Venice 2025: ‘Kim Novak’s Vertigo’ Reexamines the Actress’ Legacy
by Alex Billington
September 2, 2025
This is the story of a beloved Hollywood actress and her life off screen outside of her movies. Kim Novak is the award-winning star of Hitchcock’s all-timer mystery thriller classic Vertigo, and tons of other classic movies like Pushover, Picnic, The Man with the Golden Arm, Pal Joey, Jeanne Eagels, Strangers When We Meet, Kiss Me Stupid, and many others. She’s now 92 years old and still going strong. Kim Novak’s Vertigo is a brand new documentary featuring Kim Novak reflecting back on her life in Hollywood before she left the film business for good in the 1970s. She got tired of being treated as simply a pretty woman. It’s the latest creation from Swiss doc filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe, known for his many acclaimed doc films about cinema history – including 78/52 (about Hitchcock’s Psycho), Memory: The Origins of Alien, Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist, Lynch/Oz, and this year’s Chain Reactions. Alexandre was lucky enough to befriend Kim – she literally talks about how she feels connected to him when he sits down to interview her in her home. This fascinating film is about identity and how Hollywood steals it. And about how she was able to discover herself in roles, even if she ended up getting tired of acting after decades of acclaimed work.
Novak’s original name was Marilyn Pauline Novak (her parents were of Czech descent); she took the name “Kim Novak” as a stage name when she entered Hollywood in 1954 after signing with Columbia Pictures. The film comes in at a brisk 77 minutes, and starts out with a fairly quick biopic look at her early days and life before arriving at Vertigo. Alexandre O. Philippe is not known for making linear, straight-forward docs and this is no exception. His narrative bounces around from Kim telling stories and leaving voice messages for him in modern times, to her work on Vertigo which was the first film Alexandre fell in love with while growing up, to her early days in Hollywood and acting legacy. Not much time is spent outside her film career – it never really explains what she has been doing since she left Hollywood in the 1970s. The real focus of Alexandre’s film is on her identity, which is especially unique because it’s also related to the three different characters she plays in Vertigo: Carlotta, Madeleine, and Judy. Novak reveals that she actually does not like being looked at and hated being the beautiful blonde of cinema, but of course did her best to play the roles anyway. She also discusses how she felt like more of a “reactor” than an actor. Alexandre is best at working in hundreds of film clips that perfectly depict whatever she is explaining about herself or her performances.
Many actresses, especially from this era, have talked about how much they despised the “beautiful starlet” status they were assigned as Hollywood actors controlled by studios. And ultimately this is what she got so tired of & why she left, which she repeats often. She also repeats over & over how much she had to fight to stay true to herself, and be herself, and stick to her own values & identity. The only problem is that for all this film gets into, she never actually explains what those values are and what “being herself” really means. Other than the fact that she is a huge animal lover – at one point she had a pet goat, and also a pet bluebird and dogs. Nonetheless, Kim Novak’s Vertigo is a heartfelt, touching, wholesome film featuring Novak being wonderfully honest about her life and her choices and her performances. There is obviously plenty of time spent on Vertigo, analyzing everything about her character & costumes. And most importantly, she explains how making this film with Alexandre allowed her to finally appreciate who she is all of these years later. it’s rather beautiful to see. This doc may only be enjoyed by die-hard film geeks and Kim Novak fans, but there’s still something endearing about watching her open up & speak freely about being a movie star. She seems so creative & charming. And I hope her life’s choices will inspire more woman to stay true to who they are, too.
Alex’s Venice 2025 Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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