Vertigo, a powerful and beautiful movie

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 2009)

A double identity thriller to surpass all others, Vertigo draws viewers into the mind of one man and his obsession with the beautiful woman he is hired to follow. The plot: A detective named Scotty (James Stewart) is asked by a former college buddy to follow his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who he says is possessed by a personage from the past.
Scotty accepts the job with misgivings but he soon becomes as much a voyeur as a detective, as he falls madly in love.To Scotty, Madeleine is a beautiful and mysterious woman. She captivates him to the point where I had trouble distinguishing between reality and dreams. Vertigo plays with your mind that way because it is brilliantly crafted. While recovering from a serious fall brought on by vertigo, Scotty is longing for a change from his girlfriend and anchor Midge, played by Barbara Bel Geddes.
As Madeleine, Kim Novak never looked better. Madeleine's double Judy has speech and mannerisms quite different from Madeleine but Scotty tries to shape her into the image of Madeleine and comes very close to success. We want him to make it work but I mage vs. reality can lead into dangerous territory, as we find out.
The visuals of this movie are stunning from the opening credits, to the flashback scenes, to tours by car of San Francisco. The riveting female presence of Madeleine in the movie is captured early by close-ups as she passes by the camera. The viewer is drawn into Scotty's obsession and can feel the power of Madeleine's magnetism, when the camera closes in on her. How Hitchcock achieves this is one of the hallmarks of this powerful movie.
The vertigo is shown by a series of shots from high above ground level which gives us a sense of Scotty's harrowing fear of heights. When Scotty is hired to follow Madeleine, we tour San Francisco in a slow-moving vehicle up and down hills, past great public edifices and apartments. The film highlights the white plaster buildings set amid the greenery of the city and the blue and green colour of San Francisco Bay.
The music by Bernard Hermann is perfect, although there were parts in the movie where the orchestral music became jarring. This is a small point given the style, the beauty, and the story line of this mesmerizing movie. I don't think younger audiences are familiar with this movie, certainly one of Hitchcock's one or two best.