The Ultimate San Francisco Movie

Rating: 10/10 (22 November 2004)

My father took me to see Vertigo and I instantly LOVED this classic. It influenced me to settle in San Francisco, as it is indisputably the ultimate San Francisco movie, with Bullitt a very respectable second. I have personally visited almost every real location depicted in the movie, and I love to give my out of town visitors the Vertigo tour of the places that still exist. Vertigo is a great tour of some of the many beautiful spots in and around SF.
I love Alfred Hitchcock films and though Rear Window is my favorite, I think Vertigo is his best and perhaps most personal. From the opening titles and wonderful Bernard Hermann music soundtrack to the haunting conclusion, Vertigo is a visually lush and grandly entertaining example of masterful storytelling. I cannot articulate enough how great this film is and do it justice in 1000 words. The viewer is drawn in voyeuristically with the Jimmy Stewart character as he feels the tension of escalating obsession and the just-out-of-reach frustration with an unobtainable illusion. The use of music is one of the best ever in film as it reflects the inward emotion perfectly. You can hear what Jimmy Stewart is feeling. First there is curiosity, then rising tension, rising hope, and then release and resolution. Vertigo has one of my favorite film shots in it too (possibly the first time it was ever used), the zoom-in-while-backward- tracking shot, later seen in films like Jaws. Oh! And Vertigo has one of the greatest on-screen kisses of all time too, so very passionate (and I think shot on a turntable). The way Alfred Hitchcock was able to imply such sexuality in Vertigo without showing even nudity, I think, made the situations even more sexually charged, as what one imagines is far better.
This is a film that earns a rare but well deserved 10/10 in my book.