SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 45 Discussion - Vertigo

[Guestx]

NOTE to NON-MEMBERS: Interested in joining the SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB? Shoot me a PM for more info.


Thanks to @Mr Mojo Lane, we're taking our first foray into the world of Hitchcock with. . .

Director's Bio

From Wikipedia:

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, at times referred to as "The Master of Suspense". He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England's best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939, and became a US citizen in 1955.

Hitchcock became a highly visible public figure through interviews, movie trailers, cameo appearances in his own films, and the ten years in which he hosted the television programme Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1965). He also fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. Hitchcock's stylistic trademarks include the use of camera movement that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative forms of film editing. His work often features fugitives on the run alongside "icy blonde" female characters. In 1978, film critic John Russell Taylor described Hitchcock as "the most universally recognizable person in the world", and "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius".

Prior to 1980, there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film. Critic Roger Ebert wrote: "Other British directors like Sir Carol Reed and Sir Charlie Chaplin were knighted years ago, while Hitchcock, universally considered by film students to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, was passed over". Hitchcock later received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours.

Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as one of the most influential directors in cinematic history. Following a 2007 critics' poll by Britain's Daily Telegraph in which he was ranked Britain's greatest filmmaker, one scholar wrote: "Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from the audience) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." Hitchcock's first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926), helped shape the thriller genre in film. His 1929 film, Blackmail, is often cited as the first British sound feature film, while Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960) are regularly ranked among the greatest films of all time.

Our Stars​

Jimmy Stewart: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000071/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Kim Novak: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001571/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Barbara Bel Geddes: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000895/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Film Overview and YouTube Videos​

Premise: A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

Budget: $2.5 Million
Box Office: $7.3 Million

​

Trivia
(courtesy of IMDB)​

* Poorly received by U.S. critics on its release, this film is now hailed as Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece.

* Uncredited second-unit cameraman Irmin Roberts invented the famous "zoom out and track in" shot (now sometimes called "contra-zoom" or "trombone shot") to convey the sense of vertigo to the audience. The view down the mission stairwell cost $19,000 for just a couple of seconds of screen time.

* The film was unavailable for decades because its rights (together with four other pictures of the same period) were bought back by Alfred Hitchcock and left as part of his legacy to his daughter. They've been known for long as the infamous "Five Lost Hitchcocks" amongst film buffs, and were re-released in theatres around 1984 after a 30-year absence. The others are The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Rear Window (1954), Rope (1948), and The Trouble with Harry (1955).

* Alfred Hitchcock reportedly spent a week filming a brief scene where Madeleine stares at a portrait in the Palace of the Legion of Honor just to get the lighting right.

* Alfred Hitchcock was embittered at the critical and commercial failure of the film in 1958. He blamed this on James Stewart for "looking too old" to attract audiences any more. Hitchcock never worked with Stewart, previously one of his favorite collaborators, again.

* First ever film to use computer graphics (Intro sequence done by Saul Bass)

* When Kim Novak questioned Alfred Hitchcock about her motivation in a particular scene, the director is said to have answered, "Let's not probe too deeply into these matters, Kim. It's only a movie."

* In a later interview Alfred Hitchcock said he believed Kim Novak was miscast and the wrong actress for the part.

* There is a 25 year age difference between James Stewart and Kim Novak, who were 49 and 24 respectively when the film was shot in 1957.

* The zoom out/track in shots were done with miniatures laid on their sides, since it was impossible to do them vertically.

* Midge's remarks about the "cantilevered" brassiere designed by an aircraft engineer are a reference to the story that Howard Hughes had an engineer invent a new type of underwired bra for Jane Russell.

* In 2012, Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane (1941) in the Sight & Sound critics' poll as the greatest film of all time.

* While Madeleine recovers in Scottie's apartment from her fall into the bay, he waits on his sofa. Seen on his coffee table is a copy of the 1950s pulp men's periodical "Swank" which consisted of a mix of cheesecake pictures and action/adventure stories by contemporary writers.

* The film is based upon the novel "D'Entre les Morts" (From Among the Dead) which was written specifically for Alfred Hitchcock by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac after they heard that he had tried to buy the rights to their previous novel "Celle qui n'était plus" (She Who Was No More), which had been filmed as Diabolique (1955).

* San Juan Batista, the Spanish mission which features in key scenes in the movie doesn't actually have a bell tower - it was added with trick photography. The mission originally had a steeple but it was demolished following a fire.

* The movie's poster was as #3 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere.

* Kim Novak already had a reputation for being difficult, so perhaps it was not a surprise when she refused to show up for work one day. She was striking for more money from her home studio Columbia, who was paying her $1,250 a week even though they were receiving $250,000 for her loan-out for Vertigo and one more picture. The ploy worked and Novak got a raise.

* The screenplay is credited to Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, but Coppel didn't write a word of the final draft. He is credited for contractual reasons only. Taylor read neither Coppel's script nor the original novel; he worked solely from Alfred Hitchcock's outline of the story.

* Average Shot Length (ASL) = 6.7 seconds

* The postproduction period in early 1958 was consumed with retakes, editing, and the creation of special effects shots involving models and matte paintings, particularly of the all-important bell tower.

* As with most Alfred Hitchcock movies, the filming went relatively smoothly. The director avoided surprises, preferring to have every detail planned out in advance. Extensive storyboarding of most sequences assured that his trusted production staff would know what was expected of them.

Members: @shadow_priest_x @europe1 @EL CORINTHIAN @HUNTERMANIA @iThrillhouse @chickenluver @jeicex @MusterX @BeardotheWeirdo @In The Name Of @Coolthulu @AndersonsFoot @TheRuthlessOne @Scott Parker 27 @Mr Mojo Lane @WebAlchemist @the muntjac

 

[chickenluver]

They took so long to give him his knighthood because they were pissed he went to the US and made all his most famous films for Hollywood.

Bloody wankers

 

[Coolthulu]

This one is going to be a doozy!

Everything about Vertigo is fucking sublime, so carefully considered and constructed in service of its themes. The film is never overbearing—it does not beat the viewer over the head. Rather, Hitchcock’s masterpiece has the quality of a dream, both recognizable and horrifying, both enticing and repulsive. The allure of manufacturing something perfect, of being in complete control, and the monstrous ways in which that drive can manifest, are easily seen as a personal confession or reflection of sorts by the notoriously meticulous and controlling director. But as with all deeply personal statements, Vertigo’s idiosyncrasy lends it a kind of universality—all of us struggle at times with the specter of the past, with an inability to move on, with obsession, with disregard for those around us. By holding up a mirror to his worst tendencies, Hitchcock held up a mirror to us all—it’s no wonder we cannot look away.

