ADD patients need not apply

Rating: Null/10 (23 April 2002)

There is one reason to dislike this film. Okay there are several reasons, but they all stem from one essential characteristic:laziness. I have read some positively mind-boggling critiques of "Vertigo" and all seem to illustrate nothing but the shallowness of the viewer who is not willing to devote the attention and time that Hitchcock requires of his audience. If you cannot sit still for two hours and eight minutes, if "Bill and Ted's" was the best mental exercise you've endured in the cinematic world, yeah, you will have a problem with "Vertigo"; you simply won't get it. I recognize that opinions are objective. My opinion that this is the single greatest film of all time is no exception. However, some things are objective, and I feel should be stated for the record, on behalf of those unfortunate enough to be swayed by some of the inconsistent, flawed criticisms offered here. Objective: All casting in this film was deliberate. I promise, no actor wandered into a frame and slipped past Hitchcock's eye, thus ruining his creative vision. Novak has received some criticism for playing her part with a lack of definition or confidence exemplified by revered hallmarks of the genre such as Katharine Hepburn. This is not because she doesn't know what she is doing. Her character is manipulated by the people around her and made a pawn. A bold performance would only undermine the heavy message of moral decay. I submit, she - in all her doubt, and conflicted insecurity - is perfect. I read a review that bemoaned the casting of Scottie for not being "Jimmy Stewart-esque". Good God, are you serious? What better figure than America's everyman to embody the broken spirit of a man taken over by fantasy un-checked? Cast anybody else, and the tragedy is instantly removed from the story because if even Jimmy Stewart is capable of falling into the moral downward spiral... Objective: This plot has no logical flaws. If you think it does, watch it again and you will see you missed something. Try me. Subjective: This is physically the most stunningly beautiful film ever made. Look at the Golden Gate towering over Madeline in all her emotional tininess, the Giant Redwoods cross-sectioned so as to belie the inconsequentiality of these two sinners over time and space, the Missions invoking the imagery of conquest and ethical shades of gray, gray like the San Francisco fog...But, I digress. Back to: Objective: This is a film about circles, spirals, and, ahem, Vertigo, if you will. Moral dizziness. Geographic roundabouts (they go all around San Francisco, up and down). Indecision, illustrated in the form of head-spinning torment. Last, the merry-go-round of the double. I would list all the pairs in this film, but I'm working with a word limit here. Suffice to say, this is the greatest conference of the doubles since that English guy did "A Comedy of Errors". Why the double? The existence of a double creates the possibility for a do-over (hence, recurrence as another Hitchcockian circle). But this is not "Groundhog Day". Hitchcock's circuit is one of sealed fate. They do not learn, they just descend. What we have is a story concerned with falling and spinning. The metaphysical ghost world and existential agony of lost love intertwine in a realm made visible by the green lights of the Empire Hotel. Indeed we are left at the end with only a faint hope that upon transcending the spiral, the two lines may cross in a world un-governed by the rules of gravity. Getting to melodramatic for ya? Apologies, I too am subject to my obsessions and thus a little deterioration here and there.