Unforgettable

Rating: 10/10 (9 March 2020)

The movie is incredible, but being a composer, I want share how the music contributes to the drama. If I had to name the best Bernard Herrmann score, it would be very easy to argue for Vertigo. On display here is an utterly complete exercise in dramatic storytelling. The handling of tension in harmony and melody is second, if not equal to, Wagner himself. The love theme is one of the greatest creations of sound I have ever heard. Very interestingly, throughout the first half of the film, Herrmann establishes another melody to represent Madeleine - it can very easily be thought of as the love theme in the first half. However, once things turn dark and James Stewart's love obsession begins, this theme morphs into the famous, appoggiatura infested gut-wrencher of a theme. Vertigo is a film about obsession, and to represent this in the score, Herrmann continuously, again and again, returns to the melody in an agonizing way. It is not fully resolved until the end of the love scene, just like the Tristan chord (Wagner's opera "Tristan und Isolde") 93 years earlier. Herrmann new exactly what he was doing and who he was borrowing from.