And look we do—apt for a film so very much about looking. From Saul Bass’ brilliant opening credits, beginning and ending with a close-up of a woman’s eye, the audience knows that it is in for a film about watching, about voyeurism—a favorite Hitchcock theme (it’s no coincidence that his name appears over the eye at the credits' end, a nod to his status as the ultimate voyeur). But as with most onlookers, John “Scottie” Ferguson’s (Stewart) sight is imperfect. He watches Madeleine Elster (Novak) as she drives around San Francisco, visiting flower shops and art museums and cemeteries and old hotels. He watches as she falls into San Francisco Bay out at Old Fort Point. He watches as she meanders through the redwoods. And by observing her he thinks he knows her, understands her, and can possess her. He is the male gaze sprung to life, with all of the deleterious side effects that implies.

Hitchcock puts his background in silent film to superb use, featuring long wordless sequences of Scottie trailing Madeleine, piecing together her activities and mental state, utilizing the visual aspect of a visual medium to full effect. This is seen perhaps most strikingly in the film’s many driving sequences—sequences in which the characters are almost always seen heading downhill, mirroring their precipitous mental states—not to mention the often-copied Vertigo effect (created by simultaneously zooming in and dollying out, a perfect visual representation of hyper-focused instability). Or consider the scene after Scottie fishes Madeleine from the water. The camera pans slowly from Scottie by his fireplace to his kitchen, where Madeleine’s garments hang drying, to his bedroom, where a naked Madeleine slumbers, the tight curl of her hair now replaced by dangling tresses. So much is imparted, about Scottie, about the aftermath of his rescue effort, about the sexual tension simmering between the characters, without a single word. One long look tells us all we need to know.

Of course, Vertigo is not a silent film, and its dialogue is as rich as its quiet spaces. The script is beautifully structured, carefully setting up its characters so as to better tear them down. It is paired with Bernard Herrmann’s score, one of the most beautiful and haunting ever written, bearing the quality of a doomed fairy tale. “Scene d’Amour,” the famous love theme, is lushly romantic but in an overripe and overcast way; it is the romance of an obsessive, of one in love with an image, not of real flesh and blood, and its melancholy notes portend the tragedy haunting each of the film’s characters.

My dangerously flamboyant verbiage is getting a little out of hand here......

And what characters they are. Stewart delivers a career-best performance as Scottie, an acrophobic detective, now retired, talked by former classmate Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) into trailing the man’s young, possibly possessed wife, Madeleine. Stewart endows Scottie with such tremendous depth and complexity that the audience cannot help but sympathize with him while finding his actions frightening and deplorable. Caught by an image of female perfection in Madeleine, Scottie is lost after her tragic suicide (which his acrophobia prevents him from stopping). His discovery of Judy (Novak), a seeming duplicate of the deceased Madeleine but trashy and brunette where Madeleine was refined and blonde, leads him down a path of engineering so fatally dysfunctional it is hard not to recoil in terror. And yet we also understand—he has suffered great loss and sees a chance to undo that loss, to recapture the past. Who hasn’t wanted to do that?



Stewart’s groin-grabbingly transcendent performance (Oh there it is folks! For the umpteenth time. I just can't seem to shake that phrase) is matched by Novak in a tricky dual role. Her natural woodenness suits the cool, sleek Madeleine, the ne plus ultra of Hitchcock blondes (I just gave myself douche chills right there). As Scottie first spies her in Ernie’s restaurant, black dress, pale skin, perfectly coiffed hair framed against a red wallpaper of unnatural vibrancy, she is walking snow-covered sex. His fascination is understandable even as Madeleine seems aloof and deathly, and Novak accomplishes the difficult task of selling both her allure and her ghostliness. (She is aided in no small part by the art direction, bathing the film in greens—the traditional Victorian color of ghosts—and reds—the traditional color of passion—as well as by Edith Head’s devastatingly gorgeous costumes, which focus on whites, blacks, and greys, washing out her pale blonde complexion and lending her the pallor of an apparition.) Shifting from Madeleine’s eggshell façade to Judy’s brassy demeanor while maintaining continuity between the two is a remarkable feat, and one that Novak accomplishes quite well (a fact that truly shines on repeat viewings).



Finally, there is Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), Scottie’s longtime friend and one-time fiancée. Midge inhabits a small but crucial role, humanizing Scottie in the early going; she lends him a past, a longstanding friendship, a romantic connection, a joshing joviality. (Her apartment, with its bright yellow walls and 1950s bohemian chic aesthetic, is notably devoid of the greens and reds and darkness dominating the rest of the film.) But Midge also permits shades of Scottie’s darker side to peak through before it comes to fruition. He gives her shit for being motherly, he teases her about their broken engagement. He can be casually cruel—a trait he will let loose with abandon on Judy—but he is also basically decent, enough so that Midge has stuck around. Equally important is Midge’s absence later on—the last time we see her is visiting Scottie is at a sanitarium following Madeleine’s death. Upon his release and re-entry into the world, she is nowhere to be found, which makes sense—his sole purpose now is to relentlessly, obsessively track down a substitute for his lost love. He has no time for Midge; she has lost him to a dead woman........



She is not the only one. Scottie has lost himself to Madeleine, as has Judy. Judy cannot preserve her identity in the face of Scottie’s unrelenting pressure—the clothes, the hair, the makeup, all must give way to the delusion. As Scottie begs and insists that she abandon herself to him and Judy pleads for his love—for reasons of which the audience is all too aware—their dysfunctionality is pretty fucking tragic. It can’t matter to her, Scottie says, oblivious to the harm he is inflicting (and showing how little has changed since the era of Madeleine’s ancestor, Carlotta Valdes, who could be thrown away by a man no longer interested in her). But he is harming himself as well, perpetuating a destructive fantasy of downward mobility. And Judy is no innocent bystander, willingly giving in to Scottie’s demands. It is filled with complexity and anguish, a train wreck from which no one could look away.

Scottie cannot even touch Judy until she no longer exists, until under the green glow of the Empire Hotel’s neon sign Judy falls away and Madeleine enters in her place. Only then can they embrace and kiss, accompanied by memories of San Juan Bautista, where Madeleine and Scottie embraced and kissed before. Scottie told Madeleine then that by taking her there he would destroy the dream in which she was trapped and would snap her back to reality. Instead Scottie has fled reality for a dream, a strikingly lovely but ultimately necrotic image. One doesn’t often get a second chance, he tells Judy, while criticizing her for being too sentimental—advice he might have done well to heed himself. Not in history has a man so willingly and so completely destroyed everything he loved. Scottie, Madeleine, Judy—they’re gone.

 

[the muntjac]

Being my first time posting within this movie club, I'm not sure how nuanced my take on a film is expected to be, but here's my thoughts -

I've only seen a handful of Hitchcock films. This is the first time I've seen Vertigo, but immediately it had the feel and style of the other Hitchcock films I've watched. It's got top-notch camera placement and movement. The man knows how to frame a shot. Especially exterior shots such as when Scottie is first walking up to the museum, and the down tilt of the bell tower. The push pull effects (known as the vertigo effect here, but I've always known it as a push pull) still look pretty good, especially when Scottie's looking down the bell tower stairs.

