Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo

The title of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) characterizes the film quite well, for the director attempts not only to use the idea of vertigo, or dizziness in this case brought about by a fear of heights, as a driving force in the plot but also creates a sense of vertigo for the audience and further uses vertigo as a metaphor for action of the film. Every element of the film is shaped toward this end, all centered on the fact that the main character, Scotty, has this psychological problem which manifests itself in the physical feeling of dizziness.

The opening sequence is the key to all that follows, and it is especially important that Scotty is visually left dangling from a roof at the end of this sequence. He is, of course, rescued, but the rescue is not shown, and in a Hitchcock film what is not shown can be as important as what is. Scotty at this point has learned that he has vertigo, and another police officer has died because of it. Scotty is left hanging from the side of a building, unable to move or help himself. He will remain in this state metaphorically through the rest of the film, until the very end. The first thing we see in the film is a bar across the frame, and hands reach up and grasp it the way a drowning man might grasp the side of a boat. This bar seems to represent stability, but the human action taking place around it is anything but stable as the police chase a man across the roofs of San Francisco. Scotty is one of the two policemen chasi

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ar when it is revealed early to the audience--Hitchcock has created a situation that seems complete, shown the audience that it is not complete at all and that there is a mystery, and has then thrown away the solution because solving a mystery is not the subject of the film. Rather, it is necessary that the audience know the solution while James Stewart does not so the audience can watch him unravel it and also watch his pathology carry him deeper and deeper toward his doom. If Scotty were not beset by his vertigo, which is crated for the viewer by means of a camera trick which allows perspective to change as Scotty looks down, he would be better able to judge the mystery presented to him. He learns each element just as he is supposed to, and he becomes more obsessed with the subject of his investigation, the beautiful Madeleine. When she jumps into the bay, he pulls her out and takes her to his house. After this, she visits him when she wants and seduces him even more with the mystery. Hitchcock uses repeated images in the film to create a sense of time repeating, which is precisely what Madeleine makes Scotty believe is happening to her as she relives Carlotta's life, up to and including Carlotta's suicide. That suicide

Category: Film - A