This fall, to start another exciting school year, I am taking “The Art of Watching Film” as an elective (great class by the way, I recommend it). One of our first assignments was to watch a film from the top 100 movies of all time according to the American Film Institute. My film of choice was Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” the 1958 surrealist psychological mystery thriller extravaganza that follows retired detective John “Scottie” Ferguson as he unravels a strange case following a prior incident in which he developed acrophobia. Featuring Hollywood stars at the time, such as James Stewart and Kim Novak, the film explores themes of deception, manipulation, and desperation; it’s considered a high point in Hitchcock’s filmography by fans… 30 years after its release, and the death of the director. Delving into the creative choices in its emotionally charged storytelling, mysterious characters, and thematic significance impacting its reception, you could definitely see this movie as “classic” or iconic, but is it any good?
Something to consider about “Vertigo,” firstly, is the ideology behind it. A big part of “Vertigo” and Alfred Hitchcock’s films overall is how they prioritize emotion over all else. This includes the plot itself, since it’s a little unorthodox if you really think about it, and is instead made to amplify the presence of those strong emotions. A woman becomes possessed in a trance-like state by a woman of nobility from over a century ago, but in truth, it’s all just a ploy for a college friend to murder his wife and escape to Europe. It certainly elevates the surreal nature of this film in a way, but thinking of it in terms of emotion over story, that surreality of the plot is really only there to catalyze the heightened underlying emotions and surprise which Hitchcock intended. Watching the film myself for the first time, I was certainly a bit lost trying to follow along with the story and the big twist going into the second act. That being said, I felt every moment of surprise, intrigue, and mystery (even the confusion stemming from the plot itself may have been intended). At the end of the day, movies may be about telling a story, but that “story” could really just be interpreted as the impact that it left you, not the intricacy of how it works in a logical sense. For me, experiencing a series of twists and turns that left me deceived and surprised, which definitely left a unique impact on me, and could very much substitute the actual plot.
In the end, it was really the visual elements that stood out. The iconic Dolly zoom in the church scene, as Scottie frantically follows Elster’s wife up a church before she jumps to her death, overtaken by a trance, exemplifies this as the camera zooms in or out while physically moving it in the opposite direction not only pioneered with this movie as a staple filmmaking technique, but also conveys a sense of confusion, disorientation, and vertigo. Other moments, such as the opening credits when Scottie gains acrophobia, the dream sequence after Madeleine’s death, and when Judy is bathed in green light after Scottie obsesses over Judy’s appearance, all convey the idea of something abstract that’s beyond what we see, beyond the truth, and that hints at there being something more sinister and deeper about our fears and our desires (alongside those belonging to Scottie as he interacts with Judy) and how we may feel lost, confused, or disillusioned, which are central ideas to Vertigo. So much of this movie is about those raw emotions, and Hitchcock pulls it off well.
Considering the psychological nature of the film, a lot of the heart of Vertigo’s depth comes from its characters’ characterization, acting, and how they relate to each other. Kim Novak’s role as Madeleine/Judy, for instance, truly symbolizes the themes of deception. She literally acts as two different people under two different names. While we do discover this in the pivotal scene at the start of the second act, where Judy writes the letter detailing the twist that it is all just a ploy for Elster to kill his wife, that may not have always been the case. In the Unspooled podcast, Paul and Amy discuss how Hitchcock never actually intended for that scene to be in the film, but how it was instead forced in, noting how “one of the reasons Hitchcock was kind of upset with this film [was] because I think he wanted this movie to live without that scene.”
This initial choice to leave that scene out would have heavily impacted not just viewers’ perceptions of the story and film, but also its themes. Not knowing that Judy was an actor for Elster’s wife would keep us from the truth, and we would be in the dark, completely deceived. The lack of any sort of truth for the audience leaves us without the presence of the idea of deception itself.
The relationship between Scottie and Judy is also a deeply integral foundation for a lot of the film’s ideas and tone. The entire sequence of Scottie following the mysterious woman in the first hour and a half, when she was only known as Madeleine Elster, really evokes the ways of a silent film. They speak no dialogue, only movement, faces, and music, and yet we, or maybe just me, I don’t know, remain totally engaged. We follow these two characters as they eventually meet and get to know each other, and like Scottie, we become obsessed, which really works in Hitchcock’s favor as he keeps us from getting bored watching his film with a nearly two-hour runtime. Noted in the latter portion of the film, we also see obsession morph into manipulation and desperation from Scottie, as he fruitlessly tries to form her into the perfect woman he once met, who never even truly existed in the first place. These character dynamics effectively shape a lot of that aforementioned emotion, which drives the core intent of the film, and really puts the “psychological” in psychological thriller.
This film is a pretty iconic piece of Hitchcock’s filmography, even though it was released way back in 1958, and has a lot of things going for it with its visuals, characters, and thematic choices, but that still begs the question of whether it’s really that good. In the “Unspooled” Podcast on “Vertigo” by reviewers Paul and Amy, Amy considers the correlation between her perception and the public’s initial reception way back in 1958: “I think it is a little messy. I think it drags. I think it’s strange. I think the pace is not clicking the way you think it’s going to. It’s doing whatever it wants. And I think when you see a movie like this… you’re like, what am I watching? And you’re resistant to it. You fight it.” This is an important thought to consider about the film, which many consider to be Alfred Hitchcock’s magnum opus, and I would agree with that. So many aspects of this film really do signify a true thriller, taking you on an emotional roller coaster through the mind of a pretty bad detective, honestly (that’s beside the point, though), as he struggles to find truth with himself and his sense of reality, with the almost angelic performance of Kim Novak as Madelience/Judy. The film is definitely eccentric with its themes of obsession, deception, manipulation, and desperation, and its initially poor reception at the time really shows just how much it subverted what audiences would have expected or wanted, like maybe a more sensible story.
This is all to consider the question of how it became so highly praised decades later. Many of the film’s choices in visual storytelling, profound character dynamics, and an emotionally driven plot are something that I can see to be very acquired tastes, so it would make sense that Hitchcock’s death in 1980 would lead to fans finding new meaning and value in retrospect. Even though it’s a super old mAarovie, I really enjoyed getting to experience something so interesting and unique compared to what I’ve seen, and it has brought my appreciation of such surreal films to dizzying heights.
