Kim Novak received an honorary award for the Golden Lion Career Achievement at the 82nd Venice Film Festival on Monday, and the actress, best known for his work in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Vertigo”, used the platform to express its concern about what is happening in the world right now.
“I feel that one of the reasons why I am here is to help inspire as many people as possible who believe that their freedom is important, and that their lives are important, and their rights are important and the truth,” Novak said. “I have to say that for all democracies in our world, we have to come in together and work together and be creative and find ways to open our eyes and see what happens and try to do what we can to save our democracies. For many men and soldiers have sacrificed their lives, and for many other people have died only to be honest and real.
Elsewhere in her speech, she thanked “the gods out there and had them all – not one – just everyone, because they have given me such a gift” while talking about how painting has helped her combat depression resulting from her bipolar diagnosis. “My (painting) has helped me so much, and I would suggest it for everyone who has those problems, they don’t have to be good artists, they just have to express it in so many ways,” Novak said.
Born in 1933 Novak played 1955’s “The Man With The Golden Arm”, 1958’s “Bell, Book and Candle” and 1964’s “Kiss Me, stupid.” In the 1980s, she appeared in the Primetime drama “Falcon Crest.” She was also involved in controversy about “The Artist”, the Oscar-winning silent film, when she claimed that the use of Bernard Herrmann’s point from “Vertigo” was an artistic violation.
The Golden Lion presentation, which was made by Guillermo del Toro, was followed by a display of “Kim Novak’s Vertigo”, a documentary about Novak from Alexandre O. Philippe. Instead of using the usual range of Talking Heads to discuss the actress, the film relies entirely on her own memories, both in interviews with Philippe and in voice memos that she recorded for him.
The use of Novak as Doc’s only voice gives the film a winding, discursive feeling, when she stories about her grandmother, the blue bird she says fell in love with her and followed her around the yard, and a film career where she always insisted that what she did not act, it reacted.
At the end of the movie, she agrees to open a box that she had had in storage for decades, which contains the iconic gray suit that Jimmy Stewart buys for her in “Vertigo.” With the suit she is overcome by emotions. “My body was in this. My heart was in this,” she says, using the jacket to dry her tears.
Then she thanks Philippe for asked her to do the interviews for the movie. “You have given me an appreciation of myself,” she says. “Knowing that you have lived all these years, and before you die you may feel appreciated – it’s a Biggie.”
Steve Pond contributed to this report.
