A masterpiece of torpor

Rating: 1/10 (5 August 2012)

It staggers credulity to read that this dull, plodding film with its embarrassingly silly plot has now been rated as the greatest movie of all time. I have watched it three times: in the early 60s when it was first released in the UK, again some 10 years ago and once again last night. Nothing has changed. Vertigo doesn't merit high rating even among Hitchcock's prolific output; to elevate it to all-time supreme status is an unspeakable act of self pomposity from the critics concerned.
A film like Vertigo depends almost entirely on raising the viewer's interest in its characters. Disappointing, then, that its two principals play their roles as if they're half-asleep on drugs. James Stewart has many times played with success the seemingly slow-witted, slow moving character who's aware of a lot more than it appears. In Vertigo this Stewart stock persona is inappropriate. One wonders if they first shot the scene where he's mute, staring and unresponding in the hospital and he decided to continue in this mode but mouthing the script lines as they came along.
How anyone could begin to fall in love with such a frigid, boring personality as played by Kim Novak is beyond comprehension. She is consistently out-performed by trees, buildings and props throughout the piece. Far from conveying an intriguing, sexually arresting character, she leaves the viewer marvelling that nobody thought to save budget by substituting a tailor's mannequin.
Had Vertigo been directed by anyone without Hitchcock's reputation (one that's deserved but which, most unusually, seems to encourage enthusiasts to believe he never makes a clunker) it would have been written off as poor stuff — indeed it was correctly regarded as mediocre when it first came out. It isn't a bad film, in the sense of godawful, laughably inept. It's just so far from good that people with normally functioning eyes and ears will shrug and say "ho-hum!"