Vertigo (film)
For other uses of the word Vertigo
, see Vertigo.Vertigo is a
1958 psychological thriller film directed by
Alfred Hitchcock. The film is usually taken as a classic of the genre and is considered by some
critics to be
Hitchcock's masterpiece.
The prologue of
Vertigo tells the story of how
San Francisco detective John "Scottie"/"Johnny Oh" Ferguson (
James Stewart) develops
acrophobia after a fellow policeman falls to his death while the two are chasing a criminal across rooftops and the fellow slips to his death while helping Ferguson cross a rooftop. After the prologue, a scene between Scottie and his old college friend Midge Wood (
Barbara Bel Geddes) reveals just how intense Scottie's acrophobia is. He can't look out of a window without being paralyzed with fear and dizziness. It is also revealed that Midge and he were formerly engaged.
An old friend, Gavin Elster, hires Scottie to follow Elster's wife Madeleine (
Kim Novak). According to Elster, his wife Madeleine often appears to be staring off into space, occasionally driving to points unknown and later having no recollection of doing any of it. In the course of the conversation he tells a skeptical Scottie that he believes that Madeleine has a mental illness and thinks she is possessed by a spirit of someone long dead: her own ancestor.
Scottie tails Madeleine for several days. Madeleine visits the grave of a woman named Carlotta Valdes, who killed herself many many years ago. She pays frequent visits to the
Palace of the Legion of Honor, where she spends long periods of time gazing at a large portrait of Carlotta. Also, she rents a room at a hotel which was once Carlotta's home. Madeleine also dresses like Carlotta, complete with identical bleach-blond hair, pinned bun of hair at the back of her neck, and the very same jewelry. Despite her trance-like, obsessive (and sometimes suicidal) behavior,
and in spite of the detective's former romantic involvement with Midge, Scottie is strongly attracted to Madeleine, and resolves to save her from herself.
In an iconic scene from the movie, Scottie tails the supposedly possessed Madeleine to
Fort Point, underneath the
Golden Gate Bridge. Madeleine is peeling petals of a bouquet of flowers (also identical to those held by Carlotta in the large portrait), and then suddenly jumps into
San Francisco Bay in what appears to be a suicide attempt. Scottie saves her from the water, unconscious, and brings her to his apartment, where he removes her wet clothing and puts her in his bed to recover from her ordeal. When she awakens, she puts on his dressing gown and joins him in the living room to dry off in front of the fire, where the two begin to fall in love. But when Scottie goes into the other room to answer a phone call from Elster, Madeleine disappears, quick as a ghost, only to reappear in his life shortly afterward. Midge, still nursing her own feelings for Scottie â€" and especially protective of him since the accident that caused him to leave the police force â€"- becomes increasingly jealous.
When Madeleine and Scottie take a trip to see giant
Redwood trees, she becomes extremely mystical when they examine a timeline employed by the rings of a cut-down
Sequoia tree. She tells Scottie "Here I was born" (pointing to a ring indicating a year long ago) "and there I died" (pointing to a still long ago year). Walking like a
wraith through the forest, Madeleine engages in a reverie of what appears to be Carlotta's past. In a torment of confusion, Madeleine tells Scottie she has dreamed of a place that he identifies as
Mission San Juan Bautista, and he takes her there in an effort to conquer her disturbing dreams and, hopefully, cure her mental illness.
But, once there, Madeleine is again seemingly possessed, and she runs into the mission's bell tower. Scottie's acrophobia renders him unable to follow her up to the top of the steep staircase, and, through a window, Scottie watches in horror as Madeleine plummets from the top of the tower to her death on the roof below.
Scottie suffers a nervous breakdown and flees the scene. After a short trial where Scottie is found innocent of neglect, he is placed in a mental hospital, where he descends into
catatonic passivity. During his recovery, Scottie â€" and Midge, to her sorrow â€" realizes that he is still in love with Madeleine.
Much later (the time lapse is never precisely identified), Scottie, still brooding, and himself now wandering the streets like the mad Carlotta Valdes, begins to haunt the places where the earlier relationship happened. On one such visit (to a florist's shop where Madeleine habitually bought her ancestor's favorite flowers), he encounters a woman, Judy Barton, who reminds him strongly of his dead love -- though this girl is more "ordinary," even a bit vulgar in comparison with Madeleine's ethereal beauty.
