Vertigo

Vertigo is personally my favorite film from Alfred Hitchcock, as it is with many other people. It’s a romantic thriller crime mystery movie. It can be so many categories at once, and yet, the movie perfects all of them. The movie starts with the origin of John “Scottie” Ferguson’s (James Stewart) fear of heights, and eventual diagnosis of vertigo. An officer falls and dies while trying to help Scottie up from the edge of a roof. John tries to rid of his vertigo head on yet fails at his attempts and instead, collapses into his ex-fiancĂ©e, Midge Wood’s (Barbara Bel Geddes) arms. Scottie is offered an assignment from an old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), to follow his wife because of her suspicious behavior in the past few days, Gavin believes she is possessed, at first skeptical, John accepts the offer. There are then scenes of John following Gavin’s wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), and they provide confusing scenarios and actions by Madeleine that confuse the audience just as much as they seem to confuse Scottie. Hitchcock has a use of colors which provide a state of madness and confusion that perfectly reflect Scottie’s state of mind. Hitchcock also uses color in this film to provide beautiful shots such as the one in the picture here, even without much lighting, you can still invision her expression. James Stewart, a Hitchcock favorite, does a great job in his acting of making you feel pretty bad for Scottie. He was just a nice, honest man dragged into a dramatic headache that would have left him scarred for the rest of his life. The twist around the ending was so unexpected that it would even have M. Night Shyamalan shocked, but the twist makes everything make sense in the film and it changes your perspective of the film completely on a second viewing. This film is a complete masterpiece.

One Reply to “Vertigo”

  1. Totally agree with you about this movie. Love the inclusion of the frame showing her silhouette against the green lighting.

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