Our ongoing series of 70-mm screenings, begins with a film that was the first to be presented in analogue big film format at the new Arsenal on Potsdamer Platz almost 18 years ago. The eponymous VERTIGO of Alfred Hitchcock’s much interpreted main work takes grip of the viewer right from Saul Bass’ opening sequence: The policeman Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) almost falls to his death during a manhunt over the roofs of San Francisco. His colleague dies trying to help him. Traumatized, consumed by guilt and now scared of heights, Scottie leaves the service and becomes a private detective. When a friend asks him to shadow his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), he is sucked into a whirlpool of love, obsession, deceit and phantasm. (27. & 31.1.)