Scottie follows this girl to her residential-hotel room, where he hears her story: she is a simple girl from Salina, Kansas, making a life for herself in San Francisco after a series of bad relationships. After Scottie leaves, Judy writes him a letter in which she reveals (and we see in
flashback) that one such relationship was with Elster, who hired her to impersonate Madeleine for Elster's benefit as part of his scheme to murder his wife. But, still in love with Scottie and guilty for the pain she has caused him, Judy destroys the letter almost as soon as she has written it.
Scottie becomes obsessed with Judy, and gradually the two get closer on a sentimental level. However, any romantic possibility between the true Judy and Scottie is thwarted by Scottie's memory of Madeleine. Scottie begins insisting that Judy dress like Madeleine, have the same shoes, and even having her auburn hair dyed to Madeleine's wintry blonde; despite her protests, Judy eventually gives in. She is almost as obsessed with Scottie as he is with Madeleine.
|
Scottie (Jimmy Stewart) stands on the ledge of Mission San Juan Bautista's bell tower in the film's final scene. |
When Judy is completely made over as Madeleine, she goes back to her apartment where Scottie is waiting. She deliberately tries to retain some hint of her own personality by not wearing her hair in Madeleine's style, but finally he persuades her that even this small detail has to change. She goes into the bathroom and emerges, just as Madeleine emerged from his bedroom — the film echoes the earlier scene — and as Scottie embraces her to Bernard Herrmann's "
Tristan und Isolde" theme, the past swirls about them and their relationship seems finally to be consummated, his obsession cured.
At the moment when a new life is to begin for this couple, however, Judy makes a crucial mistake when she decides to wear the red jewelled pendant that he remembers Madeleine having inherited, the same as in the painting of Carlotta. Unplanned, Scottie brings Judy to the Mission San Juan Bautista and forces her to go up the tower once more, telling her that he wants to re-enact the scene in which he failed to save Madeleine. He raves, saying he'll "bring her back"; however, it becomes clear that his real goal is to force a confession from Judy, and eventually she does break down: hired by Elster to impersonate Madeleine, she feigned suicidal tendencies in order to convince Scottie that Madeleine was mentally unstable, with the knowledge that his acrophobia would prevent him from following her up the bell tower. The real Madeleine was hurled, already dead from a broken neck, from the tower by her husband. With no witnesses, and with Scottie's testimony supporting Madeleine's "
insanity", her husband got away with murder.
As Scottie forces Judy to confess, they inch up the stairs until they make it to the top, whereupon Scottie declares, "I made it!" He rages at her while Judy pleads that she loved him all along. Scottie, despite his contempt for her actions, allows her to embrace him. But this vague hope of reconcilation between the couple is abruptly destroyed when a shadowy figure suddenly appears at the top of the stairs, murmuring, "I heard voices." Judy, suddenly frightened, backs away from the approaching shadow and accidentally steps off the tower ledge, plunging to her death for real this time. The figure steps into the light and is revealed to be a nun, who begins vigorously ringing the church bell, as an alert that there has been a tragic accident. Scottie moves out onto the ledge and sways briefly, but remains stable as he stares down at Judy's fallen body: his vertigo is cured at the cost of his sanity.
The movie was adapted by
Samuel W. Taylor and
Alec Coppel from the French novel
Sueurs froides: d'entre les morts (
Cold Sweat: From Among the Dead) by
Pierre Boileau and
Thomas Narcejac.
François Truffaut suggested that the novel was specifically written for Hitchcock by Boileau and Narcejac after Hitchcock was unable to buy the rights to their previous novel,
Celle qui n'était plus, which was made into the movie
Les Diaboliques. However, Narcejac has subsequently denied that this was their intention.
The film also alludes to the story of
Orpheus and
Eurydice. Although the source novel's explicit references to the myth do not appear in the film, certain themes do, including the return of a dead beloved to life, and discovering the fatal consequences of "looking back."
The final script was written by Samuel Taylor from notes by Hitchcock. However, a number of elements survive from an earlier script by Alec Coppel, including the opening rooftop sequence, the
Cypress Point kiss, the two visits to
San Juan Bautista, and the famous nightmare sequence. When Taylor attempted to take sole credit for the screenplay, Coppel protested to the
Writers' Guild, who determined that both writers were entitled to credit. It is believed by many that Hitchcock himself was primarily responsible for the character, structure, tone, and thematic richness of this, his most personal film.
Vertigo is notable for the "
Hitchcock zoom," an in-camera
perspective distortion special effect created by Hitchcock that suggests the dizzying effect that gives the film its title.