The editing is nicely paced, which is usually a testament to how well thought out the the tracking of actors and the camera are.

The acting is good, especially from Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Jimmy Stewart was good too, but I feel for most of the film he acted like you see him in other films. It's not until he was becoming weirdly obsessed with Judy's appearance that he started to resonate a feeling with me. I actually started to dislike the character because I felt he was coming off as a bully and creep.

Where this film falls a bit flat for me is how quickly Scottie and Madeline fall deeply in love. It felt out of left field for me and forced. It seemed his only motivation was strictly for her looks and allure, especially considering how demanding he is for Judy to look exactly like Madeline. For Madeline, I don't really get what was so appealing for her. She was paid to deceive him, so her feigning a suicide attempt where she knew he was nearby to "save" her, I'm not sure how him making a fire for her and offering her coffee was so groundbreakingly romantic. I don't know, the romance between them didn't feel genuine, which I feel is a crucial part of the film, and since I wasn't buying it, I guess I wasn't as entralled for the third act as I was supposed to be.

Perhaps there's a message somewhere for Scottie being overly obsessed with an attractive woman he knows little about, while he already had Midge in his life who he knew very well and had good chemistry with, but he decided to go with the mysterious option. But the nagging thought of, "But why?" keeps coming back because it's not like he and Madeline had anything in common or they had that compelling of conversations, so it basically just comes down to her looks. An old man liked a pretty young girl because she was pretty and young. That's what I'm taking from it. If anybody would like to give me a reason otherwise, then please do.

Also, maybe I just missed it, but what was up with the old lady hotel clerk not seeing Madeline come in and go up to her room? Was she paid to also be part of the ruse?

On an offbeat note, when Scottie sees "Madeline" falling from the bell tower through the window, the falling dummy made me laugh. Probably not the correct response, eh?

I think this is a good movie to educate inspiring filmmakers on how to make a movie look exceptional. For me, the directing and cinematography outshine the story. I felt it ran a little too long and is kinda slow to get going.

In short, it's a visually well-crafted movie, but it's paired with a story that's not so compelling for me to ever see it again anytime soon.

 

[BisexualMMA]

 

[MusterX]

I'll be checking in on this one tomorrow. Had some crazy shit happen tonight, I'm not even going to tell it. (Fire Dept. was involved lol) Anyway, will give this a go tomorrow.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

Where to start... I'm definitely not as well prepared as Coolthulu, damn!

I'll start with he story I guess. I had the same problem Muntjac did. The love story definitely felt forced. I had the same problem with (the highly praised) Charade (1963) the love aspect of story just seemed implausible and solely based on looks.

Why did he love her so deeply? He didn't believe in ghosts or spiritual possession when Havin pitched the idea to him, but after just meeting her he was in love, despite her being totally crazy. It would've been more plausible if Midge wasn't part of the story. Midge was sophisticated, so the sophistication angle was just a cover, it was her looks that attracted him to her.

So why the obsession? Did Madeline already remind him of a previous ex, perhaps his first love? He seemed old enough to know the difference between love and lust....

With that being said I was still able to accept that fact that he did love her. I thought of Charade and thought, maybe that's just how it was back then...
It didn't detract from the story too much.

Another reason I was able to accept the love story was due to Johns vertigo, and the depression and guilt he was feeling. Perhaps he could relate to Maddie and fell for her because he was also going a little crazy?

Considering the run time, I'd say a little bit more time could've been spent on the romance and less on the suspense. It might've made it seem a little more realistic.

Another problem with the story was the combination of mystery and mental illness. The fact Madeleine was presented as crazy made the mystery of her actions less interesting. One cannot understand the thought processes of mad men, that's what makes them mad...

Gavin masterminded the whole thing, but he let Jane stay in town after scamming Scottie like that. That oversight seems highly out of character for someone who concocted a plot like this. Why not hire an assassin instead of an ex police chief / lawyer... seems risky.

That surprise twist worked partly because of the improbability of a character like Gavin making those kinds of decisions. But it did work, so cheers to them.

Back to the subject of run time, and slow story, one also has to consider the release date. Watching a movie in the 50's was a rare treat, the movie-goers didn't have internet or even tv for the many cases, those who did had a limited selection of channels and programming. These viewers didn't necessarily want a fast-paced story (like a book could offer) these people wanted a visual, stimulating, emotional, suspenseful experience ... and for the most part the movie really delivers in those areas.

Part of the slowness was there to make the audience brood on the tension and suspense, helping to bring them into the story (physically, through their emotions)

In the first half the vast majority (of not all of the tension) is provided from the soundtrack, and a brilliant soundtrack it was, indeed. You could put it on while sitting at the beach on a beautiful day, and you would feel tension instead of relaxation.

What I loved about the movie was the cinematography, the framing / tracking of the shots, the choice of locations / settings.
I've visited San Francisco before (albeit just for a day) but I got a better feel for the city in this movie than I did on my own visit.
They really did an amazing job of using what the city has to offer. From the old churches, to the sequoia trees, to the buildings and the interior locations, the red velvet wallpaper, the attanetion to detail
In Midges apartment (which helps to sell her character and her profession) ... it was all chosen and filmed so masterfully ... I was highly impressed with that aspect of the movie

The intro and the effects were pretty great for the time period.

I noticed that the settings of the film mirrored Scottie's emotions.
As he meets and falls for Madeline the buildings, the locations, the colours, everything is beautiful, stunning. As he tails her they go to a flower shop, an art gallery, a stunning church, the Golden Gate Bridge, all beautiful settings.

The hotel, in fact all the buildings are beautiful, finely crafted masterpieces... up until the death of Madeline. The second half of the movie was much darker, no grand new settings were introduced in the second half. Just the same settings as before or dreary settings. The mood of Scottie was reflected in the setting. Or at least it seemed that way on the first watch.

The ending was really quite suspenseful, I had no idea what to expect when they got to the top of the bell tower. But the suicide ending through me a bit. It was so sudden... who did she think was in the shadows? Gavin, a cop, did it matter?

Great movie. 8.5/10

 

[Guestx]

All right, so as I mentioned in the voting thread, this was my second Hitchcock film. The first was Rear Window, which I watched in a film class I took a few years ago.

I'll start by saying that I enjoyed this film considerably more than Rear Window. Rear Window was okay, but it certainly didn't blow me away and it's not a film I've ever felt a desire to revisit. It's kind of funny that the only two Hitchcock films I've seen both happened to star Jimmy Stewart, though.

There were lots of twists and turns here and a lot of things I didn't see coming. Just when I would start to get a little bored and feel like the film was in a rut of predictability some unforeseen twist would come out of nowhere.

