I watched Vertigo for the first time on one of those long travel days a Californian attending Notre Dame must endure. I was only dreaming of being a film geek at this point, and even though I enjoyed the film, I didn’t see how it was that different from other films in the Hitchcock oeuvre, like Shadow of a Doubt and North By Northwest.
But with the passing of time, I began to understand why Vertigo was such a big deal, why it’s considered by many to be the pinnacle of Hitchcock’s cinema, why it reached second place in Sight and Sound’s 2002 international critics poll, and why it may be ready to topple the consensus “greatest film of all time,” Citizen Kane, by the time the poll is taken again in 2012. However, my changing attitude couldn’t be explained solely by a deepening appreciation for Hitchcock’s craftsmanship. The real change came sometime between the second and third screenings, when I realized that Vertigo was beginning to haunt me.
The film spoke to me in ways that were hard to countenance, though I had a hard time articulating what I had seen in it. I felt overwhelmed by images I had once dismissed as being merely beautiful. No description of the film can replace the film itself, and if you hate having movies spoiled I’d advise you to see it before reading this article; but nearly a year after seeing it for the first time, I’m finally able to describe why this film was such a deeply personal experience for Hitchcock as a director, for me as a viewer, and, hopefully, for generations of movie fans like me.
Vertigo centers around two character types that had deep artistic significance for Hitchcock. Jimmy Stewart is cast as John “Scotty” Ferguson, a police detective who is forced to retire after developing a case of acrophobia during an on-the-job accident. Like many of Hitchcock’s heroes, he is a man of distinction—well-educated with a good professional reputation and “independent means” on which to subsist—thrown into a situation that even he is too small to overcome by himself. He is not so much every man as he is every man’s inner self; Stewart’s emotional openness provides a window into parts of our soul we may not be able to acknowledge ourselves. He stars opposite Kim Novak, cast as Madeline Elster. Madeline is not merely a “Hitchcock blonde,” but the “Hitchcock blonde.” Along with being more photogenic, blondes had innate meaning for Hitchcock; they were icy, ethereal, and inscrutable to the workaday world. Hitchcock went to extremes to emphasize these traits in Madeline—she is a glaring, peroxide blonde, and she often wears a gray suit that clashes with her hair color to stress her alien nature. She is at once alluring and frightening, and we can all share a little bit in Scotty’s apparent fascination with her.
Article comments