A Haunting Masterpiece ...

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2011)

"Vertigo" draws a thin line between reality and our subconscious haunted by ghostly memories and tormenting traumas, and on this tightrope we wonder whether we should jump to wake up from that madness-embracing nightmare, or plunge into that magnificent meditative sky, or simply walk and walk trying not to faint from dizziness, or like James Stewart, not to succumb to acrophobia, translation: fear of heights.
Speaking of heights, "Vertigo" tops any other creation from the Master. Even Hitchcock's greatest films are never flawless, but "Vertigo" flirts with perfection. More than a captivating thriller gripping your heart from one mystery to another, with every pieces of the puzzle reassembling at the end for a spectacular finale, the movie has a unique quality rarely displayed in Hitchcock's films with such intensity, I'm speaking of course of the torrid romance between the private-eye John "Scottie" Ferguson and Madeleine Elster, his old friend's wife whom he must follow to understand the reasons of her peculiar behavior. Madeleine is portrayed by Kim Nowak whose breath-taking inner beauty surpassed the most beautiful panoramic shots of San Francisco, masterfully sketched by the Master.
Indeed, the casting of Kim Nowak is extraordinary as she really looks like the kind of women that would obsess us and as usual, James Stewart's ordinary look makes him on the save wavelength as the audience. We identify with him while the internal focus creates a very disturbing empathy as much as a constant desire to understand Madeleine, while she visits the mysterious grave of a Spanish girl named Carlotta Valdes, and contemplates her painting while Scottie follows, or shall we say, contemplates her too. Kim Nowak's eyes communicate something desperate and affecting as we want to grab her, but at the same time, she's like totally inaccessible floating in a cloud of divinity, fragile and perfect, her vulnerability inspires Scottie's strength, and her lips with a bright red suggesting a bleeding heart and these sensual and haunting eyebrows, well, such a divine beauty can only inspire a genuine devotion
Never had a chemistry been so intense and so passionate, it's not the first romance featured in a Hitchcock's film but this time, it works for the same reason it didn't, in my opinion, between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in "North by Northwest" or even James Stewart and Grace Kelly in "Rear Window". It worked because it wasn't a conventional subplot but an important and relevant element of the story: hadn't they loved each other, never the guilt would have tormented both of them after the famous scheme. And everything happens is such a genuine way, Scottie spontaneously rescued her from the unforgettable suicidal scene in San Francisco Bay, the way their passion grows as she reveals her possession by the soul of Carlotta Valdes, only a man haunted by a traumatic guilt could understand this feeling.
"Vertigo" is about guilt as a force that either blocks you or drives you, to a point it can be exploited to commit a crime, and as a double-edged sword, can help to solve the same crime. Scottie suffers from acrophobia since the day he indirectly caused the falling of a cop who came to rescue him. The iconic silhouette falling into the spiral is the allegory of the psychological guilt that tortures Scottie, and resurrects when he's at heights, making him incapable of moving, and as he proved it, of helping someone in danger. The directorial genius of Hitchcock is to have communicated this unsettling feeling by inventing the iconic "Vertgio" shot, magnifying the background while zooming out, in the iconic tower scene. We really feel Scottie's dizziness. The whole story is told from his perspective, marvelously and meticulously constructed from that patient set-up that intrigues us and captivates us about Madeleine, to her apparent death, and then her mysterious reappearance. As we wonder, if we're not haunted too, by the ghost of Madeleine too, the immersion is total.
The psychological aspect of "Vertigo" is one of the key elements that places "Vertigo" among the greatest films. Scottie is such an endearing character, trying to conceal many wounds in his heart, with his own weaknesses unfairly exploited. There's another interesting character as the ex-fiancée Midge, who tries to reach Scottie, in vain. She tells the only cure for the acrophobia would be another shock, but there was something more powerful, boiling in Scottie's heart, a quest of redemption that would have probably inspired Scorsese. And when Scottie rediscovers the identical twin of Madeleine, as Judy Barton, and tries to make her look like Madeleine, there's something touching in Nowak's distraught attitude. She accepts everything from Scottie, tormented by the desire to reconstruct the sincere romance, or to redeem herself, because she fooled him.
But fate wanted Judy to betray herself with one necklace that belonged to Carlotta, and in one flashlight of realization, Scottie understood the whole 'plot', and decides to change the program and go back to the tower. Scottie stops being a follower, a passive character, he acts, and finally gets the truth from Judy, and when they finally embrace, in one ironic twist that would haunt cinematic memories for eternity, the film starts like it ended, with Judy falling to her death, frightened by the shadow of a nun, who came to ring the mission bell. The sight of Stewart in the top of the tower is the triumph of a man who overcame his handicap through an emotional shock that cost him the life of his precious love, what an irony, what a finale and what a film!
"Vertigo" elevates us to a unique universe with the hypnotic beauty of a Kandinsky's painting and the alienating psychological torment of a Kafka novel, the whole chef-d'oeuvre orchestrated by the Maestro Bernard Herrman. "Vertigo" is purely and simply, Hitchcock's Masterpiece with a major M and a major H, like in Haunting