so carried away by dancing with fate

and letting it take me.

Letting fate take me for a cruise

or just a...sort of like...a flight

on a spectrum of a pendulum.

Reaching, riding,

searching, dreaming...

..destroying, creating,

all the images of life and of death.

I want to experience them all.

I've experienced so much

but there's some I haven't.

I'll try to let you know after I'm there.

I'll still be painting pictures in the sky then,

so you're going to have to look in the sky and look at the clouds,

kind of like the way I paint and look for images,

cos there'll be things I'm saying and telling you.

Kind of spirals - spirals of colours and rainbows

and everything that I want to express

and say,

speak to you all.