Kim Novak received an honorary Golden Lion career achievement award at the 82nd Venice Film Festival on Monday, and the actress, best known for her work in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Vertigo,” used the platform to express her concern over what is happening in the world right now.
“I feel like one of the reasons I’m here is to help inspire as many people as possible that think their freedom matters, and that their lives matter, and their rights matter and truth matters,” Novak said. “I’ve got to say that for all the democracies in our world, that we need to come in together and work together and be creative and find ways to open our eyes and see what’s going on and try to do whatever we can to save our democracies. Too many men and soldiers have sacrificed their lives, and too many other people have died just trying to be honest and real. We must not let it happen. I should not try to be influencing you, but it matters to me so much.”
Elsewhere in her speech she thanked “the gods out there and having all of them – not one in particular – just all of them, because they have given me such a gift” while she spoke about how painting has helped her battle depression stemming from her bipolar diagnosis. “My [painting] has helped me so much, and I’d suggest it for anybody that has that issues, they don’t have to be good artists, they just need to express it in so many ways,” Novak said.
Born in 1933, Novak starred in 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 also was involved in controversy surrounding “The Artist,” the Oscar-winning silent film, when she claimed that the use of Bernard Herrmann’s score from “Vertigo” amounted to an artistic violation.
The Golden Lion presentation, which was made by Guillermo del Toro, was followed by a screening of “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” a documentary about Novak from Alexandre O. Philippe. Rather than use the usual array of talking heads to discuss the actress’ work, the film relies entirely on her own memories, both in interviews with Philippe and in voice memos she recorded for him.
The use of Novak as the doc’s only voice gives the film a meandering, discursive feel, as she stories about her grandmother, the bluebird that she says fell in love with her and followed her around the yard, and a movie career in which she always insisted that what she did wasn’t acting, it was reacting.
At the end of the film, she agrees to open a box that she’d had in storage for decades, containing the iconic gray suit that Jimmy Stewart buys for her in “Vertigo.” Holding the suit, she is overcome with emotion. “My body was in this. My heart was in this,” she says, using the jacket to dry her tears.
Then she thanks Philippe for asking her to do the interviews for the film. “You’ve given me an appreciation of myself,” she says. “To know that you’ve lived all these years, and before you die, you can feel appreciated — that’s a biggie.”
Steve Pond contributed to this report.
