Vertigo is a mythical film that was made in the creative period between 1958-1960, and particularly `Vertigo was made in 1958. The movie is one which takes a distinctive approach as a “suspense thriller.” The film has overtones of romance, mystery, and supernatural. Despite the poor reception Vertigo got upon its release, the movie ranks ninth in the AFI’s 100 years movie poll. Vertigo thematically depicts the director’s obsessions inclusive of his attraction to icy blonde women. Vertigo has placed a singular emphasis on male power and male control over women.
Black (2013), states that the author of the film Alfred Hitchcock was born to the middle-class parents in London England on the thirteenth of August 1899. Hitchcock worked as a writer and illustrator of silent-movie title cards, which paved his way as a film director. He married his assistant film editor Alma Revile, and it is during these periods of events that he moved to America during 1947.
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The Characters of the movie Vertigo
John “Scottie” Ferguson- is played by James Stewart. In Vertigo, Black (2013) states that Scottie is a former detective who quits his job when he develops severe acrophobia. Due to his romantic state, he rejects reality in favor of illusion, and it is his obsession with the ideal woman that fuels much of the action of the film (Black, 2013).
Madeleine Elster-as played by Kim Novak. Black (2013), states that she plays the role of the female lead on the film. Consequently, the role gets played by Judy who imitates Gavin Elster’s wife. As an ethereal and romantic, she is supposedly haunted by long-dead relative Carlotta Valdes and seems inclined to committing suicide against her wish. She becomes Scottie’s love interest and represents the ideal woman to him (Black, 2013).
Judy Barton- as played by Kim Novak. Black, states that she displays the true identity of the woman who impersonated Madeleine in the first half of the film (2013). Judy plays the role of Madeleine at the behest of her one-time lover, Gavin Elster. She becomes malleable, lonely, and somehow hard. She becomes willing to surrender her own identity for Scott to love her (Black, 2013).
Midge Wood- as played by Barbara Bel Geddes. According to Black (2013), she is Scottie's friend and ex-fiancée. She is capable and pretty, and as an artist she makes her living from designing women’s undergarments. Midge is a motherly figure who is still in love with Scottie, and she represents everyday reality.
Gavin Elster- As played by Tom Helmore. Black (2013) ascertains that Tom plays as the film anti-hero. He is an old friend of Scottie who is married into a wealthy shipbuilding family. He is calculative and manipulative, and he exploits Scottie's weakness to achieve his own goals.
Coroner-as played by Henry Jones. Black (2013), states that Coroner plays the voice of Scottie’s conscience, and he berates Scottie for allo9wing his fear of heights to prevent him from saving Madeleine’s life. Coroner utilizes a clinical and unsympathetic manner.
Pop Leibel-as played by Konstantin Shayne. He plays as a bookstore owner and San Francisco historian. Pop represents the “old” San Francisco inhabited by Carlotta Valdes (Black, 2013).
Doctor- as played by Raymond Bailey. Black (2013), states that he is in the sanatorium where Scottie recovers from Madeleine’s death. The doctor represents the voice of reason who attempts to make sense of Scottie’s descent into madness.
Story Plot
Vertigo is a beautifully shot and composed film, with countless visual references to Scottie’s titular vertigo. The film entails a breathtaking color manipulation that pulls the audience into the tormented headspace of Scottie. At the core of the movie sits a love story that a modern audience can tip as a virtually impossible to abide. Like many films from the previous eras, the ‘love” as depicted in Vertigo is just lust and desperation, and like several directors, Hitchcock does not seem to be concerned about this. Vertigo symbolizes the life-changing world as depicted by the world-breaking love between Scottie and Madeline, which results to the cheapening of both characters (Kilbourn, 2011).
The difference between the story and plot
Viewers should consider this; after being hired by her husband to trail her, Scott first sets eyes on Madeleine across a room, and in her elegance and beguiling blondness, falls honestly and genuinely in love. Despite having a lovely eager girl pal in Barabara Bel Geddes’ Midge- a personality that nowadays would inevitably end up being “The Girl”- Scottie only has eyes for Madeleine. It becomes double trouble when the audience discovers that Madeleine is truly Judy, a cute brunette existing in a small hotel quarter, and lacking the grace of the contrived Madeleine (Pippin, 2017). After Madeleine’s apparent suicide, and months of paralyzing depression, Scottie finds Judy, yet he somehow fails to recognize the woman he had loved so desperately. In the end, he drives himself crazy by attempting to recreate his lost love with fine gowns and dye jobs, while the actual woman is standing in front of him. The major variations of the film according to Pippin (2017), comes from the plot comes from the time and framework of the film. The movie is constructed in a different era from this era we stay yet it evitable considers past contexts and older ideas. Accordingly, the film of the past can be altered to fit the present points of view. To review: a man falls in love with his idea of a woman, loses her, and finds her again without recognizing her, the woman he loved. Indeed, this is intriguing, but it has also unavoidably turned Hitchcock’s protagonist into a fool. He is a demented old lecher whose libido has crippled beyond repair. Can an individual so dense, so creepily insensitive truly be the hero of the Best Film of all time? In the case of Novak’s poor Judy, hose love for Scottie is thick enough to accommodate his ceaseless alteration to her very personhood; it should be viewed as anything more than a sad sucker who simply fell into the wrong set of arms. Accordingly, the audience can enjoy the beauty of this film by viewing the film from an angle of the first-hand era of the period in which it was produced (Pippin, 2017).