My first observation was how visually impressive the movie was. Just from the first shot of the hands gripping onto the ladder, and then the follow-up wide shot of the chase across the roof with downtown San Francisco in the background I knew we were in for a visual treat. And the film definitely delivered on that front, both with its awesome use of color and lighting, and also the fantastic choice of locations.

I mentioned when we discussed Closer than I rarely like plots where marital infidelity plays a role. And I had some similar concerns here, as Scottie begins to fall for Madeleine. It bothered me with the way he's just going to go after his buddy's wife and, apparently, not even feel the slightest tinge of guilt for doing so. But thankfully that whole element of the plot didn't last through the entirety of the movie.

He really was kind of an idiot, though. From the beginning, he should've left Madeleine alone and gone after Midge. She clearly was in love with him, and she also was charming, intelligent and had an attractiveness that was just a little off-beat, but in a good way. She also was a talented artist and enjoyed the movies, a girl who seemed like a pretty rad and laid back chick that you could just relax and enjoy a comfortable life with. THAT was his girl, not the blonde bombshell who was half his age!

When Madeleine commits suicide--supposedly--I really was not prepared for that. It was one of those twists that just leaves you going, "Wait . . . what? Where do we go from here with the story?" It really was shocking. And then they have that strange court scene, which I didn't really understand. What kind of court proceedings would happen right there at the mission, seemingly the day of the accident, with a jury that spends no real time deliberating? I dunno, that whole thing seemed weird and like it wasn't something that was actually part of our justice system.

Once Madeleine resurfaced--now as Judy--I didn't recognize her at first. She really did look pretty different, and I think I probably like her Judy look more than her Madeleine look. And then when we have the scene where she is writing the letter, and revealing the murder plot, I was confused because I was thinking, "Oh, the body he threw must have been a dummy then. . ." But if that was the case, the police obviously would've realized it wasn't a real body. I actually had to pause the movie and read the plot summary on Wikipedia up to that point to fully understand the reveal.

But after I did understand it, I was like "Holy shit, this just got good!" But then I felt like the rest of the film fizzled out just a little. I guess I wanted more plot, not just Scottie acting creepy as shit trying to dress Judy up as his dead ex-lover, and then the finale at the mission. I mean, it was okay. But the ending didn't really land with me and cost the movie a point or so. With a more thrilling conclusion, I really think I'd be pretty over the moon for this one.

As it stands, I thought it was a really good movie, both on a narrative level and a technical level. But an ending that, in my opinion, doesn't quite live up to the promise the rest of the film makes might hold it back from being one of the GOATs. I think I'm going to go 8/10 on this one . . . maybe 8.5/10.

 

[Guestx]

Being my first time posting within this movie club, I'm not sure how nuanced my take on a film is expected to be, but here's my thoughts -

Good post, bro. And glad to see you here this week!

The acting is good, especially from Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes.

I feel like Geddes is kind of the unsung hero here. Great performance, great character.

Speaking of which, that brings up one complaint I failed to mention in my review: Midge just disappears! You have the scene where she meets with the psychiatrist and then . . . she's just gone. It really seemed like we deserved some kind of conclusion with her character. She was too good to toss away like that.

It's not until he was becoming weirdly obsessed with Judy's appearance that he started to resonate a feeling with me. I actually started to dislike the character because I felt he was coming off as a bully and creep.

Agreed on this. Super fucking creepy. Let's say she really was just some random girl who looked kind of like his ex-lover, as he believed her to be, then the shit he was doing was just weird and a little abusive.

Where this film falls a bit flat for me is how quickly Scottie and Madeline fall deeply in love. It felt out of left field for me and forced.

It was fast, though perhaps considering the run time it was also necessary. I dunno. The movie is already over two hours.

It actually kind of reminded me of another movie I watched that was a previous nomination--though it didn't win--which was Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve. That was another insta-love situation and it definitely hurt my viewing of the movie.

It seemed his only motivation was strictly for her looks and allure, especially considering how demanding he is for Judy to look exactly like Madeline. For Madeline, I don't really get what was so appealing for her. She was paid to deceive him, so her feigning a suicide attempt where she knew he was nearby to "save" her, I'm not sure how him making a fire for her and offering her coffee was so groundbreakingly romantic. I don't know, the romance between them didn't feel genuine, which I feel is a crucial part of the film, and since I wasn't buying it, I guess I wasn't as entralled for the third act as I was supposed to be.

Yeah, I think it was just a pure animal attraction kind of situation. I'll repeat what I said in my own review, which is that he's a fool for not just settling down with Midge, who is a far more interesting person.

Also, maybe I just missed it, but what was up with the old lady hotel clerk not seeing Madeline come in and go up to her room? Was she paid to also be part of the ruse?

This was another thing I intended to mention in my review but didn't. Yeah, what the fuck was up with that? Unless the clerk was in on it like you say--which there was no indication of--then what happened there? At first I thought that Hitchcock was introducing an element of the supernatural, but in hindsight that obviously was not the case.

 

[Guestx]

Gavin masterminded the whole thing, but he let Jane stay in town after scamming Scottie like that. That oversight seems highly out of character for someone who concocted a plot like this. Why not hire an assassin instead of an ex police chief / lawyer... seems risky.

I wondered about that as well. She didn't just continue to stay in town, she stayed in the same place she lived before.

But I took it to mean that this was her decision because part of her WANTED Scottie to find her in the hope that they could have a new life together.

I noticed that the settings of the film mirrored Scottie's emotions.
As he meets and falls for Madeline the buildings, the locations, the colours, everything is beautiful, stunning. As he tails her they go to a flower shop, an art gallery, a stunning church, the Golden Gate Bridge, all beautiful settings.

The hotel, in fact all the buildings are beautiful, finely crafted masterpieces... up until the death of Madeline. The second half of the movie was much darker, no grand new settings were introduced in the second half. Just the same settings as before or dreary settings. The mood of Scottie was reflected in the setting. Or at least it seemed that way on the first watch.

Interesting observations. I can't say that really occurred to me.

The ending was really quite suspenseful, I had no idea what to expect when they got to the top of the bell tower. But the suicide ending through me a bit. It was so sudden... who did she think was in the shadows? Gavin, a cop, did it matter?

I'm not sure if it was suicide or if, when the nun stood up, that she was so startled that she stepped back in fear and accidentally fell off the ledge.

 

[Guestx]

I would also like to raise the question of Citizen Kane vs Vertigo.

As I'm sure many here know, a few years ago Vertigo knocked Citizen Kane out of the top spot on Sight and Sound's critics' poll.

For those who have seen both films, how do you feel about this? Is Vertigo good enough to surpass Orson Welles' masterpiece? And furthermore, does it deserve recognition as the best film of all time?

 

[europe1]

People have been going down the rabbits hole in this thread. Neat to see!

Chained to work but can't wait to join the fray myself.<cheer>

 

[Guestx]

This one is going to be a doozy!

