SHADOWLAND
The emotional otherworlds of classic cinema. Unspooling the ribbon of dreams every Sunday afternoon.
Films in this Series
Alfred Hitchcock
129 MINUTES
Hitchcock’s grand enigma VERTIGO is a tantalizing spiral into the abyss. The film follows Scottie Ferguson, an ex-police detective in forced retirement after his last case ended in a tragic death, as he is enlisted as a private investigator to keep an eye on an old friend’s wife. Following Madeline, he is drawn into a sprawling riddle of love and death, from which he may never emerge. This is Hitchcock’s most profound and troubling exploration of his persistent themes: doppelgängers and duality, obsession, women trapped by deceit and the inexorable destructiveness of male desire. A cinematic masterpiece, VERTIGO retains its power as a perplexing and harrowing nightmare.
“One of the landmarks—not merely of the movies, but of 20th-century art. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film extends the theme of REAR WINDOW—the relationship of creator and creation—into the realm of love and sexuality. The famous motif of the fall becomes not a satanic fall from grace, but a modernist fall into the image, into the artwork—a total absorption of the creator by his creation, which in the end is shown as synonymous with death. But a thematic analysis can only scratch the surface of this extraordinarily dense and commanding film, perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema.” – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
“One of the landmarks—not merely of the movies, but of 20th-century art. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film extends the theme of REAR WINDOW—the relationship of creator and creation—into the realm of love and sexuality. The famous motif of the fall becomes not a satanic fall from grace, but a modernist fall into the image, into the artwork—a total absorption of the creator by his creation, which in the end is shown as synonymous with death. But a thematic analysis can only scratch the surface of this extraordinarily dense and commanding film, perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema.” – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Leo McCarey
68 minutes
The greatest of all the Marx Brothers’ films, DUCK SOUP masks its trenchant satire on fascism and war in a cloak of hilarious sight gags and clever repartee. Set in the tiny country of Freedonia (Land of the Spree and Home of the Knave), the film brings together Groucho as newly appointed president Rufus T. Firefly, Harpo and Chico as enemy spies, and Zeppo as a tenor.
Director Leo McCarey's experience working with all manner of comedian and his comfort with improvisation both served him well when it came to directing the anarchic brothers. Patriotism, religion, diplomacy, courtroom justice, and general matters of state are incisively ridiculed in one of the funniest movies ever to emerge from the studio system. YOU WILL LAUGH.
- Tom Huddleston, Time Out
Director Leo McCarey's experience working with all manner of comedian and his comfort with improvisation both served him well when it came to directing the anarchic brothers. Patriotism, religion, diplomacy, courtroom justice, and general matters of state are incisively ridiculed in one of the funniest movies ever to emerge from the studio system. YOU WILL LAUGH.
