Mere cinema

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2007)

"Vertigo" is,first of all,a movie of great themes (loneliness,arduous desire,humiliation,twisted psychologies,a certain kind of bashfulness,then a shameless exploitation and domineering force,and instincts,and submission).Hitchcock liked his movies to be amusing and exciting and wonderful and accomplished,and he could not conceive an art deprived of exciting and thrilling, suspenseful elements,and this is a matter of artistic temperament,some people are made to be able to like an art that is amusing and exciting (Balzac, Villiers, Barbey,Poe, Wells were such men);it is Hitchcock's merit to give this aesthetic frame a powerful content.The thriller,the popular epic become the natural context of his films.Vertigo (1958),The Birds (1963),Marnie (1964),The Trouble with Harry (1955) are movies that display themes of so vast a scope.These are films that add to Hitchcock's characters and reactions several strong situations that show life's hidden texture."Vertigo" is beautiful in an amazing way.A movie of an ampleness and heartfelt content and unequaled,powerful visual beauty;the entire film has a dream-like note,and a surreal seizing of the appetizing beauty,in women,flowers,dresses,etc..If there ever was a surrealistic movie,then Vertigo (1958) is that.In a certain sense,Marnie (1964) is the contrary,the aesthetic opposite of Vertigo (1958).
It is a big mistake to blame or to praise "Vertigo" for its plot;I have read people who admired "Vertigo" for its plot,and I've seen some who despised it for its plot,and,for sometime,I myself did not like "Vertigo"'s plot,that is,its mystery film content.But "Vertigo",maybe the best movie ever made,and certainly the most beautiful, cannot be evaluated on the mystery film's level."Vertigo" is about some strong situations (humiliation,loneliness,love,beauty),and about some equally strong and thrilling reactions;and Hitchcock's beautiful characters,although cultivated,urbane,chic,intelligent,educated people,have always a certain note of directness and volitional energy;people that have something primary,basic,plain,somehow selfish and instinctual,and also natural."Vertigo" is the peak of the mere cinema. There are Stewart's unexpected pulsations of brutality,that of a man compelled by desires from ...,and some scenes of an appalling cruelty,that remind of Marnie (1964) and even Frenzy (1972) and Rope (1948) (Hitchcock's most brutal and cruel films),by their psychological intensity.In "Vertigo"'s second part,Mrs. Novak is a humiliated woman,a torn one,as heart-broken Stewart' s dementia devastates their lives.
Hitchcock gave James Stewart progressively better and ampler roles,from Rope (1948) to Rear Window (1954) and to Vertigo (1958).In each of these movies,Stewart is never required to retake his role from a previous film,but instead to shape a different one.In the last one, Stewart's character is a lonely man,a vulnerable one,and there are,in Mrs. Bel Geddes' silences,in Stewart's ingenuity and candor (in his scenes with the tight-lipped Mrs. Bel Geddes,when he takes up their failed engagement),even his faint that turns into a "pieta",some very touching intuitions and insights. As in Marnie (1964),as in The Birds (1963) or The Trouble with Harry (1955),these people's past hides frightful things,things of solitude,silences,etc.."Vertigo" is a movie so intense,so well-grounded,and vast,and meaningful,and sharp,and of immediacy in the joy it gives,of well-marked outlines.When I say that "Vertigo" is a jewel,in fact:the whole cinema's jewel,I do not mean that it is ornamental;on the contrary.But it is one of the few films that are,in their entirety,visions. And where Clouzot was of a gruesome realism,Hitchcock is visionary.As an act of courage,"Vertigo" is unmatched,even when you are Hitchcock himself it takes courage to be that great,and this may be,I think,one of the reasons we all have to cherish the obese "bonhomme".First of all,"Vertigo" is a film of a very sensuous and immediate charm and beauty.It is also a story of fineness and distinction.This movie elicits in me awe.
A few more notes:(1)in Hitchcock's movies,there are dreadful silent things,never spoken of (as:the loneliness,the failure),and,above them,or on top of them,there is the funny,caustic conversation,the wit, etc.;(2)"Vertigo" is a film of mere charm,and,against the misconception of a "popular" and "common" Stewart,Hitchcock broke,here,this cliché (as he did in Rope (1948) and in Rear Window (1954) also!!),giving Stewart a cool and distinguished appearance);as a matter of fact,the only Alfred Hitchcock film where Stewart got a common and popular air is The Man Who Knew Too Much,1956!;it is not true that Hitchcock wanted Stewart as a representative of the common type,on the contrary.
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques was a movie of chilling realism,while Hitchcock's film is a piece of gorgeous,surreal and funeral beauty,and also of psychological depth and of delightful charm. Clouzot's and Hitchcock's geniuses could not differ more,or be more opposite.Hail them both!
If you really want to measure and seize Stewart's art scope,watch him in his scenes with Mrs. Bel Geddes;they tear the heart.
There are splendid impressionistic touches in "Vertigo".The film is gorgeous and delightful,and vividly colored.Its theme is paradoxical: the pain and humiliation there are in the beauty.Hitchcock's work is lavish,resplendent,amazing,of vigorous beauty,while Clouzot's film aforementioned was of sober,minimalist conception,an imperishable masterpiece of sardonic,grueling realism.