Film-making as art

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2005)

If you view this film as if looking at a work of art, you get a new perspective on it. The use of color, the music, opening sequence, camera work, etc all blend into one piece of artwork. As with any work of art, one person loves it, the next person doesn't understand it. That explains the wide variety of opinion about "Vertigo".
When I first watched it years ago I too got caught up in looking for the usual elements of "a thriller", "a psychological drama", "a love story", etc. Seeing and hearing the restored version has made me forget about all that and realize that this film is art for art's sake. I believe Hitchcock intended it to be so, because he tells us. For example, Scottie talks to Madeleine, he standing outside the car, viewing her in driver seat from the same perspective as the viewer of the car in Tamara DeLempicka's "Green Bugatti". Also, Midge says that she is reverting to her "first love, art". Scottie figures out what has happened by remembering the necklace from the painting of Carlotta. And, of course, some scenes are in an art museum.
Some great movies are cultural icons and deserve a place in the Smithsonian or in movie museums, some more so than "Vertigo". However, "Vertigo" could be placed in the National Gallery of Art.