Disappointed in the Disappointed

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2002)

More admissions: I have commented on this film before. My opinion has not changed, but it is consistently reinforced each time I read a comment criticizing an aspect of the film. You don't like it? Fair enough. I hate a lot of movies. What makes me feel the urge to stand on my amateur film reviewer soapbox is when people who don't like the film try to justify their opinions by saying something was done wrong in the filmmaking. Sorry, I'll say it again, the subjective views may all differ, but objectively speaking, there are no technical or logical flaws in the film that I have caught in the 40 or so times I've seen this (save for the one unresolved eccentricity I saw pointed out in an earlier comment with regard to the bizarre old lady at the McKittrick Hotel. Nevertheless, I see this as another Hitchcock Macguffin, or red herring, that need not necessarily be resolved in order to seal an already cohesive plot. But...I digress). Since my last review, I have read more pans of Kim Novak's acting, which are misguided. She is an actress, who in the film, plays a smalltown woman, who is coerced into an acting job. Therefore, a slick and subtle performance at all times would be out of place. Think this is too long? That the silent scenes of Scottie trailing Madeline are cutting room floor shots that snuck in due to careless editing? Yeah, sure, but they also create an internalized story, bringing the true focus to the emotional and psychological work that goes into the detective's life. It sets a mood, for lack of a more poetic term, that remains one of Hitchcock's best techniques: uncertainty.
I shrieked out loud (serves me right for doing this at work) when I read the phrase "worthy of a B Movie" in reference to Scottie's (pardon the paraphrasing) sudden falling out of love with the woman who ruined his life and put him in an asylum. There was nothing in the movie's conclusion that suggested Scottie had fallen out of love with Madeline. This is a man who has found out that the great tragedy of his life was no accident, but the result of careful conspiracy, among the instigators being the woman he loved. If there is something campy about going crazy after losing your deepest love to suicide (or so you think) and being largely blamed afterward (I reference the post-fall courtroom scene), it is lost on me. If the B Movie hokiness cited earlier was with regard to Scottie getting a little frustrated with Judy when he found out she done him wrong, I still fail to see the point. We've watched the guy embark down an insanity spiral for 2 hours by that point; it fits perfectly. Plus, on a side note, Kim Novak could probably have worked all 86 fabulous pounds of Jimmy Stewart in a fight. This is about moral decay, about how love can be truly blinding (blinding, as in, not being able to clearly see brilliant cinematic triumph, wink wink), and obsessions. The rest is incidental information used to make a beautiful if utterly dark story; the horrifying ending only serves to make the love story and its evanescence more haunting and poignant. Some of us have obsessions, and they make us a little goofy. I have one I'll confess, myself: "Vertigo".