Stanford Theatre |
Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hitchcock's Vertigo Stanford Theatre, Palo Alto October 16, 2008 & Stanford Humanities Center Stanford University October 17, 2008
Edited by Peter Y. Chou |
.jpg)
Stanford Vertigo Poster |
Preface: Back in March 6, 2008, I went to a Hitchcock's Vertigo
screening in Professor Jean-Pierre Dupuy's Stanford class. He told us about
planning a 50th Anniversary of Hitchcock's Vertigo in the Fall. Now that
moment is here. I read in the San Jose Mercury News that Prof. Dupuy was flying
in from Paris for this event. Stanford Professor Pavle Levi (moderator for today's
afternoon session of speakers) who is on sabbatical this semester told me he flew
in from Serbia for this forum. My friend Rudy has never seen this Hitchcock classic,
so he cut his XML class to accompany me to this event. We left Foothill College
Middlefield Computer Lab at 6:30 pm and got to the Stanford Theatre at 6:50 pm.
The line was already half way around the block for the 7:30 pm opening. It was
the largest crowd I've seen— more than the Harold Lloyd's Safety Last
or Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. There were more older people for
those silent films, but this "Vertigo" crowd had a mixture of youth, middle, and
old age. The show began with David Packard welcoming the audience, saying that he
saw this film at its opening in 1958 when he was majoring in classics (Greek & Latin
studies) at Stanford. He checked the records and said that today's Stanford Theatre
screening of Hitchcock's Vertigo would be the 56th time. Jeff Kraft, co-author
with Aaron Leventhal of Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco
(2002) made a 40-minutes slide presentation of the San Francisco scenes which Alfred Hitchcock
shot for Vertigo. As I've been reading his book this week, it was nice to see
the photos on the big screen. Then Vertigo began with Saul Bass's stunning graphics
and Bernard Hermann's musical scores that added extra dimensions to this classic film.
On Friday, October 17, 2008, I just had coffee and slice of crumb cake and got on
Bus #22 at 9:40 am. The Stanford Shuttle Bus B-Line-clockwise at Galvez Sreet took me to
Tresidder Union. I got to the Stanford Humanities Center at 10:20 am and three people
were already there— Jeff Kraft (author of Footsteps in the Fog and
slide show presenter last night), Donna G. Howe (Vertigo Fundraising Chair at
Old Mission San Juan Bautista, with scrapbook of Hitchcock family photos & memorabilia),
James Nguyen, film director of Moviehead Pictures, and Hitchcock film buff). We sat in
the second row as the first row was reserved for the speakers. The celebration of speakers,
Q & A sessions, and roundtable discussion lasted till 5:33 pm. My friend Jack came to the
morning lecture by Professor Richard Allen of NYU. He then went home to Sunnyvale to care
of his Mom, but returned for the Roundtable Discussion in the afternoon. Jack said
Hitchcock's Vertigo is one of his favorite films that needs repeated viewing.
This was the consensus of the Hitchcock scholars and presenters who spoke today on the many nuances
of this film that was voted by the American Film Institute as the
#1 Mystery Film.
I took some 30 pages of notes and when typed will link them to the speakers below.
| Top of Page | Kim Novak | Alan Watts | Vertigo | Haikus | Home |
|
