Personal doesn't even describe(spoilers)

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2000)

To start out, I am fascinated with this movie. I love Hitchcock, and everything he has contributed to cinema, but something about this film transcends what he has contributed. I have read the critiques of those who dislike it, and I can totally understand. This is not Hitchcock's normal standard, it's not the edge of your seat thriller(well, not all of it), and the pace is dogged at points. But when I sit back and watch this, I cannot help but sit back and be entranced by the pure beauty of this film. The bridge shot, the redwoods, the revolving kiss, all are incredible, lasting images. The delicately provocative and yet eerily haunting music is unforgettable. And like these ideas, the theme of being haunted, plagued by some phantom ideal such as mislaid love that emcompasses every moment of your life, the obsession and self-mutilation that everyone endures because of it - every romantic can sympathize with these themes. One thing that is often overlooked is the depth of Stewart's character, and the emotional heights which he is more afraid to fall from than tangible heights in his own life. And when he DOES fall, and he realizes to what depths he has been tricked, he snaps, not realizing that Novak's character has as well fallen with him. His depravity and obsession with the truth at the end as they climb the stairs is one of the greatest scenes in film - he overcomes his actual fear of heights and confronts his emotional downfall, just as the the personification of both his previous weaknesses and what helped him to overcome them. The final image of Stewart standing atop that tower, the shadow of death tolling the bell as he looks down upon what he has lost to his vertigo, is so disturbing and haunting that it brings me to tears every time I watch it. This is my favorite movie of all time, not simply because of any one specific element, but because it inspires in me something unexplainable, like looking at a painting or listening to poetry, only one-hundred times more potent. I hope in another forty years the greatness of this film will be truly recognized by everyone, but if not, I'll still be watching it.