The film's famous score was composed by
Bernard Herrmann. In many of the key scenes Hitchcock essentially gave the film over to Herrmann, whose melodies, echoing
Richard Wagner's
Liebestod from
Tristan und Isolde, dramatically convey Scottie's obsessive love for the woman he imagines to be Madeleine. Recently, the
American Film Institute named it as one of the best scores in the history of Cinema.
Vertigo was one of several
1950s Paramount films shot in the
VistaVision widescreen format, a horizontal 35mm process developed to compete with several similar processes from other studios (such as
20th Century Fox's
CinemaScope).
The color palette of the film is also of note. Greens, representing etherealness, are the most prominent, especially in association with Scottie's relationship with Madeleine and later Judy. When Madeleine first appears to Scottie, she is wearing a bright green dress, indicating her enigma and elusiveness which Scottie will be drawn into. Similarly, Scottie first spies Judy reflected in a shop window, with a green sweater. During the famous scene in which Judy emerges from the bathroom dressed completely as Madeleine, she is surrounded by an eerie green light representative of her "
resurrection" by Scottie.
Vertigo is noted, also, for its rather unexplained ending amongst other Hitchcock films. The true reason for Judy Barton's fright that causes her to fall from the bell tower is never truly explained, and is the root of much debate among Hitchcock fans who are not convinced that she was merely startled by a shadow. However, the very idea of a "shadow" is a recurring theme throughout the movie, so her death at the hand of a "shadow" might be symbolic.
|
Kim Novak as the patrician Madeleine and tawdry Judy |
Those interested in Hitchcock's biography have often noted the similarities between John Ferguson's attitude toward Judy and Hitchcock's own attitude toward his leading actresses; Hitchcock took an active interest in moulding the on-screen appearance of his actresses to fit his vision of the perfect blonde, and the sequence in which Scottie orders Judy to gradually transform herself into Madeleine is often cited as an example of Hitchcock dramatizing his own obsessions.
Hitchcock used falling, and the threat of falling, in many of his films, for example
Blackmail,
Foreign Correspondent,
Suspicion,
Saboteur,
Rear Window,
To Catch a Thief, and
North by Northwest. Critics have suggested that
Vertigo uses this recurring motif as a metaphor for sexual obsession, existential
angst,
Liebestod, or
original sin.
Vertigo has become a touchstone film for feminist criticism of the movies, as has Hitchcock in general. The "makeover" of Judy is seen by feminist critics as exemplary of men making women over into the image they wish (and the dangerous acquiescence of women in that process); and — of course — as a symbol of the male gaze in movies, a form of visual murder. The ambiguities of the film complicate the making of simple judgements, however: for example, Scottie at various points (such as the dream sequence) seems himself to turn into Madeleine, since he too is being manipulated by another man (using Judy). Moreover, Hitchcock seems to be engaged in turning the tables on men in
Vertigo, including himself. Hitchcock uses the theme of multiple gazes and multiple mirrors throughout to underscore the paradoxes of film. For example, the moment when Scottie hits upon the truth is a scene in a mirror which becomes a memory of a portrait which reflects a false obsession and frames a momentary lapse which reveals an obsession that even the heroine has not fully understood, and so on. The multiple mirrors and obsessive gazings and metaphors of acting and dreaming keep one guessing as to what Hitchcock's ultimate take on the male/female relationship in movies is. The real vertigo in the film is not the threat of a fall off the tower, but the hall of endless mirrors through which one can fall forever in search of an ideal image.
|
James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo |
Vertigo was nominated for
Academy Awards for
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color and
Best Sound.
Vertigo was not a commercial success when first released, and its critical reputation built slowly, due in part to its lack of availability: it was one of five films owned by the Hitchcock estate removed from circulation in
1973. When
Vertigo was re-released on film and home video in
1983, its critical fortunes soared.
In
1998, the
American Film Institute ranked it #61 on its "
100 Greatest Movies" list. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States
Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry.
In
2002,
Vertigo was chosen the second greatest film of all time (behind
Citizen Kane) by the
Sight and Sound critics' poll.
In
2005,
Vertigo came in second (to
Goodfellas) in British magazine
Total Film's book, 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.
After a controversial and lengthy restoration by
Robert A. Harris and
James C. Katz, the film was re-released to theaters in
1996. The new print featured restored color and a newly created audio track utilising modern recordings mixed in
DTS digital surround sound. It was also exhibited for the first time in
70mm, a format similar in size to
VistaVision in which it had been originally filmed.
