Great in every way

Rating: 10/10 (8 August 2003)

Some Hitchcock films can be viewed by some as little more than thrillers. A case in point is Rear Window. This is not the case for Vertigo, through and through a work of art cinema. What makes this film stand out is how Hitchcock uses all of the film-makers to perfection: acting, storyline, music, editing and so forth. The film's use of lighting is excellent throughout, always echoing in some way the psychological state of the characters. The graveyard scene, where Hitchcock used fog filters, is one of the best examples of this. The fog effect gives the viewers a number of different feelings: the obvious is to give a ghostly atmosphere to the scene. It also gives you the sense of ambiguity about Stewart's actions at this point of the film. The film features arguably the most dramatic ending in the history of cinema. What we have here is every aspect of film-making coming together, with Stewart acting at perhaps a level of intensity that has rarely been matched before and since. The film famously ends with Kim Novak dying, however why is this the case? Vertigo is effectively split into two halves, before and after Stewart thinks Novak has died. What is clear is that these two halves are rather like an image that has been reflected and rotated in some way. We have Stewart now making over Novak's character. Stewart making it to the top of the stairs and so forth. It is this type of role reversal that requires Novak to die. This of course is hinted at by the rotation of the opening credits by Bass.