Terrifyingly brilliant or terrifyingly awful...I think I lost my mind for two hours in psychosis

Rating: 6/10 (13 January 2013)

I am not a Hitchcock aficionado, in fact I have only ever seen one or two of his films, the obvious more mainstream ones. I thought I had seen Vertigo before but I had not. So I went to see it on the big screen in a classic film series. Well...I've been Hitchcocked. There were times I thought I was losing my mind. The film is mind numbing and I do not know whether that is good or bad. Every time I thought the film was ending, it kept going. Unlike some classic films, I didn't feel like Vertigo has aged well. I felt like parts of it come across as incredibly campy now and cheesy including the animation of Johnny's dream sequence. The film is appropriately haunting as you would expect from Hitchcock and the twist for me was actually a lot of fun, although again it seemed completely implausible. It seemed like Vertigo tried to be about five different genres of film and certainly covered a gambit of concepts. Obsession, lust, murder, the supernatural, reincarnation, and all with the opening scene of a detective afraid of heights. I think I would need a student of film to explain to me what on earth his vertigo had to with the film whatsoever. Yes, it ended up playing a role in the climax but was it necessary? The film was more about obsession than anything to do with vertigo.
I love Jimmy Stewart, adore him in fact. He is a poignant and powerful presence in any role and this is no exception. Anyone else in the role would have let it falter. His character literally loses his mind throughout the course of the film and deals with the obsession, and the illness and the mental instability and its frightening to watch him do it. His character is bizarre and he pulls it off with class. I don't know a lot about Hitchcock and his blonde bombshells but was Kim Novak a complete joke in this film? I don't know if its the age of the performance but she reeked of pretentious sarcasm and downright campy performance. Her scenes were literally laughable and she looked ridiculous in nearly every scene. To call her performance overacting is the understatement of the decade. She overacts every scene and every expression and it was painful to watch right up to her laugh out loud climax. Barbara Bel Geddes (my beloved Miss Ellie--I'm a Dallas fan) plays a bizarre little role as Stewart's best friend and unrequited love interest Midge. I say its bizarre because their relationship is left unexplored and you feel like there is so much history there that you never get to see anything from. Still Geddes is perfect and her and Stewart have this unusual but palpable chemistry on screen together. Tom Helmore plays his part very well and he and Stewart also have good chemistry on screen together during their one major scene. Stewart carries the film though and easily.
I don't pretend to understand Hitchcock and I don't even begin to have the pretentiousness to presume I should say what is good or bad about one of the most iconic directors in history. The film just hurt my brain trying to figure out what it was he was doing. The SanFrancisco backdrop seemed to play such a significant part of the whole concept but yet was never really used to any great degree. In a couple of scenes Stewart is clearing driving on the wrong side of the road...why?! Was this just a mistake or an inversion of film? Or was there a deeper meaning. I kept trying to see Hitchcock's trademark brilliance but I'm not sure I understand. I wasn't intrigued as much as I was confused and I wasn't entertained as much as I was terrified by how overwhelming the whole experience was. I don't mean to take away anything from those that adore the film but I would just like to sit down and debate/discuss this movie for hours. It isn't anything I would seek out for entertainment but I intend on exploring Hitchcock's films more in the weeks to come. I am so glad I saw this because I can say that I've seen it and got to see it on the big screen!! 6/10