Style and substance; Kim Novak plays herself

Rating: Null/10 (19 August 2000)

As an amateur student of film, I am fascinated by how movies (in America as well as in foreign countries) capture the imagination and become commercially and critically successful. I have come to conclude that European films rely primarily on substance (with the exception of Fellini, who went for style), whereas American filmmakers will push style over substance almost all the time. Very rarely does a filmmaker manage to achieve a harmonious balance of style and substance. One good example is the American director George Lucas (STAR WARS). Another example is the American (though British by birth) director Alfred Hitchcock (VERTIGO).
VERTIGO was not my first Hitchcock film. I had previously seen I CONFESS, which really didn't affect me that much (probably because it was in black and white, and I think most films are much more dramatically intense in color). I sat down to watch VERTIGO not knowing what to expect. I understood part of the plot, if not all of it. Therefore, I was surprised by what I didn't understand as well as delighted by what I did understand.
I enjoyed the film. It is a journey into the neurotic mind of John Ferguson (James Stewart), a San Francisco detective who suffers from a chronic fear of heights. He retires from the police force, only to be called upon by an old friend to undertake one last case. This case concerns the friend's wife (Kim Novak), who is believed to be insane. John begins to shadow his quarry through San Francisco, gradually becoming obsessed with her. And that's just the beginning...
I mentioned earlier that VERTIGO is a blend of style and substance, and Hitchcock truly does artfully mix the two into a coherent whole. VERTIGO cannot be pigeonholed, being equal parts detective story, romance, and psychological thriller. The movie is slow at times (which is actually quite crucial to the plot), but on other occasions it explodes with blasts of the colorful and the avant-garde. The most striking of these is a bizarre dream sequence that becomes completely abstract and is totally at odds with anything else in the film. And then, of course, there is Hitchcock's innovative method for capturing the "vertigo" effect - backing the camera away from the action while at the same time deploying the zoom lens.
But the movie's real strengths lie in its performers. Jimmy Stewart displays his excellent range by puncturing his George Bailey stereotype from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and running in the opposite direction, portraying a fey character who is both sympathetic and frightening. The real star, however, is Kim Novak. I have never seen her in any other movie, but I am convinced of her talent just from watching this one. In effect, she plays herself - an actress who can become anyone in order to confuse and torment. She is like a normal woman at some points, and then at other times she becomes strangely inhuman - silent and enigmatic. In fact, in this two-hour movie Kim Novak does not actually speak until the film is one-third over.
VERTIGO was a powerful experience for me. It did not actually scare me (as PSYCHO probably would), but it did disturb me a bit and made me realize how emotionally unstable a lot of seemingly complacent human beings are. It is, first and foremost, a chilling thriller, and the love story is actually a wonderful bonus. Plus, it depicts the one-of-a-kind beauty of the vistas of San Francisco the way no other movie ever has. I give VERTIGO three and a half stars (only because it just wasn't every bit as powerful as it could have been). It truly deserves its place among the greatest films of all time.