Best film of all time? Not by a long shot!

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2012)

Sight & Sound magazine recently voted VERTIGO to be the best film of all time. Coincidentally, I'd watched the movie for the first time myself a few days before hand, so I was in a perfect position to evaluate their judgment. And I think they're wrongdead wrong.
For me, VERTIGO isn't even the best Hitchcock movie. I can think of plenty of others that I enjoyed movie: FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956 version), DIAL M FOR MURDER, PSYCHO, FRENZY. VERTIGO isn't bad, for sure, but it has plenty of things that are wrong with it and could have been tweaked accordingly.
The first is the running time. Combined with the slow nature of the narrative, VERTIGO just feels like it goes on for way too long. And that's not in a good way. As this is a film all about mood, there's little in the way of incident in the narrative. So we get long sequences where Jimmy Stewart is just driving around in his car and by this stage I was getting itchy feet, desperate for some of the excitement that Hitch routinely injected into most of his other movies.
Oh, I appreciate the film's psychology. Its exploration of the nature of obsession is extremely interesting, and Stewart is perfectly situated to play the guy going out of his mind. There are some great set-pieces too, not least the opener which is eye-popping. Stuff, when it happens, is generally good, especially that huge twist which I didn't see coming that takes place around the halfway mark. Novak, as the object of Stewart's affections, puts in a multi-layered performance which impresses from the outset, and the inevitable climax closes things off nicely.
Butyeah. Some judicious pruning would, I think, have resulted in a tighter and more gripping film, and as it stands even Hitchcock himself feels bored at some key points. VERTIGO is, I believe, a decent film, but it's far from being the director's bestlet alone the best film of all time!