Many cineastes consider the 1996 restoration substandard, introducing color values not seen in the original, though the restoration team says they spent much time and research finding the exact colors of the locations, cars, and skin tones (they even went so far as to get paint off the car James Stewart drives early in the film in order to research the color schemes). Significant color correction was necessary because of the fading of original negative. In some cases a new negative was created from the silver separation masters, but in many instances this proved impossible because of the separation shrinkage, and because the 1958 separations were poorly made. Although the results are not noticeable on viewing the film, some elements were as many as eight generations away from the original negative.
The biggest point of contention is the significant altering of the soundtrack by adding completely new elements not present in the original film, omitting important details and generally changing the overall tone of the film. The 2005 Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection DVD contains the original mono track.
Vertigo is notable for its extensive location footage of the
San Francisco Bay Area, leading some to claim the city itself as an important character in the script; San Francisco is famous for its steep hills, expansive views, and tall, arching bridges. Some have noted that in the numerous driving scenes shot in the city, the main characters' cars are almost always pictured heading
down the city's steeply inclined streets.
Visiting the San Francisco film locations (perhaps most famously in a subsection of
Chris Marker's documentary montage
Sans Soleil) has something of a cult following as well as modest tourist appeal.
Areas that were shot on location (not recreated in a studio), and that still exist:
*
Mission San Juan Bautista, although the all-important tower had to be matted in with a painting using studio effects. Hitchcock had first visited the Mission before the tower was torn down due to dry rot, and was reportedly very displeased to find it missing when he returned to film his scenes. The original tower was much smaller and less dramatic than the special effects version however, so in the end the change could be considered fortuitous.
*
Mission Dolores, where for many years tourists could see the actual Carlotta Valdes headstone featured in the film. Eventually, the headstone was removed as the Mission considered it disrespectful to the dead to house a tourist attraction grave for a fictional person.
*
Fort Point National Historic Site and the
Golden Gate Bridge* The
Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco
*
Big Basin Redwoods State Park, although the film claims these scenes are from
Muir Woods National Monument.
* Cypress Point, a well-known location along the
17 Mile Drive near
Pebble Beach.
*
California Palace of the Legion of Honor: the Carlotta Valdes portrait was lost after being removed from the gallery, but many of the other paintings in the background of the portrait scenes are still on view.
*
Coit Tower (appears in many background shots but is not featured). Hitchcock once said that he included it as a
phallic symbol.
* "The Brocklebank" (1000 Mason Street): Gavin and Madeleine's apartment building still looks essentially the same. Across the street from the Fairmont Hotel, where Hitchcock usually stayed when he visited and where many of the cast and crew stayed during filming.
* 351 Buena Vista East: the sanatorium where Scottie recovers. Formerly St. Joseph's Hospital, now Park View condominiums, the building looks much the same from the outside. Across the street from the southern (most elevated) end of
Buena Vista Park. Excellent views of the back of the building, dramatically situated on Buena Vista heights, are available from the Corona Heights neighborhood park.
* The York Hotel [
1] 940 Sutter Street: When Scottie first catches a glimpse of Judy Barton, he follows her back to her hotel and invites her to dinner at Ernie's. Judy's room is located on the third floor of the hotel, whose interiors were all created back in Hollywood. The flashing green neon of the "Hotel Empire" sign creates a ghostly effect for Judy's transformation into Scottie's make-believe vision of Madeleine, although the neon sign was replaced when the Hotel was re-named The York Hotel.
* Ernie's Restaurant (847 Montgomery St.) In Chinatown, not far from Scottie's apartment (900 Lombard). No longer operating.
* Scottie's Apartment (900
Lombard St.) A few blocks downhill from the "crookedest street in the world", you can find Scottie's Apartment. Although the door has been repainted, the entrance to Scottie's apartment is easilly recognizable save for a few small changes to the patio. The doorbell and the mailbox, which Madeleine uses to deliver a note to Scottie, are exactly the same as they were in the movie.
