A Defining Work in the Career of Alfred Hitchcock.

Rating: Null/10 (7 October 2013)

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo arrives with a huge reputation to live up to because only a couple years back, it dethroned Orson Welles' Citizen Kane from the top spot in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' poll; a position Welles' magnum opus had held for 50 long years. But not only did Vertigo feel quite unworthy of its new-found position in the end but isn't even the most defining work of Hitchcock's glorious career.
The film tells the story of a police detective who is forced into retirement after his fear of height results in the death of a policeman when he was on duty. He is eventually hired by an acquaintance as a private investigator whose job is to keep an eye on his beautiful wife who has been behaving very strangely of lately. The plot covers his inquiry into the matter while he becomes dangerously obsessed with her.
The entire picture is expertly directed for it not only shows how experimental Hitchcock can get but also exhibited the effortless ease with which he was able to fuse art into every aspect of this film without compromising much with the entertainment factor. The first half plays out like a psychological horror with stunning unpredictability but it's the second half where the film went downhill for me with its take on love & loss.
There are many things to like about this movie yet in the end it ends up feeling a tad too overlong & concludes on a slightly unsatisfying note. Cinematography captures its events gorgeously & is responsible for the existence of dolly zoom technique in cinema, editing could've used a few more trims in the second half, background score by Bernard Herrmann wonderfully reflects its themes and the performances by James Stewart & Kim Novak are no slouch.
On an overall scale, Vertigo is a brilliantly crafted & artistically appealing cinema that hasn't aged very well considering that countless imitation has taken away most of its mystery elements & its ending isn't very difficult to deduce but this psychological thriller still has enough fuel to surprise many in certain aspects and although I don't agree with its new tag of 'greatest film of all time', I can't deny its significant contribution to world cinema.
A second viewing some other time might change my perception towards it but as of now, Vertigo was an underwhelming experience.