For
the finale of my “Hitchcock/Stewart-a-thon,” I’m going to look at what
many believe to be their best work together, “Vertigo,” released in
1958. I do agree that this is their best work, as “Vertigo” is another one of my all time favorite movies, especially when it comes to Hitchcock movies that star Jimmy Stewart, but my favorite Hitchcock's that stars Jimmy Stewart will
always be “Rope” for its realistic creepy feel. Even Roger Ebert
says that “Vertigo” is one of Hitchcock’s two or three best films, but
he didn’t say it was his best. Other people may prefer “Psycho” over the
other works that Hitchcock had done. Recently, a British poll declared
this "The Greatest Movie of All Time," dethroning "Citizen Kane" after a
long time. In my opinion, that's a bit of a stretch, as I find "Citizen
Kane" a lot better, but there's no such thing as a "Greatest Movie of
All Time."This film is the most confessional, directly handling the themes that had controlled the art of Hitchcock, and how he used, feared, and tried to control women. All of this is represented by James Stewart’s character, Scottie, who much like his character in “Rear Window,” Jeff, has an injury, but in his back. On top of that, he has Acrophobia, the fear of heights, after his partner, played by Fred Graham, had died by falling off of a rooftop. Scottie falls in love with the quintessential Hitchcock woman, who when he couldn’t have her, finds a woman who looks exactly like her. Next thing you know, he takes that woman and makes her look exactly like the woman he had fallen in love with, by changing her hair style, her clothes, everything.
What
Scottie doesn’t know is that the woman is the same person that he had
fallen in love with before. Her name is Judy, and she is played by the
great Kim Novak. Judy was in disguise as another woman named “Madeleine”
as part of a murder plot, which Scottie didn’t even know anything
about. When he does put the pieces together, he starts to feel really
enraged to a point that you think he’ll turn into the Hulk. This is
exactly the quote of what Scottie said to Judy, “Did he train you? Did
he rehearse you? Did he tell you what to do and what to say?” Every
single one of these words describe about the man who had tricked Scottie
into thinking that he found the perfect girl for himself. The man
behind all of this didn’t steal Scottie’s woman, but his dream.
You can say that this creates a paradox in “Vertigo,” which would make it really interesting to watch. The man that set Scottie up is Gavin, played by Tom Helmore, who basically already did what Scottie wanted to do with the woman. While that was happening, the real woman, Judy, switched her faithfulness from Gavin to Scottie. By the end, you’ll realize that there was no money behind all this, but the sacrifice for love. Seriously, how clichéd is that?
This entire plot put together makes a great shot for a Hitchcock movie. Scottie is a former San Francisco police detective and is hired by Gavin to follow “Madeleine.” When he does so, he becomes obsessed with her. However, later on it appears that she has died. Not too long afterwards, Scottie encounters another woman, Judy, who looks exactly like “Madeleine.” He doesn’t realize that Judy and Madeleine are one in the same, so he asks her out, and she accepts. During their time together, she starts to feel sorry for him that when Scottie asks her to become Madeleine, she accepts.
A great scene occurs in the hotel room. Judy arrives not looking enough like Madeleine that he wants to recreate her image in Judy. He is so desperate to find his one true love after so many years, that he finds this is a great opportunity, using Judy as an object. Because Judy also loves Scottie, she accepts his offer. She goes into the bathroom and does the makeover, and when she comes out and walks towards Scottie, a haunting green fog is used in a dreamlike effect, making it really scary.
Hitchcock changing the camera back and forth to show the expressions on both Novak’s and Stewart’s faces, we as an audience see what kind of pain and agony both of them are going through. They were both set up by Gavin so that he could create a distraction from the police in order to not get arrested for murdering his wife.
Roger Ebert had this to say about the movie: “As Scottie embraces “Madeleine,” even the background changes to reflect his subjective memories instead of the real room he's in. Bernard Herrmann's score creates a haunting, unsettled yearning. And the camera circles them hopelessly, like the pinwheel images in Scottie's nightmares, until the shot is about the dizzying futility of our human desires, the impossibility of forcing life to make us happy. This shot, in its psychological, artistic and technical complexity, may be the one time in his entire career that Alfred Hitchcock completely revealed himself, in all of his passion and sadness. (Is it a coincidence that the woman is named Madeleine--the word for the French biscuit, which, in Proust, brings childhood memories of loss and longing flooding back?)”
Alfred Hitchcock took realistic feelings that we all have felt, like guilt, lust, and fear, and put them in ordinary characters to paint a picture of them. His most frequent character, which James Stewart has played before, is an innocent man that is wrongly accused, is more inspiring than an average action hero that is like a superman.
Ebert also talks about Hitchcock’s shots like this: “He was a great visual stylist in two ways: He used obvious images and surrounded them with a subtle context. Consider the obvious ways he suggests James Stewart's vertigo. An opening shot shows him teetering on a ladder, looking down at a street below. Flashbacks show why he left the police force. A bell tower at a mission terrifies him, and Hitchcock creates a famous shot to show his point of view: Using a model of the inside of the tower, and zooming the lens in while at the same time physically pulling the camera back, Hitchcock shows the walls approaching and receding at the same time; the space has the logic of a nightmare. But then notice less obvious ways that the movie sneaks in the concept of falling, as when Scottie drives down San Francisco's hills, but never up. And note how truly he “falls” in love.”
