Obsession + Intro with Norma Herrmann

Norma Herrmann shares memories of her late husband, the legendary composer Bernard Herrmann, in a short introductory conversation with London Soundtrack Festival artistic director, Michael Beek, ahead of the film.

Brian de Palma’s 1976 film is a love letter to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, featuring a screenplay by Paul Schrader and music by Bernard Herrmann. It was the composer’s second outing with the director, following the 1974 slasher Sisters, and had Herrmann not died in his sleep on 24 December 1975, there’s no doubt he would have worked with De Palma again, on 1976’s Carrie as well.

The film, starring Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold, sees a man wracked with guilt after not being able to pay the ransom for his wife’s kidnapping that ultimately led to her horrible death. When he later meets a young woman with a more-than-striking resemblance to her, he develops a deep (and dangerous) infatuation…

Herrmann was posthumously nominated for an Academy Award for Obsession, which he recorded near to the Barbican at the church of St Giles’ Cripplegate. A lunchtime concert featuring Herrmann’s Clarinet Quintet takes place before this screening at 1pm, in the very same church.

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