Word: zarkin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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ALDRICH'S project springs from a brilliant premise. Louis Zarkin (Peter Finch) is a has-been film director, remembered only for his hit movies made with one star, Lylah Clare. Zarkin's career died with the mysterious death of his leading lady, which occurred the night he married her. Now, a couple of decades later, he finds a Lylah-look-alike (Kim Novak) and decides to make a comeback by putting her in a film about the Lylah legend...
What follows is a bizarre and Gothic tale. Zarkin's new star becomes Lylah not only in appearance but in personality, thereby causing the director to make the same emotional errors in handling the new Lylah as he had with the original. Of course, these personal conflicts between Zarkin and his star-lover turn out to have more than a little to do with the original Lylah's strange death-and, unsurprisingly, history repeats itself...
...point of view Aldrich brings to his material is decidedly modern. He constantly reminds us that we are, after all, only watching a movie. Zarkin's intimidating mansion, for instance, loses a little bit of its eeriness when it reappears as a set on the sound stage of the film he is making. When a couple starts to make love Aldrich uses the old convention of letting the camera move slowly up to the ceiling-but the camera moves a little shakily so that we won't lose sight of the contrivance of the device...
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