Obsession

Falling right between his bloody horror pics (1973's Sisters and 1976's Carrie) and his more mature stylistic thrillers (1980's Dressed to Kill and 1981's Blow Out), Brian De Palma's moody, atmospheric 1976 thriller Obsession was his first outright homage to Alfred Hitchcock (specifically Vertigo). Written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), the film stars Cliff Robertson as Michael Courtland, a well-off architect whose life is shattered when his wife Elizabeth (Geneviève Bujold) and 9-year-old daughter are kidnapped and later killed in a botched ransom transfer. Vacationing in Florence, several years later, Courtland comes face-to-face with a woman who is a dead ringer for his beloved deceased wife, and embarks on a Pygmalion-like "obsession" in recreating "Elizabeth" in the perfectly cast mould of "Sandra" (also played by Bujold). While the creaky (not to mention leaky) plot does not quite hold up today, there is still more than enough here to whet the appetites of De Palma fans and general cinema buffs, from former Hitchcock composer Bernard Hermann's alternately powerful and distractingly overwhelming score, to cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's diffused "look" for the film (a look that, unfortunately, translates to a rather grainy image on DVD). With a nice widescreen image, newly created Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and 35-minute tribute doc (with interviews of De Palma, Richardson, Bujold, and Zsigmond, among others), this is a strong optional purchase. (R. Pitman)