Vertigo (film)
The Television & Movie Wiki: for TV, celebrities, and movies.
- For other uses of the word Vertigo, see Vertigo.
| Vertigo Vertigomovie.jpg | |
| IMDB Page (external link) | |
| Writer: | Alec Coppel, Samuel A. Taylor |
| Starring: | James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones |
| Director: | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Music by: | |
| Distributor: | Paramount Pictures |
| Release Date: | May 9, 1958 (USA) |
| Runtime: | 128 min. |
| Language: | English |
| {{{series}}} | {{{series_label}}} |
| {{{awards_label}}} | |
Vertigo is a 1958 suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is usually taken as a classic of the genre and is considered by many critics to be Hitchcock's masterpiece.
Contents |
The plot
Vertigo tells the story of a San Francisco detective, Scottie (James Stewart), who leaves the police force (and develops acrophobia) after a fellow policeman falls to his death while the two are chasing a criminal across rooftops. But an old friend, Gavin Elster, hires his services to follow Elster's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak). Elster claims that Madeleine often appears to be staring off into space and occasionally drives to points unknown and later has no recollection of anything having been amiss; he tells a skeptical Scottie that he believes Madeleine to have a mental illness in which is possessed by a spirit of someone long dead. Scottie tails Madeleine for several days. As he watches her, she visits the grave of a woman named Carlotta Valdes who killed herself years ago, makes frequent visits to an art museum where she spends long periods of time gazing at a large potrait of Carlotta, and rents a room at a hotel which was once Carlotta's home. Madeleine also dresses like Carlotta, with identical hairstyle and jewelry.
Despite her trancelike, sometimes obsessive behavior and her suicidal tendencies—and despite the detective's former romantic involvement with a woman named Midge Wood (Barbara Bel Geddes), to whom he'd been engaged years before—the detective resolves to save Madeleine from herself. After she suffers a fainting spell and falls into San Francisco Bay, Scottie pulls her from the water and brings her to his apartment to dry off in front of the fire, and the two fall in love. Midge becomes increasingly jealous. Madeleine tells Scottie she dreamed of Mission San Juan Bautista, and Scottie takes her there, in an effort to destroy her disturbing dreams and possibly her mental illness. However, Madeleine is again possessed, and she runs up the mission's bell tower. Scottie's fear of heights renders him unable to reach the top of the tower to stop her, and Madeleine hurls herself from the tower. Scottie suffers a nervous breakdown and flees the scene. He is placed in a mental hospital, but eventually recovers. During his recovery, Scottie realizes that he is still in love with Madeleine.
About a year later, Scottie (still brooding about Madeleine) encounters a woman, Judy Barton, who reminds him strongly of his dead love. Scottie becomes obsessed with Judy, and gradually coaxes her to let him spend a lot of time with her. He begins insisting she dress in identical clothing as Madeleine and even having her hair done in Madeleine's style; despite her protests, she eventually gives in.
However, Judy makes a crucial mistake when she begins wearing a red pendant that he remembers Madeleine having worn, the same as in the painting of Carlotta. He brings her to Mission San Juan Batista and forces her to go up the tower, telling her that he wants to re-enact the scene in which he failed to save Madeleine. He raves about Madeleine, saying he'll "bring her back"; however, it becomes clear that his real goal is to force a confession from Judy, and eventually she confesses: she was hired by Madeleine's husband to look and act like Madeleine, she feigned her suicidal tendencies in order to convince Scottie that Madeleine was mentally unstable; she ran up the bell tower and knew that Scottie's acrophobia would prevent him from following. The real Madeleine was hurled from the tower by her husband. With no witnesses, and Scottie's testimony as to Madeleine's insanity, her husband got away with the 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!" Scottie rages at her while Judy pleads that she loved him all along. Suddenly a shadowy figure steps out and says, "I heard voices." Judy, frightened, accidentally backs off the tower ledge and falls to her death. The shadowy figure steps into the light and is revealed to be a nun. Scottie can only stare down at Judy's fallen body, and the movie fades to black.
The screenplay and its sources
The movie was adapted by Samuel W. Taylor and Alec Coppel from the French novel Sueurs froides (d'entre les morts) [Cold Sweats: 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.
Cinematic qualities
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 and Isolde, dramatically convey Scotty's obsessive love for the woman he imagines to be Madeleine.
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).
Vertigo as a Hitchcock film
Image:Vertigopubstill.jpg Those interested in Hitchcock's biography have often noted the similarities between Scottie 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.
Awards
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.
Restoration
After a controversial restoration by Robert Harris and James 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 as well as significantly altering 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.
San Francisco Bay Area locations in Vertigo
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
- 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 sanitarium where Scottie recovers. Now apartments but looks 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.
Remake
- Director Brian DePalma remade Vertigo in 1976 as Obsession with Cliff Robertson and Genevieve 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.
External links
- Vertigo at the Internet Movie Database
- Filmsite.org in-depth review and analysis
- A Swimming in the Head Detailed critique of the 1996 restoration
- 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
da:Vertigo de:Vertigo – Aus dem Reich der Toten es:Vértigo (De entre los muertos) fr:Sueurs froides it:La donna che visse due volte ru:Головокружение (фильм) sv:Studie i brott tr:Vertigo
