Vertigo: Hitchcock's introspective masterpiece

Entry Number: 5

Film: Vertigo

Year Of Release: 1958

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Rating: ?

*Warning: Major spoilers*

If you haven't, go watch this movie first, and then come back to this review.

Everybody knows that Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. He is mostly known as "the master of suspense", which he is for a reason, as his way of building up suspense is still legendary and groundbreaking, and we will never see anything like it. But he was also a master of composition, camera movement, mise en scene, etc. In short, he was and still is a master.

But there is always one thing that has fascinated me about Hitchcock's legendary status. Let's compare Hitchcock to Shakespeare. Shakespeare was and still is the greatest writer ever, that is something everybody knows, even if his work was rather straightforward unlike the work of other highly regarded writers. And sure, his works have some underlying themes, but the stories are still told in an straighforward way and never feature complex symbolism. The only reason for why his work is still being studied today is that the craft at display is stunning. Same thing for Hitchcock, only that there is one exception in Hitchcock's body of work, and that exception is Vertigo.

When Vertigo first was released in 1958, reception was very divisive. I think the reason for divide is really simple. Imagine going to the cinema in 1958, not knowing anything about the film you are watching except that it's made by Hitchcock, and then being greeted by the psychosexual nightmare that is Vertigo. Hitchcock never made anything like it, and that created confusion. But today, many people consider it the master's best and one of the best films ever made, even dethroning Citizen Kane as the greatest film of all time in the Sight And Sound poll.

Vertigo has also been highly influential. If you said it is one of the most influential films of all time, I would not disagree. And to understand why it's so influential, we have to go back to the late 1950's and early 1960's. The year after Vertigo's release, 1959, French directors Francois Truffaut and Alain Resnais released The 400 Blows and Hiroshima Mon Amour, which alongside Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless in 1960, kicked off the French New Wave, the most important film movement of all time. And the French New Wave kicked off the American New Wave in the 1960's, which was the era where America finally realized that the director reigned supreme. And when you think about it, Vertigo was an early frontrunner to the American New Wave, as it's a very different and personal film for Hitchcock. So it isn't impossible that Vertigo was one of the inspirations of the French New Wave.

Here's a full summary of Vertigo: The film follows detective John «Scottie» Ferguson, who retired after the unfortunate death of a police officer who tried to save Scottie from falling from a great height, but Scottie failed to communicate because of his acrophobia, and the police officer fell. Scottie is brought into one last case by one of his old friends, Gavin, who is concerned by his wife, Madeline, who he thinks is possessed. Scottie becomes infatuated with Madeline's beauty and starts a relationship with her after he saves her from drowning. Suddenly she climbs up a belltower and jumps off, with Scottie failing to save her because of his acrophobia. After her death, he becomes obsessed with her, and one day finds Judy, a woman who closely resembles her. He manages to ask Judy out on a date, and it is revealed that Judy played Madeline to help Gavin cover up the murder of the real Madeline. Scottie realizes this and brings Judy back to the belltower to figure out everything. Scottie loses his acrophobia, but Judy falls off the belltower, and the film ends with Scottie looking down at her corpse.

There are dozens of themes in Vertigo, but there is one main theme, and that is obsession. What is obsession? That's a hard question to answer, as the psychology of obsession is a complicated one, but it's mainly an extreme form of repetition. If one is obsessed, they almost only think about that one thing and always come back to it. It's a form of repetition so extreme that those who are obsessed can even fall into madness.

The one image that perfectly explains obsession is the downward spiral. It repeats itself, it's never ending, and always descends. And it's the downward spiral that you constantly see in Vertigo. It can be spotted in Saul Bass' opening credits, in Madeline's hair lock, in the flowers in the picture of Carlotta Valdes, and even in Bernard Herrmann's masterful score, where he uses a descending scale and an ascending scale that are played at the same time to create a musical spiral.

The downward spiral is also a perfect image for Scottie's vertigo, which is caused by his acrophobia. The most iconic shot of the film is from the scene where Scottie climbs the spiral staircase of the belltower and looks down, and then the stairs turn into a terrifying never ending downward spiral. This shot is iconic for a reason, as it uses an amazing camera trick to pull it off. The camera trick has been used many times, like in Raging Bull, Jaws and Goodfellas, but it's most iconic here.

Scottie's vertigo is very clear symbolism for me. The story could have worked just as well without it, so it must symbolize something. What Scottie's vertigo symbolizes probably varies from person to person, but I think it is a stand-in for Scottie's emotional trauma. The thing that sparks both obsession and phobia is an incident of trauma. For Scottie it's the death of the police officer. At one point in the film, Midge tells him that only another incident of trauma can remove his vertigo. In the end, he loses his vertigo, but that is replaced with new trauma. In my eyes, this is Hitchcock saying that when it comes to trauma, you can't remove it, you can only move on.

But what makes Vertigo such a milestone in Hitchcock's filmography, and what makes it one of the greatest films of all time really, isn't the genius casting of James Stewart and Kim Novak, or the brilliant cinematography from Robert Burks, or the frequent repetition of symbols and themes. No, it's Hithcock's introspective look at himself.

If you don't know, Hitchcock's most iconic trademark was his casting of blondes. We have Tippi Hedren in The Birds, Janet Leigh in Psycho, Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest, Grace Kelly in Rear Window, Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, Joan Fontaine in Rebecca, and of course Kim Novak in Vertigo. Remember when I said that obsession is an extreme repetition? When looking at the frequent repetition of blondes in Hitchcock's films, it's pretty clear that he was obsessed with them.

Vertigo starts with Saul Bass' opening credits, where the camera zooms in on the different parts of a blonde woman's face in a very fetishistic way. Eventually the camera zooms into the blonde's eyes, and a downward spiral appears in them, and the camera disappears into the never ending spiral. Saul Bass' opening credits are about a man losing himself in the beauty of a woman and becoming obsessed with it. That man is Hitchcock.

Through Scottie's relationships with Madeline / Judy and Midge, we can further dissect Hithcock's obsession. Midge is a strong and independent woman who loves Scottie with her entire heart, but the problem is that Scottie doesn't love her back. She is a blonde, but she is strong and independent. There's nothing for Scottie to control and command over. But then we have Madeline, who isn't strong or independent. When she wakes up in Scottie's apartment, she doesn't scream and run away thinking she's been kidnapped, she's thankful and intrigued. She's helpless, and that makes her able to control.

Hitchcock was famous for being difficult to work with, especially when it came to his female leads. He put extra pressure on the female actors, as there was a beauty standard that had to be met. This is reflected in the most effective part of Vertigo, which is how Scottie brutally makes Judy, a strong and independent brown-haired woman, into Madeline, the helpless and controllable blonde, which reflects the pressure Hitchcock put on his own actresses.

So, why did Hitchcock make such an introspective film? I think Vertigo was supposed to mark a change in Hitchcock's life. I think Vertigo was made to make him stop obsessing over blondes, start treating his actresses better, and finally start paying some attention to his own wife. Did he change? No. He continued his trend of blondes, he continued putting pressure on his actresses, and he continued ignoring his wife. Does that make Vertigo hypocritical? Not for me. It just makes Vertigo's deconstruction of obsession even more powerful. I love Hitchcock's other work, but this is his masterpiece for me, one of the great films in cinema history.

Rating: 10/10

Next Review: Free Guy

(I have to review Free Guy for my English class, so I thought "why not review it here?")