my vote for the best of hitchcock

Rating: 10/10 (29 January 2002)

all great movies must be seen at least twice to understand how great they are. that is true in spades for vertigo. the story is smart the first time through. it's brilliant the second time through. the first time through we're identifying with scotty as he tries to find out what he needs to know. our knowledge is equal to his. but we get ahead of what he knows when we hear judy write her confession letter. now we know more than scotty and our knowledge is aligned with judy. so we begin to watch scotty to see if and when he'll come to know what we and judy know. the second time through we identify with madeline/judy as she tries to keep acting her assigned part while falling in love with scotty, so we watch to see when she begis to be NOT acting the part, which is to say resisting the role she has willingly taken on. the heavy irony is that as she struggles NOT to simply play her assigned part (because she's falling in love with scotty), she in fact seems all the more convincing IN the part. and then when she is judy, to pump up the irony even more, she has to struggle to play the part of who she really is. she has to pretend to be herself. This is as masterful a setup of irony as you'll come across. what a film.