Abstract, dreamlike, dark and enigmatic; Hitchcock's most fascinating film

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2008)

Vertigo (1958) is Hitchcock's most challenging and enigmatic film; one that seemingly places any notion of entertainment value secondary to the mood and atmosphere that it so effortlessly creates and instead, tells a dangerous and nightmarish story about lust and obsession that is all the more radical when you think about the context of the time in which it was released. And of course, it's still a completely fascinating work fifty years on; with the dark ambiguities of the characters, the labyrinthine plot and the cold, claustrophobic atmosphere created by design and cinematography making this a bizarre and unforgettable experience that rewards on an incredibly subtle level. Unlike many of his other films of this era, Hitchcock is seemingly dropping the facade of his more populist personality; creating a film that is subtle, dark, coolly enigmatic and seemingly devoid of many of the broader, more tongue-in-cheek aspects of humour quite often associated with his work. Without question, it is because of this inherent seriousness that the film is still recognised and rated more highly than many of Hitchcock's other films - including those that did better at the box office - because it has something of a lasting appeal and those lingering questions of interpretation presented by the issues and ideas discussed herein.
Right from the very first scene Hitchcock is skilfully mapping out the various themes of the story, plunging his central characters into a dark and dizzying whirlpool of abstract design and violent colour. As Pablo Neruda once said, the eye is the window to the soul, and here we see the eye of our central victim/antagonist, transfixed and free-falling through an infinite vacuum that exposes her every darkest impulse and weakness. As the opening scene continues, we are not only faced by the on screen death of a character, but by a traumatic sense of emasculation, as Scottie, our supposed hero, is left impotent; unable to act in the way that we would normally expect a heroic, clean-cut all American of this era to act in such a circumstance, and instead, clinging helplessly from the gutter of a high-rise tenement as the man who attempts to help him plunges to his death. Again, a bleak foreshadowing of later events played out as infinitely as that opening whirlpool that predicts the film's continual, concentric spiral from one dark extreme to the next. The sense of spiralling is also one of the film's most recognisable themes and indeed, one of its most prevalent visual motifs, not only in prefiguring the continual image of bodies spiralling to the ground, or the spiral staircase that leads the character to the top of the bell tower and to the film's central revelations, but in the spiral into madness that acts as the film's primary concern.
Another reason that the film does so well with cinema fans and contemporary critics alike is (I suppose) because it rewards repeated viewing with infinite avenues of interpretation. Unlike many other Hollywood films of this era, Vertigo presents us with all the essential questions and then asks us to put the various pieces of the puzzle together in order to find the answer; making us somewhat implicit within the story and the predestined fate of its character. It doesn't pander to the audience in the way we might expect from something as clearly melodramatic, but at the same time, it doesn't leave us scratching our heads and wondering what the hell just happened. We're free to interpret the film freely, but again, at the same time, there is a plot here that can be followed and a recognisable strand of melodrama tied rigidly to the central character. Like the work of Stanley Kubrick, Vertigo involves the audience and makes us feel clever (even if we're not) when we finally work out or own little interpretation of the dreamlike visuals and nightmarish shifts in tone.
It's a dark film without question; one that Hitchcock playfully referred to as "a love story about a necrophiliac" and very much a film about love and death. The style is pure dreamlike abstraction, filled with overwhelming colours and soft, filtered lighting as the characters drift through the narrative like ghosts. However, beyond any such deeper interpretations, the film is still incredibly effective even on the most obvious of levels; presenting an interesting story that is rich and complex (without becoming convoluted or pretentious) and one that is rooted throughout to an interesting and multi-layered character filled with conflicting issues of light and dark, right and wrong, etc, etc. With this in mind, it is easy to see why Vertigo is still inspiring audiences and filmmakers half a century after it was first released, with its subtle elements of film noir mystery and romantic melodrama being continually contrasted against the darker notions of dreams and nightmares, life and death, fear and desire that all emerge from that tortured whirlpool that envelopes both the characters and the audience alike. Although there are probably other films by Hitchcock that I enjoy more than Vertigo - films like Rope (1948) or Rear Window (1954) for example - there is no doubt that this is his purest, most elaborate, textured and completely fascinating film.