too long, too slow, but worth watching

Rating: 7/10 (3 July 2009)

I'm not quite sure what I thought of Vertigo when I first saw it, which was a long time ago, but I recall being underwhelmed. Since it's generally considered one of Hitchcock's major works I decided I'd give it another chance.
It is an odd duck.
This is a prime example of Hitchcock confusing the audience by having charming, likable actors play awful people. Stewart's character is not a good guy at all, but Stewart essentially plays him as one. I could write a long list of the character's moral lapses, but Stewart doesn't play the character as a bad guy. It's an interesting approach.
One thing I recall clearly from the first time I saw this movie is I thought it was very slow, and that was not a trick of the memory. Call it deliberately paced if you like, but this movie really takes its time. There is very little dialog and quite a lot of the camera watching Stewart staring at Novak.
One of the oddities of the movie is that the intriguing central mystery is explained two-thirds of the way through. And yet, the film is at its most interesting in that final third. At this point the movie is simply a sad, disturbing character study powered by Novak's vulnerability.
Vertigo is a very interesting movie. I imagine you could write a very long analysis of it - how its structured and character motivation and all that. But its entertainment value is iffier. Outside of Barbara Bel Geddes, whose sharp, subtle performance makes the film far more entertaining than it would otherwise be, the movie can feel a bit too vague and wandering.