A dizzying Achievement

Rating: 10/10 (3 February 2011)

A down on his luck and retired police detective is given a call by an old college friend. The friend wants the detective to follow his wife, as he believes she is in danger. Reluctantly he agrees to take the job. Through a foggy San Francisco he follows a beautiful woman on a circuitous trail impossible to believe. Many would recognize this, as the work of one the greatest cinematic masters of our time, Alfred Hitchcock. The film is Vertigo.
Vertigo is a film about obsessive love, loss, guilt and betrayal. Disguised as a psychological thriller, and perhaps ahead of its time, Vertigo released in 1958 with only moderate box office success and mixed reviews. When Hitchcock did North by Northwest a year later he chose Cary Grant over Jimmy Stewart as he blamed Stewart for Vertigo's financial problems. Today Hitch wouldn't be disappointed – Vertigo is often referred to as a Masterpiece and has risen steadily through the years in critical acclaim.
Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge and Jimmy Stewart as Scottie Fergusson, play a lengthy introduction scene in Midge's apartment. It's a colorful apartment for a contemporary professional girl of the late fifties with a lovely picture window view of downtown San Francisco. We enjoy being there, and a sense of normalcy prevails. They chit chat about old friends, careers and brassieres and we realize that we are voyeurs here. What we also realize in this lengthy character building scene, is that this sense of normalcy cannot last for long. After all – this is a Hitchcock film. The suspense is already building.
The story gets a little darker as Scottie meets with an old college friend, Gavin Elster. Elster wants Scottie to follow his wife as her movements have become mysterious. Initially Scottie resists the offer, but after Elster pleads with him to take the job, Scottie agrees to covertly meet Elster and his wife at Ernie's restaurant. One look at the woman and Scottie is hooked. Kim Novak is stunning in this scene. The effect she has on Scottie is clear from the beginning. Stewart was perfect as the 'everyman' and often played roles where an average guy gets caught up in something bigger than himself and turns out the victim.
So much imagery in the film is circuitous in nature. From the spinning graphics in the opening credits to the circular path of the green Jaguar around the streets of San Francisco and the spiral bun in which Carlotta and Madeleine wear their hair. Everything is moving in circles, and like a whirlpool the victims are drawn toward the center as the bottom begins to drop. The first victim is Scottie. The musical score composed by Bernard Herrman cannot be over emphasized. It is an emotional and hauntingly beautiful score that is perfectly coordinated with the thematic elements of the film.
At this point in the film Hitchcock shifts gears as the film picks up speed. Scottie follows Madeleine to a flowers shop where she gets an odd bouquet of flowers. Kim Novak protests the gray suit with her platinum blond hair in this scene, but Hitchcock insists. It is a woman dressed like this coming out of a San Francisco fog that Hitch had envisioned for Madeleine. Many scenes were shot with a fog filter if natural fog was not available. From black and white dreams to full color dreams, Hitch portrays this story in a dreamlike fashion and he uses color or the lack of it to help the story along.
As Scottie follows Elster's wife Madeleine, he comes to her assistance as she has an 'accident'. He takes her to his apartment to recover. Watch Stewart very closely in this scene as he expertly plays the part, very warm and friendly, but never forward. The view outside Scottie's apartment window is a photographic plate of a street scene, where the cars never move and people never walk. It's clearly not natural, but perfect for the dream-like story Hitchcock is telling. Scottie is falling for Madeleine, and she senses this and tells him she's married. He doesn't seem to hear, as her beauty is beyond reason and the words fall upon a deaf ear. Scottie and Madeleine begin to wander together in their daytime drives around the bay area. They stop along the northern California Sequoia forest and then stop at Cypress Point along the shore. They stand closely together as the waves crash on the rocks below into a large crescendo. In this close-up scene Hitchcock uses a 'process shot' or rear screen projection. It's not quite natural, but we have to realize Hitchcock is not trying to take us there – the background is for Madeleine and Scottie and not for us as he retells this dream-like story.
Hitchcock reminds us in Vertigo, that what we fall in love with is strongly connected with what we choose to see. Like the circuitous imagery in the film, the plight of Scottie is also duplicitous. The film has been restored in the late nineties by Universal Pictures. If you've seen this film 20 or 30 years ago on television, you owe to yourself to see the restored version today. Hitchcock was always fond of using rear screen projections and photographic plate backgrounds, but they were especially effective when used in Vertigo. Like the background scenes, the use of color, picture definition and dynamic ranges of light and dark, were not effectively presented with older forms of television.