Everything about Vertigo is fucking sublime, so carefully considered and constructed in service of its themes. The film is never overbearing—it does not beat the viewer over the head. Rather, Hitchcock’s masterpiece has the quality of a dream, both recognizable and horrifying, both enticing and repulsive. The allure of manufacturing something perfect, of being in complete control, and the monstrous ways in which that drive can manifest, are easily seen as a personal confession or reflection of sorts by the notoriously meticulous and controlling director. But as with all deeply personal statements, Vertigo’s idiosyncrasy lends it a kind of universality—all of us struggle at times with the specter of the past, with an inability to move on, with obsession, with disregard for those around us. By holding up a mirror to his worst tendencies, Hitchcock held up a mirror to us all—it’s no wonder we cannot look away.

And look we do—apt for a film so very much about looking. From Saul Bass’ brilliant opening credits, beginning and ending with a close-up of a woman’s eye, the audience knows that it is in for a film about watching, about voyeurism—a favorite Hitchcock theme (it’s no coincidence that his name appears over the eye at the credits' end, a nod to his status as the ultimate voyeur). But as with most onlookers, John “Scottie” Ferguson’s (Stewart) sight is imperfect. He watches Madeleine Elster (Novak) as she drives around San Francisco, visiting flower shops and art museums and cemeteries and old hotels. He watches as she falls into San Francisco Bay out at Old Fort Point. He watches as she meanders through the redwoods. And by observing her he thinks he knows her, understands her, and can possess her. He is the male gaze sprung to life, with all of the deleterious side effects that implies.

Hitchcock puts his background in silent film to superb use, featuring long wordless sequences of Scottie trailing Madeleine, piecing together her activities and mental state, utilizing the visual aspect of a visual medium to full effect. This is seen perhaps most strikingly in the film’s many driving sequences—sequences in which the characters are almost always seen heading downhill, mirroring their precipitous mental states—not to mention the often-copied Vertigo effect (created by simultaneously zooming in and dollying out, a perfect visual representation of hyper-focused instability). Or consider the scene after Scottie fishes Madeleine from the water. The camera pans slowly from Scottie by his fireplace to his kitchen, where Madeleine’s garments hang drying, to his bedroom, where a naked Madeleine slumbers, the tight curl of her hair now replaced by dangling tresses. So much is imparted, about Scottie, about the aftermath of his rescue effort, about the sexual tension simmering between the characters, without a single word. One long look tells us all we need to know.

Of course, Vertigo is not a silent film, and its dialogue is as rich as its quiet spaces. The script is beautifully structured, carefully setting up its characters so as to better tear them down. It is paired with Bernard Herrmann’s score, one of the most beautiful and haunting ever written, bearing the quality of a doomed fairy tale. “Scene d’Amour,” the famous love theme, is lushly romantic but in an overripe and overcast way; it is the romance of an obsessive, of one in love with an image, not of real flesh and blood, and its melancholy notes portend the tragedy haunting each of the film’s characters.

My dangerously flamboyant verbiage is getting a little out of hand here......

And what characters they are. Stewart delivers a career-best performance as Scottie, an acrophobic detective, now retired, talked by former classmate Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) into trailing the man’s young, possibly possessed wife, Madeleine. Stewart endows Scottie with such tremendous depth and complexity that the audience cannot help but sympathize with him while finding his actions frightening and deplorable. Caught by an image of female perfection in Madeleine, Scottie is lost after her tragic suicide (which his acrophobia prevents him from stopping). His discovery of Judy (Novak), a seeming duplicate of the deceased Madeleine but trashy and brunette where Madeleine was refined and blonde, leads him down a path of engineering so fatally dysfunctional it is hard not to recoil in terror. And yet we also understand—he has suffered great loss and sees a chance to undo that loss, to recapture the past. Who hasn’t wanted to do that?



Stewart’s groin-grabbingly transcendent performance (Oh there it is folks! For the umpteenth time. I just can't seem to shake that phrase) is matched by Novak in a tricky dual role. Her natural woodenness suits the cool, sleek Madeleine, the ne plus ultra of Hitchcock blondes (I just gave myself douche chills right there). As Scottie first spies her in Ernie’s restaurant, black dress, pale skin, perfectly coiffed hair framed against a red wallpaper of unnatural vibrancy, she is walking snow-covered sex. His fascination is understandable even as Madeleine seems aloof and deathly, and Novak accomplishes the difficult task of selling both her allure and her ghostliness. (She is aided in no small part by the art direction, bathing the film in greens—the traditional Victorian color of ghosts—and reds—the traditional color of passion—as well as by Edith Head’s devastatingly gorgeous costumes, which focus on whites, blacks, and greys, washing out her pale blonde complexion and lending her the pallor of an apparition.) Shifting from Madeleine’s eggshell façade to Judy’s brassy demeanor while maintaining continuity between the two is a remarkable feat, and one that Novak accomplishes quite well (a fact that truly shines on repeat viewings).



Finally, there is Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), Scottie’s longtime friend and one-time fiancée. Midge inhabits a small but crucial role, humanizing Scottie in the early going; she lends him a past, a longstanding friendship, a romantic connection, a joshing joviality. (Her apartment, with its bright yellow walls and 1950s bohemian chic aesthetic, is notably devoid of the greens and reds and darkness dominating the rest of the film.) But Midge also permits shades of Scottie’s darker side to peak through before it comes to fruition. He gives her shit for being motherly, he teases her about their broken engagement. He can be casually cruel—a trait he will let loose with abandon on Judy—but he is also basically decent, enough so that Midge has stuck around. Equally important is Midge’s absence later on—the last time we see her is visiting Scottie is at a sanitarium following Madeleine’s death. Upon his release and re-entry into the world, she is nowhere to be found, which makes sense—his sole purpose now is to relentlessly, obsessively track down a substitute for his lost love. He has no time for Midge; she has lost him to a dead woman........



She is not the only one. Scottie has lost himself to Madeleine, as has Judy. Judy cannot preserve her identity in the face of Scottie’s unrelenting pressure—the clothes, the hair, the makeup, all must give way to the delusion. As Scottie begs and insists that she abandon herself to him and Judy pleads for his love—for reasons of which the audience is all too aware—their dysfunctionality is pretty fucking tragic. It can’t matter to her, Scottie says, oblivious to the harm he is inflicting (and showing how little has changed since the era of Madeleine’s ancestor, Carlotta Valdes, who could be thrown away by a man no longer interested in her). But he is harming himself as well, perpetuating a destructive fantasy of downward mobility. And Judy is no innocent bystander, willingly giving in to Scottie’s demands. It is filled with complexity and anguish, a train wreck from which no one could look away.