The Aesthetic value of Vertigo
Vertigo as a film has a theme of attempting to create an ideal woman, one who has the roots in the Roman myth of Pygmalion. It is this art that the writer Hitchcock has applied to create an ivory statue of the perfect woman, one who can make one to tragically fall in love. Accordingly, the film has reality in this theme in itself (Pippin, 2017).
According to Pippin (2017), Vertigo was influenced by the art-film movement of the 1920s, which insisted on experimentation and the intense use of imagery. The film has employed the method of exposing the inner love of characters through the use of unusual camera angles, spectacular stage setting, and moody lighting. Vertigo has influenced Vertigo through the introduction of the French New wave school of film. Accordingly, the worth of Vertigo can be measured by the number of awards it has bagged. Consequently, in 1985, Vertigo had an average box-office run. In 1958, the Vertigo was nominated for the Academy Award in Art Direction and sound. In1983, Vertigo returned to the screen as part of a program to re-release Hitchcock’s film, and it was carefully restored in 1996. Indeed, due to its beauty, today, Vertigo remains a critically acclaimed film that is still hotly debated by film critics, Hitchcock fanatics, and academicians alike due to its aesthetic value (Pippin, 2017).
How various themes can impact on the social values that the movie Vertigo depicts?
The theme of melancholia
The term melancholia can be used to describe Vertigo. Vertigo has constructed Scottie and Madeleine as ideal heterosexuals and melancholic objects for the audience through textual strategies. Madeleine has represented the opportunity for Scottie to heal his narcissistic wound. Accordingly, the frequent use of subjective narration shots encourages viewers to share this fascinations and frustrations about her. As an audience, we often ignore warnings against this alignment, such as Midge’s humorous skepticism and her alternative narrative perspective. We reject Midge as Scottie did and we become trapped in the murder plot accordingly (Groves, 2014).
After Madeleine's death, Groves (2014), states that Scottie gets diagnosed with "acute melancholia, together with a guilt complex." His following behavior becomes understandable. He employs efforts that are meant to transform Judy into Madeleine even though these are not entirely sexual; they seem to be attempting to sustain his relationship with the lost (melancholic) object. The Melancholia thought is what turns on an ambivalent identification with the other: the lost object is obviously loved and hated. Scottie's guilt and despair then become externalized into hostility towards Judy. Scottie’s latent aggression becomes avert after she wears Madeleine’s necklace. Scottie then returns to the tower and with the accompanying interrogation to kill off his affection for Madeline (Groves, 2014).
The theme of Tragedy
The death of Madeleine is traumatizing to the viewers (Groves, 2014). Despite Judy’s flashback that details her complicity in the crime, we as viewers can reserve our judgment of her. Viewers also maintain the hope that the couple should reconcile. Groves, states that as Scottie’s cruelty towards Judy increases, viewers can begin judging Scottie (2014). Even after the couple reaches the tower of the tragedy, every viewer seems to cling to the faint probability of a happy ending. The consequent death of Judy is also as shocking as Madeleine's death. Even though the tragedy theme can be foreshadowed, viewers remain inconsolable to Scottie due to their melancholic longing (Groves, 2014).
The theme of female retrograding
The film can be critiqued as one which feminists can disregard for numerous reasons. In Vertigo, Midge is one woman who is playing with life, denying her womanhood, and her intimacy, and this is a sardonic hedonist whose casual response to Scottie’s remark about brassieres displays a cruel and deep-seated debasing of feminine values. When Midge observes Madeleine leaving Scottie’s apartment, her cynical comment to herself depicts another sign of her shallow realism. She draws life and does not live it, because what is suggested in the real portrait of Carlotta is something mysterious and beautiful that the Midges of this worlds can or do not understand or even attempt to comprehend. Accordingly, the movie depicts Scottie and Madeleine as the romanticized heterosexual couple (Groves, 2014).
Conclusion
Vertigo is a thriller film that has been constructed on an in-depth critical analysis of a thematic narrative. The film is important since it is a representation of Hollywood’s formality of the past era within the modern period. The film’s ending is unique since it breaks down the technical details of scenes. Lastly, it offers moral lessons, one who can encourage viewers with disorders that they can break through their current situations.
Reference
Black, J. (2013). The reality effect: Film culture and the graphic imperative. Routledge.
Groves, T. (2014). Melancholy Criticism: Primary Identification, the Film, and the Critic. MEDIANZ: Media Studies Journal of Aotearoa New Zealand, 10(1).
Kilbourn, R. J. (2013). The Second Look, the Second Death: WG Sebald's Orphic Adaptation of Hitchcock's Vertigo. Clues, 31(1), 79.
Lanes, K. G. (2011). Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo & the Hero’s Journey Mythology A Mythical Perspective on Film.
Pippin, R. B. (2017). The Philosophical Hitchcock:“Vertigo” and the Anxieties of Unknowingness. University of Chicago Press.
