Vertigo

Designed by Saul Bass

  Many film critics view Vertigo as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest achievement. And with the restoration of the film, it serves two purposes. To show the true magic of Hitchcock's directing, and to preserve the film for generations to come. The restoration of Vertigo is great, but there are some spots where the colors detereorate from the film experience and some of the lighting is too overdone. Do not be fooled though. Even with the restoration, Vertigo is still one hundred percent Hitchcock, and Hitchcock at his very best.

  The story of Vertigo is adapted from the novel "D'entre Les Morts" by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac and is split up into four parts (or movements). The prologue introduces John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart) as a detective, chasing a crook on rooftops, then falling and hanging from his death while another officer tries to pull him up, the police officer then slips and falls to his death. This scene is crucial because it establishes Scottie's acrophobia or fear of heights, through the use of Hitchcock's directing. He uses a model of the ground and moves the camera back while zooming in and out to create a very dizzying effect. This "Vertigo" will be Scottie's downfall in the movie later to come. No one ever knows how Scottie got down from the heights above, and it is as if he is metaphorically suspended from his inevitable downfall.

  The next movement is the set up to the story. After the dizzying scene on the rooftops, we are taken to the apartment of Midge Wood (Barbera Bel Geddess). Midge's apartment is plastered with paintings and sketches of corsets and different types of clothing. Apparently Scottie and Midge had a romantic past. They were engaged for 3 weeks. They are just friends now but there is some romantic tension between them. In the next scene, Scottie is hired by a rich shipbuilder and his high school friend Gavin (Tom Hellmore) to use his detective skills, to watch his suicidal wife, Madeline (Kim Novak). As he watches her lose her mind, immerse her self in the ideas of her great-grandmother, and attempt suicide. He quickly falls in love.

  Madeline and Midge, the two women in Scottie's life, are complete contrasts of each other. Midge is smart, caring, and sane in the head. While she is not gorgeous, she is an ideal woman to marry. Madeline on the other hand, is drop-dead gorgeous, icy cold, and clearly insane. These differences are portrayed not only in the personalities of the two, but in the costumes of one another. Midge dresses sensible, even though she is a fashion designer. The way she dresses is a direct correlation to her personality. Madeline's fashion sense is a combination of the extravagant and fetishistic. She is a typical Hitchcock blonde. She is cold & icy on the outside, gorgeous, and has a fatal flaw. The make up, and costume design of Edith Head is some of her best work in "Vertigo". Because not only is it beautiful, it allows us to easily distinguish the personalities of all the characters by their costumes.

  The next movement of the story leads us to the Bell tower of San Juan Bautista. Where Madeline appears to commit suicide by jumping of the bell tower.  Once again we have Hitchcock capitalizing on the audiences expectations by destroying them. If you were watching Vertigo for the first time, you were completely unprepared for Madeline's death. She is the heroine of the story, and we are prepared for a happy ending not a grand mid-way rupture. We next see Scottie in a mental hospital, trying to figure the pieces of his life together. He experiences a dream sequence that was the cutting edge of cinematic effects for Hitchcock at that time. This dream sequence is metaphorically significant to the plot of the story. He starts to wonder around San Francisco, visiting the places Madeline used to frequent. All of a sudden, he sees a girl that is similar to Madeline. Scottie follows her to a hotel where she lives. This sets up the final movement of the film.

  This woman, Judy (Kim Novak) is hostile against Scottie when they first meet, but slowly  warms up to him. And Scottie asks her out on a date. It is here in this scene that Hitchcock reveals that Judy was Madeline all along. Now why would Hitchcock reveal this crucial scene midway through the film?
He basically ruined the story for the viewers, and now there is no point to even finish watching the film because we already know everything Scottie doesn't know. Many film critics at the time condemned Hitchcock for this decision to ruin the suspense. But there is a method to Hitchcock's madness. He does this to remove ourselves from Scottie, no longer identifying with him but observing him objectively. This scene serves to sever feelings we attached with Scottie. The feelings we had have just been a painful hoax. Not only is Madeline dead, she never existed at all. This makes the final movement of the film profoundly disturbing to watch.

  We watch as Scottie molds Judy into Madeline again. He is determined to have Madeline back by any means possible. He sees Judy as just an object, while Judy genuinely loves him. All of these emotional feelings come together in arguably Hitchcock's single greatest and expressive scene. It all takes place in Judy's hotel room. Judy comes back from the make over not looking enough like Madeline(she needs to fix her hair). Judy only now realizes that she is being controlled, but because she loves him she accepts this and does the makeover, and walks towards Scottie out of a haunting green light from  a green neon sign outside on the street to resemble a dreamlike effect. The two embrace in a scene that reveals the true character of Scottie himself as well as Hitchcock.

  After Scottie has her women, he takes her back to San Juan Baptista to relive that fateful day again, and to do what he wanted to do. To get rid of his acrophobia and to save Madeline just like he intended. He forces Judy up the stairs in a determined manner, slowly conquering his vertigo. He leads Judy all the way up to the top of the bell tower where she takes a fatal misstep and falls to her death.

  The performance of of our two main characters are phenomenal.  James Stewart plays the everyday man we all can relate to. His innocence is overshadowed by his undeniable love for Madeline, he would do anything to have her, even if he has to make another one. Kim Novak has the best performance of her lifetime. Playing the roles of Madeline and Judy, she manages to capture love, wanting, heartbreak, pain, and sorrow all in a single performance. Her acting elevates Vertigo to another level than just romantic love story. 

  Overall, Vertigo is a beautiful film about love, sorrow, and pain. It is Hitchcock's most expressive film as it dealt with the themes he used in his art, particularly the way he controlled women. The city of San Francisco as shot by cinematographer (Robert Burks), and restored by Robert A. Harris & James C. Katz has never looked so beautiful on film. Combined with the haunting music score of Bernard Herrmann makes San Francisco a haunting stage for this story to be performed on. Vertigo is about obsession, which means that it's about circling back to the same moment, again and again so the music is also built around spirals and circles, fulfilment and despair. Alfred Hitchcock takes extraordinary emotions like fear, guilt, and love, and put them in everyday characters. The defining characteristic of a Hitchcock film is a ordinary man, being placed in extraordinary circumstances. And developing the story through pictures, not words. This makes "Vertigo" a film to be viewed, analyzed, and cherished for years to come.