Scottie cannot even touch Judy until she no longer exists, until under the green glow of the Empire Hotel’s neon sign Judy falls away and Madeleine enters in her place. Only then can they embrace and kiss, accompanied by memories of San Juan Bautista, where Madeleine and Scottie embraced and kissed before. Scottie told Madeleine then that by taking her there he would destroy the dream in which she was trapped and would snap her back to reality. Instead Scottie has fled reality for a dream, a strikingly lovely but ultimately necrotic image. One doesn’t often get a second chance, he tells Judy, while criticizing her for being too sentimental—advice he might have done well to heed himself. Not in history has a man so willingly and so completely destroyed everything he loved. Scottie, Madeleine, Judy—they’re gone.

Damn, you flipped the Turbo switch on the controller for this one didn't you? I don't really have anything to add, but I just felt like I should say, "Good post, dude." Insightful, and at times hilarious.

Spoiler

Though I also got douche chills when you said "ne plus ultra." You weren't the only one.

 

[the muntjac]

I would also like to raise the question of Citizen Kane vs Vertigo.

As I'm sure many here know, a few years ago Vertigo knocked Citizen Kane out of the top spot on Sight and Sound's critics' poll.

For those who have seen both films, how do you feel about this? Is Vertigo good enough to surpass Orson Welles' masterpiece? And furthermore, does it deserve recognition as the best film of all time?

Citizen Kane by far. It's also directed in a masterful style with great set pieces, and chockfull of visual metaphors. The story is also more compelling too. When this movie came out, it turned the film industry on its head, which kinda pissed off Hollywood because an outsider from radio/theatre (Welles) came in and outdid them. Not saying it rightfully deserves to be named greatest movie of all time either, but it's a better movie than Vertigo.

Also, I liked Psycho, which is my favorite by him, more than Vertigo, and I've only seen like 5 or 6 Hitchcock films. I think I might even like North by Northwest better too, but I haven't seem that in long time.

 

[Guestx]

Citizen Kane by far. It's also directed in a masterful style with great set pieces, and chockfull of visual metaphors. The story is also more compelling too. When this movie came out, it turned the film industry on its head, which kinda pissed off Hollywood because an outsider from radio (Welles) came in and outdid them. Not saying it rightfully deserves to be named greatest movie of all time either, but it's a better movie than Vertigo.

I really need to rewatch Citizen Kane. I watched it only once, probably four years ago, and I remember thinking it was a good film but also a bit disappointing. But I just chalk that up to it being pretty damn hard to live up to all the hype about being "the greatest film of all time" and whatnot.

I think watching it a second time I'll have a more balanced perspective.

 

[Guestx]

For anyone who is interested, MovieChat has a lot of archived IMDB threads for Vertigo. Some of them are pretty interesting.

https://moviechat.org/movies/tt0052357

 

[the muntjac]

This one is going to be a doozy!

Everything about Vertigo is fucking sublime, so carefully considered and constructed in service of its themes. The film is never overbearing—it does not beat the viewer over the head. Rather, Hitchcock’s masterpiece has the quality of a dream, both recognizable and horrifying, both enticing and repulsive. The allure of manufacturing something perfect, of being in complete control, and the monstrous ways in which that drive can manifest, are easily seen as a personal confession or reflection of sorts by the notoriously meticulous and controlling director. But as with all deeply personal statements, Vertigo’s idiosyncrasy lends it a kind of universality—all of us struggle at times with the specter of the past, with an inability to move on, with obsession, with disregard for those around us. By holding up a mirror to his worst tendencies, Hitchcock held up a mirror to us all—it’s no wonder we cannot look away.

And look we do—apt for a film so very much about looking. From Saul Bass’ brilliant opening credits, beginning and ending with a close-up of a woman’s eye, the audience knows that it is in for a film about watching, about voyeurism—a favorite Hitchcock theme (it’s no coincidence that his name appears over the eye at the credits' end, a nod to his status as the ultimate voyeur). But as with most onlookers, John “Scottie” Ferguson’s (Stewart) sight is imperfect. He watches Madeleine Elster (Novak) as she drives around San Francisco, visiting flower shops and art museums and cemeteries and old hotels. He watches as she falls into San Francisco Bay out at Old Fort Point. He watches as she meanders through the redwoods. And by observing her he thinks he knows her, understands her, and can possess her. He is the male gaze sprung to life, with all of the deleterious side effects that implies.

Hitchcock puts his background in silent film to superb use, featuring long wordless sequences of Scottie trailing Madeleine, piecing together her activities and mental state, utilizing the visual aspect of a visual medium to full effect. This is seen perhaps most strikingly in the film’s many driving sequences—sequences in which the characters are almost always seen heading downhill, mirroring their precipitous mental states—not to mention the often-copied Vertigo effect (created by simultaneously zooming in and dollying out, a perfect visual representation of hyper-focused instability). Or consider the scene after Scottie fishes Madeleine from the water. The camera pans slowly from Scottie by his fireplace to his kitchen, where Madeleine’s garments hang drying, to his bedroom, where a naked Madeleine slumbers, the tight curl of her hair now replaced by dangling tresses. So much is imparted, about Scottie, about the aftermath of his rescue effort, about the sexual tension simmering between the characters, without a single word. One long look tells us all we need to know.

Of course, Vertigo is not a silent film, and its dialogue is as rich as its quiet spaces. The script is beautifully structured, carefully setting up its characters so as to better tear them down. It is paired with Bernard Herrmann’s score, one of the most beautiful and haunting ever written, bearing the quality of a doomed fairy tale. “Scene d’Amour,” the famous love theme, is lushly romantic but in an overripe and overcast way; it is the romance of an obsessive, of one in love with an image, not of real flesh and blood, and its melancholy notes portend the tragedy haunting each of the film’s characters.

My dangerously flamboyant verbiage is getting a little out of hand here......

And what characters they are. Stewart delivers a career-best performance as Scottie, an acrophobic detective, now retired, talked by former classmate Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) into trailing the man’s young, possibly possessed wife, Madeleine. Stewart endows Scottie with such tremendous depth and complexity that the audience cannot help but sympathize with him while finding his actions frightening and deplorable. Caught by an image of female perfection in Madeleine, Scottie is lost after her tragic suicide (which his acrophobia prevents him from stopping). His discovery of Judy (Novak), a seeming duplicate of the deceased Madeleine but trashy and brunette where Madeleine was refined and blonde, leads him down a path of engineering so fatally dysfunctional it is hard not to recoil in terror. And yet we also understand—he has suffered great loss and sees a chance to undo that loss, to recapture the past. Who hasn’t wanted to do that?