According to the novel that the film was based on by
Pierre Boileau and
Thomas Narcejac,
Sueurs froides: d'entre les morts (Cold Sweat: From Among the Dead), the principal character, Scottie, is ultimately powerless, or more directly, impotent. The authors write explicitly in the first chapter that Scottie never had any experience with a woman (sexual or otherwise) before the age of thirty. In
Hitchcock's film adaptation he includes a few more ironic winks about Scottie's sexual failings than in the original novel. In the second scene that takes place in Midge's apartment, Scottie seems to play with his cane in an uncomfortable way when Midge begins talking about their brief engagement. He also uses his cane to point to the bra Midge is working on. This cane is thus a juvenile substitute of Scotties' sexual organ as his real one may not be all that functional (implied by his failure to maintain control and catch the bad guy in the opening scene). Midge also jokingly speaks to him as if he were a child, saying "You're a big boy now" when he begins to make gradual climbs up the stool in an attempt to fight his vertigo. This gradual incline, and immediate failure, can be seen as an allegory for a failed erection, suggesting Scottie's impotence. The scene ends with Scottie collapsing into Midge's arms where both Scottie and Midge are ultimately sexually dissatisfied. This sexual irony reaches its height, literally and figuratively, during the scenes where Coit Tower, a well-known landmark to all inhabitants of the San Francisco area, is visible in the background. Hitchcock himself commented on the phallic nature of the tower, whose construction was incidentally financed by Lillie Hitchcock Coit (no relation). This tower appears in the window of Scottie's apartment, at first making fun of his lack of sexual strength. This seems to change when Madeleine, after her suicide attempt, comes to thank Scottie for having saved her. During this scene she says that she found his apartment because of its location relative to the tower. Scottie answers that it is the first time that the tower has ever been of any use to him. Later, after an implied sex scene, the tower is again in the background as a sign of sexual virility.Scottie is eventually persuaded to believe Madeleine is not really Madeleine, but in fact the reincarnation of the long dead Carlotta Valdes. In his interview with
François Truffaut, Hitchcock speaks about the necrophilic implications of their relations, pointing to Scottie's awareness that Carlotta is in fact dead. This is made explicit in the scene where Scottie is convinced that Madeleine is the reincarnation of Carlotta. After the splendid sequence in the sequoias forest, Madeleine/Carlotta points to a line in the cross section of a tree saying that that is when she died. They then embrace at the foot of a gigantic tree (a symbol of Scottie's renewed sexuality implied by the overpowering phallic strength of the thousand-year-old trees) and the swell in the music leaves no doubt about their carnal knowledge of one another.
*Director
Brian DePalma made a mystery-thriller inspired by
Vertigo in 1976 called
Obsession with
Cliff Robertson and
Geneviève Bujold.
Bernard Herrmann, who scored
Vertigo, also scored
Obsession.
*DePalma's 1984 movie
Body Double also featured many plot elements from
Vertigo.
*In Mel Brook's film
High Anxiety, which is a pastiche/homage to all Hitchcock films, the final scene takes place in a twisting staircase inside a bell tower, an obvious nod to
Vertigo.
*
Paul Verhoeven's
Basic Instinct is often seen as a stylistic and thematic imitation of
Vertigo, especially in regard to the character Catherine Tramell. For a comparative website, see the external links section.
*
Faith No More's music video for their 1997 song 'Last Cup Of Sorrow' was directly inspired by
Vertigo. It features the lead singer,
Mike Patton dressed in the same outfit as
James Stewart's character, trailing a blonde played by
Jennifer Jason Leigh, respectively dressed the same as
Vertigo 's female lead Madeleine. Many scenes are recreated from the film, such as the opening rooftop sequence, Madeleine's plunge into San Francisco bay, Mike Patton moving up and down a stepladder, the belltower sequence complete with the famous Hitchcock Zoom and the psychedelic dream sequence. The emphasis is mainly on parody, key moments including drummer
Puffy Bordin sweeping Mike Patton head in the dream sequence with a broom (presumedly a reference to
Vertigo's scene where Midge is describing to Scottie that music can clear the cobwebs out of your head like a broom), bassist
Billy Gould cross dressing,
Judy Barton being a black wigged
sado-masochist, and Leigh fainting when she sees a shadow in the tower, which ends up being drummer Puffy Bordin eating a bagel.
*The band
Harvey Danger has a song on their album
Where Have all the Merrymakers Gone? called 'Carlotta Valdez' which describes the plot of the film.
*An adult film called
Private Eye uses a very similar plot and story as
Vertigo, with obvious differences.
*The Spanish director
Alejandro Amenabar has stated that his film
Abre Los Ojos is his "remake" of
Vertigo.
*Terry Gilliam's film
Twelve Monkeys contains a scene in a movie theatre that is showing
Vertigo . . . both films deal with memories, identity and the blurring of past and present.
*
Twist ending*
Filmsite.org in-depth review and analysis
*
A Swimming in the Head Detailed critique of the 1996 restoration
*
A Very Different "Slice of Cake:" Restoring Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo
*
Vertigo: Then & Now Before and after images of San Francisco locations seen in the film
*
The Power of Vertigo: Vertigo & Basic Instinct A comparison of visual elements in both films
*[
2] Explanation to Vertigo's reference in Faith No More's music video for 'Last Cup Of Sorrow'.