When we figure out about the whole plot that Judy was in, the film becomes equally about how both of them feel. We see her pain, her loss, what she got stuck in. Hitchcock was known to manipulate his characters in a way that you can see in “Vertigo.” In the scene when Scottie and Judy climb the tower, we know who they are, and fear for them, but in a way that we know Judy is not as guilty as Scottie.
The real danger is in Judy, who is used as an object by Scottie, much like how a prostitute is used. Compared to other female leads in Hitchcock movies, Judy is the most sympathetic.
Roger Ebert talked about the female characters in Hitchcock movies as, “Over and over in his films, Hitchcock took delight in literally and figuratively dragging his women through the mud--humiliating them, spoiling their hair and clothes as if lashing at his own fetishes.” What’s different about Judy in this film is that she was the closest he came to sympathizing with the women in his plots. Novak was criticized at the time for playing the character too stiffly, but she made the correct acting choices. Put yourself in her shoes, and see for yourself.
That concludes my series of reviews of all the Alfred Hitchcock movies that I have seen. Check in tomorrow when I start reviewing films about a certain mad genius that is scary whenever you see him in action. You might even know who I’m talking about.
You can say that this creates a paradox in “Vertigo,” which would make it really interesting to watch. The man that set Scottie up is Gavin, played by Tom Helmore, who basically already did what Scottie wanted to do with the woman. While that was happening, the real woman, Judy, switched her faithfulness from Gavin to Scottie. By the end, you’ll realize that there was no money behind all this, but the sacrifice for love. Seriously, how clichéd is that?
This entire plot put together makes a great shot for a Hitchcock movie. Scottie is a former San Francisco police detective and is hired by Gavin to follow “Madeleine.” When he does so, he becomes obsessed with her. However, later on it appears that she has died. Not too long afterwards, Scottie encounters another woman, Judy, who looks exactly like “Madeleine.” He doesn’t realize that Judy and Madeleine are one in the same, so he asks her out, and she accepts. During their time together, she starts to feel sorry for him that when Scottie asks her to become Madeleine, she accepts.
A great scene occurs in the hotel room. Judy arrives not looking enough like Madeleine that he wants to recreate her image in Judy. He is so desperate to find his one true love after so many years, that he finds this is a great opportunity, using Judy as an object. Because Judy also loves Scottie, she accepts his offer. She goes into the bathroom and does the makeover, and when she comes out and walks towards Scottie, a haunting green fog is used in a dreamlike effect, making it really scary.
Hitchcock changing the camera back and forth to show the expressions on both Novak’s and Stewart’s faces, we as an audience see what kind of pain and agony both of them are going through. They were both set up by Gavin so that he could create a distraction from the police in order to not get arrested for murdering his wife.
Roger Ebert had this to say about the movie: “As Scottie embraces “Madeleine,” even the background changes to reflect his subjective memories instead of the real room he's in. Bernard Herrmann's score creates a haunting, unsettled yearning. And the camera circles them hopelessly, like the pinwheel images in Scottie's nightmares, until the shot is about the dizzying futility of our human desires, the impossibility of forcing life to make us happy. This shot, in its psychological, artistic and technical complexity, may be the one time in his entire career that Alfred Hitchcock completely revealed himself, in all of his passion and sadness. (Is it a coincidence that the woman is named Madeleine--the word for the French biscuit, which, in Proust, brings childhood memories of loss and longing flooding back?)”
Alfred Hitchcock took realistic feelings that we all have felt, like guilt, lust, and fear, and put them in ordinary characters to paint a picture of them. His most frequent character, which James Stewart has played before, is an innocent man that is wrongly accused, is more inspiring than an average action hero that is like a superman.
Ebert also talks about Hitchcock’s shots like this: “He was a great visual stylist in two ways: He used obvious images and surrounded them with a subtle context. Consider the obvious ways he suggests James Stewart's vertigo. An opening shot shows him teetering on a ladder, looking down at a street below. Flashbacks show why he left the police force. A bell tower at a mission terrifies him, and Hitchcock creates a famous shot to show his point of view: Using a model of the inside of the tower, and zooming the lens in while at the same time physically pulling the camera back, Hitchcock shows the walls approaching and receding at the same time; the space has the logic of a nightmare. But then notice less obvious ways that the movie sneaks in the concept of falling, as when Scottie drives down San Francisco's hills, but never up. And note how truly he “falls” in love.”
When we figure out about the whole plot that Judy was in, the film becomes equally about how both of them feel. We see her pain, her loss, what she got stuck in. Hitchcock was known to manipulate his characters in a way that you can see in “Vertigo.” In the scene when Scottie and Judy climb the tower, we know who they are, and fear for them, but in a way that we know Judy is not as guilty as Scottie.
The real danger is in Judy, who is used as an object by Scottie, much like how a prostitute is used. Compared to other female leads in Hitchcock movies, Judy is the most sympathetic.
Roger Ebert talked about the female characters in Hitchcock movies as, “Over and over in his films, Hitchcock took delight in literally and figuratively dragging his women through the mud--humiliating them, spoiling their hair and clothes as if lashing at his own fetishes.” What’s different about Judy in this film is that she was the closest he came to sympathizing with the women in his plots. Novak was criticized at the time for playing the character too stiffly, but she made the correct acting choices. Put yourself in her shoes, and see for yourself.
That concludes my series of reviews of all the Alfred Hitchcock movies that I have seen. Check in tomorrow when I start reviewing films about a certain mad genius that is scary whenever you see him in action. You might even know who I’m talking about.
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