Stewart’s groin-grabbingly transcendent performance (Oh there it is folks! For the umpteenth time. I just can't seem to shake that phrase) is matched by Novak in a tricky dual role. Her natural woodenness suits the cool, sleek Madeleine, the ne plus ultra of Hitchcock blondes (I just gave myself douche chills right there). As Scottie first spies her in Ernie’s restaurant, black dress, pale skin, perfectly coiffed hair framed against a red wallpaper of unnatural vibrancy, she is walking snow-covered sex. His fascination is understandable even as Madeleine seems aloof and deathly, and Novak accomplishes the difficult task of selling both her allure and her ghostliness. (She is aided in no small part by the art direction, bathing the film in greens—the traditional Victorian color of ghosts—and reds—the traditional color of passion—as well as by Edith Head’s devastatingly gorgeous costumes, which focus on whites, blacks, and greys, washing out her pale blonde complexion and lending her the pallor of an apparition.) Shifting from Madeleine’s eggshell façade to Judy’s brassy demeanor while maintaining continuity between the two is a remarkable feat, and one that Novak accomplishes quite well (a fact that truly shines on repeat viewings).



Finally, there is Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), Scottie’s longtime friend and one-time fiancée. Midge inhabits a small but crucial role, humanizing Scottie in the early going; she lends him a past, a longstanding friendship, a romantic connection, a joshing joviality. (Her apartment, with its bright yellow walls and 1950s bohemian chic aesthetic, is notably devoid of the greens and reds and darkness dominating the rest of the film.) But Midge also permits shades of Scottie’s darker side to peak through before it comes to fruition. He gives her shit for being motherly, he teases her about their broken engagement. He can be casually cruel—a trait he will let loose with abandon on Judy—but he is also basically decent, enough so that Midge has stuck around. Equally important is Midge’s absence later on—the last time we see her is visiting Scottie is at a sanitarium following Madeleine’s death. Upon his release and re-entry into the world, she is nowhere to be found, which makes sense—his sole purpose now is to relentlessly, obsessively track down a substitute for his lost love. He has no time for Midge; she has lost him to a dead woman........



She is not the only one. Scottie has lost himself to Madeleine, as has Judy. Judy cannot preserve her identity in the face of Scottie’s unrelenting pressure—the clothes, the hair, the makeup, all must give way to the delusion. As Scottie begs and insists that she abandon herself to him and Judy pleads for his love—for reasons of which the audience is all too aware—their dysfunctionality is pretty fucking tragic. It can’t matter to her, Scottie says, oblivious to the harm he is inflicting (and showing how little has changed since the era of Madeleine’s ancestor, Carlotta Valdes, who could be thrown away by a man no longer interested in her). But he is harming himself as well, perpetuating a destructive fantasy of downward mobility. And Judy is no innocent bystander, willingly giving in to Scottie’s demands. It is filled with complexity and anguish, a train wreck from which no one could look away.

Scottie cannot even touch Judy until she no longer exists, until under the green glow of the Empire Hotel’s neon sign Judy falls away and Madeleine enters in her place. Only then can they embrace and kiss, accompanied by memories of San Juan Bautista, where Madeleine and Scottie embraced and kissed before. Scottie told Madeleine then that by taking her there he would destroy the dream in which she was trapped and would snap her back to reality. Instead Scottie has fled reality for a dream, a strikingly lovely but ultimately necrotic image. One doesn’t often get a second chance, he tells Judy, while criticizing her for being too sentimental—advice he might have done well to heed himself. Not in history has a man so willingly and so completely destroyed everything he loved. Scottie, Madeleine, Judy—they’re gone.

https://letterboxd.com/arbogast1960/film/vertigo/1/

Is this you?

 

[europe1]

So here is my take on Midge and Madeline and how they relate to the character of Scottie. For the record, I'm only working off memory. I haven't had time to rewatch it yet.


Vertigo is a Movie about two different kinds of "love". The mature one that you find in a relationship and the adolescent, youthful one that is based on desire and lusts.

Scottie is a grown man who still has the yearnings of a teenager. Even his nickname, "Scottie", has an adolescent bent to it.

We're informed that Midge is an old fiance of Scottie. They've been Close every since, often interacting with each other. Scottie even says that they've never fought, never had an argument. They relationship is incredibly smooth, without transgression. They fit like a hand and a glove. They know eachother inside-and-out. Midge herself is mature, pragmatic, and balanced.

In short, Midge and Scottie represent the perfect "longterm, mature relationship". The sort of effortless relationship you have by spending decades with Another human being. So they're perfect for each other. Except one thing. Scottie feels no sexual lust for her.

When were they engaged? In Collage, on the throws of being adults. It was Scottie who broke it off. He wasn't ready to settle down and become an adult, with a stable, secure relationship. He still wanted to have adventure and heated romance. So he abandoned her at the last second.


Compare this to Madeline. It's all sex. It's all heated emotions. Scottie sees her and then he wants her. He doesn't even know anything about her personality (hell, her entire personality is a fabrication to begin with). This is the sort of love that a teenager has. This obsessive, lust-based desire, where you become crazy about someone and can't get them out of your head. And it's all romance too. They don't spend a single "everyday" day together at all. They have no idea if they'd work as an ordinary couple.

It's the total opposite to the level-headed maturity that characterizes his relationship with Midge. He can spend every ordinary day with Midge and not have a fight. Madeline isn't about the everyday, it's about insane romances, falling in love with someone becuase of the sexual aura they exude, not because of their personality.

It's no wonder that Midge disappearances from the narrative right when Scotties obsessive insanity sets in. The "Death" of Kim Novak sends his mind into a freefall. While previously it was only a strong yearning -- now it's a madcap obsession. Midge's exit from the plot symbolizes that the "mature" type of love is now forever outside Scottie's grasp. That was what she meant to him. Madeline's Death enslaves him to the obsession forever.



Midge recognizes this, of course. She tries to paint herself on the portrait. A desperate, foolish attempt to try and make herself sexually desirable to Scottie, trying to impose herself on Madeline's turf. It's ironic then that Kim Novak herself (now as Judy) allows her personality to be subsumed by Scottie's desire, she allows herself to be remodeled because Scottie wants it. Another theme of Vertigo is about how women allow their own personality to be changed and subsumed in order to please the men in their Life.

 

[europe1]

They took so long to give him his knighthood because they were pissed he went to the US and made all his most famous films for Hollywood.

Personally I think there is a sizable chunk of his English output that can match his American one, though obviously there is a lot less of it. I think that The 39 Steps is one of his absolute best films. Frenzy and Sabotage are splendid too. The Lodger, The Farmer's Daughter, A Lady Vanishes and Secret Agent are also really, really good.

His English days are a lot more shakey though, especially the really early going. Jamacian Inn is his his most slapdash one but still watchable. Rich and Strange, Plesure Garden and Easy Virtue are alright. Juno and the Paycock is absolute unwatchable garbage though.

Where this film falls a bit flat for me is how quickly Scottie and Madeline fall deeply in love. It felt out of left field for me and forced. It seemed his only motivation was strictly for her looks and allure, especially considering how demanding he is for Judy to look exactly like Madeline.

