vertigo(s)

Rating: Null/10 (28 April 2004)

Hitchcock's greatest masterpiece (I appreciate your opinion, Truffaut, but The Birds is way down the list), Vertigo was light years ahead of its time. It's
effectively the first artistic expression of post-modernism, over twenty years before the concept would be fully defined by a philosopher (Baudrillard, 1981). Vertigo -- dizziness and fear at the edge of a precipice often accompanied by an urge to LEAP into the abyss -- is expressed on many levels in the film. John
Fergusson (Stewart) experiences vertigo after a traumatic fall. He also
experiences it in romantic relationships and, tragically, at moments when he
could otherwise save lives. His lover, who isn't who she says she is, but rather is an actress playing a dead woman obsessed with another dead woman, is
played by Kim Novak. Here we come to the first post-modern conundrum: Novak
is not an image masking something real, but rather a copy of a copy,
representing nothingness. Fergusson tries to force the actress to re-enact her role when the fake lover dies a fake death. When she finally consents John
overcomes his vertigo -- but this subsequently leads to Novak's actual death. The film is an expression of artists' fears that no act of creation can negate the destructive force of non-being, the death of god masked by the charade of
American, image-obsessed pop-culture: of which Hitchcock himself was a
master of the period's most popular medium! A gorgeously photographed "pastel-noir", Vertigo is shot for shot the most
intelligently filmed, composed and cut work by any "American" director.
Herrman's score is chilling and soaring and the performances are passionate
yet fragile, like sleepwalkers in a fever-dream. Better than Citizen Kane (more richly symbolic and subtle and layered), Vertigo is THE American masterpiece.