Well for me... that was sort of the entire premise. Scottie is a guy looking for storybook romance. He doesn't want to settle with Midge because he doesn't want to live a normal, safe, mature life. Madeline's beauty and aloofness is exactly the sort of ethereal, other-wordly lust that he's craving after. To me it makes sense that he would fall for her after not even having spoken a word. Like a moth to flame.

He seemed old enough to know the difference between love and lust....

See, I think that's exactly his problem. He broke off his engagement with Midge right after collage. The stage where a person is on the doorstep between youth and adulthood. He doesn't want the mature love that Midge can offer him. He's still chasing after the obsessive romance that many of us go crazy about when we're in our teens. His entire motivation is basically that he has not gone past that stage yet.

Gavin masterminded the whole thing, but he let Jane stay in town after scamming Scottie like that. That oversight seems highly out of character for someone who concocted a plot like this. Why not hire an assassin instead of an ex police chief / lawyer... seems risky.

It seems very much like a Hitchcock move. Murder should be scandalous, convoluted and juicy! If you just kill someone then you're not much of a sportsman!

I noticed that the settings of the film mirrored Scottie's emotions.
As he meets and falls for Madeline the buildings, the locations, the colours, everything is beautiful, stunning. As he tails her they go to a flower shop, an art gallery, a stunning church, the Golden Gate Bridge, all beautiful settings.

The hotel, in fact all the buildings are beautiful, finely crafted masterpieces... up until the death of Madeline. The second half of the movie was much darker, no grand new settings were introduced in the second half. Just the same settings as before or dreary settings. The mood of Scottie was reflected in the setting. Or at least it seemed that way on the first watch.

The ending was really quite suspenseful, I had no idea what to expect when they got to the top of the bell tower. But the suicide ending through me a bit. It was so sudden... who did she think was in the shadows? Gavin, a cop, did it matter?

I sort of think that she believed it was the corpse of the real Madeline coming back to haunt her. Especially considering how ghostly the nun looked in that moment. For much of Vertigo, the character acts as if they're chasing after something ethereal. Midge is firmly planted in the real world. Scottie and Kim Novak are chasing after ghosts and long-dead Spaniards, slipping in-and-out of their identities through the narrative, becoming overtaken with madness and obsessions.

All of this is humbug, of course. A character like Midge realizes this. But Scottie and Novak are so entrechned in this "other-wordly" puzzle-game that they're starting to lose their grasp of themselves and the real world. In that split-moment, Novak thought that the past had come back to punish her, no matter how unrealistic it would seem to a sober mind.

What kind of court proceedings would happen right there at the mission, seemingly the day of the accident, with a jury that spends no real time deliberating? I dunno, that whole thing seemed weird and like it wasn't something that was actually part of our justice system.

Got to love how the judge totally dissed him though.

Speaking of which, that brings up one complaint I failed to mention in my review: Midge just disappears! You have the scene where she meets with the psychiatrist and then . . . she's just gone. It really seemed like we deserved some kind of conclusion with her character. She was too good to toss away like that.

I think it symbolizes that Scottie has totally lost it. His obsession with Madeline has reached a maddening zenit. He could no longer return to Midge and the wholesome, mature, settled-down sort of love that she represented. After that, he was squarely in the Madeline-camp, having no shot of going back.

then the shit he was doing was just weird and a little abusive

A little!?

Stewart had reached uncle creepy terrirory.

I would also like to raise the question of Citizen Kane vs Vertigo.

As I'm sure many here know, a few years ago Vertigo knocked Citizen Kane out of the top spot on Sight and Sound's critics' poll.

For those who have seen both films, how do you feel about this? Is Vertigo good enough to surpass Orson Welles' masterpiece? And furthermore, does it deserve recognition as the best film of all time?

Here's my opinion on Ranking Pools.

What's the criteria?

How much someone likes a film is subjective. Sure we may talk about Educated Opinions and all that but it's still in the realm of subjectivity. Vertigo didn't surpass Citizen Kane because we unearthed whole new meanings in Vertigo that made it a better movie, it surpassed Kane because taste changed. The critics started prioritizing and favoring other aspects of what makes a film good than they had previously. And a whole lot of Old Guard probably died off that would have given Kane the nr 1 spot.

But "Best Film" isn't subjective. To be the "Best" you need to have some sort of criteria that defines what constitutes being the "Best".

If you take a things like "technical Influence and Innovation" then Citizen Kane might hold the title until the end of time. It pioonered and introduced so many filmmaking tricks. Look at other films from that era, it's downright startling how much it stands out. Hell, we're talking about a film that invented the way to film the roofs of a room!<45>

Or take a category like thematic originality. Citizen Kane is about the theme of "You can't buy hapiness". Sure it's told in a beautiful and innovative way, but that's a theme that is as old as paper itself. Vertigo meanwhile is how our obsessions and yearnings effect and change our identities and personalities. That's a much more original theme.

Or we could take an aspect like artistry. How well does the filmmaker use the tools of filmmaking to achieve his or her artistic intentions? What I'm trying to illustrate is, that there is just an ungodly amount of aspects to consider.



Anyhow, while I would consider both great films I wouldn't place either at the nr 1 spot (hell, I'd probably not even include them in my personal Top 100).

Part of my beef with Citizen Kane is just that I don't like Orson's sense of pacing and his boisterous sensibility. The tempo is so damn speedy. And every scene is delivered with a sense of ostentatiousness, a peacocky sense of flash. Now, I'm not saying that these are bad things -- or are inherently bad. They're quite good on their own right -- but it's not really the kind of marmalade that would deliver a film into the nr 1 spot for me (and I do think that these are pretty subjective opinions).

and chockfull of visual metaphors

One that made me laugh the last time I saw it was the montage when Kane and his first Wife were having their breakfast at the table. There sitting there, eating and reading newspapers. With each cut of the camera, their conversations grows more and more acrimonious. Until the final shoot... where she's switched magazines and is now reading his competitors newspaper.
<45>

 

[the muntjac]

Well for me... that was sort of the entire premise. Scottie is a guy looking for storybook romance. He doesn't want to settle with Midge because he doesn't want to live a normal, safe, mature life. Madeline's beauty and aloofness is exactly the sort of ethereal, other-wordly lust that he's craving after. To me it makes sense that he would fall for her after not even having spoken a word. Like a moth to flame.

Okay, I guess I can see his angle being that perhaps he was more lusting than he was actually love-stricken, but what was really the appeal for her? I get films have time limits, so their love story couldn't be fully fleshed out, but what we're left to accept how these too are madly in love with each other still feels too convenient to me.

One that made me laugh the last time I saw it was the montage when Kane and his first Wife were having their breakfast at the table. There sitting there, eating and reading newspapers. With each cut of the camera, their conversations grows more and more acrimonious. Until the final shoot... where she's switched magazines and is now reading his competitors paper.
<45>

I also like how the breakfast table gets longer over time causing them to sit further apart from each other, which symbolizes them growing apart.