Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)

• The film is an overwhelmingly romantic psychological

  study of sexual obsession, masculine

  insecurity, voyeurism and manipulation it

  is a film that rewards multiple viewings,

  growing more disturbing with each one.
• The title of the film comes out of a woman’s eye, then into a series of graphic spirals inducing dizziness before the first sequence.
• The “vertigo” shot, a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts, is achieved by moving the camera in the opposite direction of the camera’s zoom.
• Subjective tracking shots follow Madeleine in San Francisco from Scottie’s point of view.
• Dreamlike sequences in soft focus are shot in the cemetery and the hotel bedroom, depicting ghostly images of Madeleine.
• The prevalence of shots from Scottie’s point of view establishes his obsession, the male gaze and the power of the look.
• The use of close ups highlights significant aspects of Mise-en-Scène, for example, the necklace on the painting of Carlotta.
• Mise-en-Scène in Vertigo involves the use of symbolic colour throughout, with art direction by Hal Perreira and Henry Bumstead.
• The location of the film was moved to San Francisco, a city of vertiginous streets, the phallic Coit Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, the scene of Madeleine’s attempted “suicide”.
• The vertiginous setting of San Francisco contributes to the sense of falling from the opening shots that include the famous bridge.
• Scottie’s pursuit of Madeleine involves him following her downhill in the sequence where he first believes that Carlotta is possessing her.
• The use of green as a colour motif in Vertigo includes Madeleine’s dress at Ernie’s, her car and Scottie’s sweater at the point when he really starts to believe that Carlotta is possessing her.
• Bernard Herrmann’s music for Vertigo is inspired by Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, one of the most important micro features of the film.
• Herrmann’s love theme is used when 'Madeleine' is on screen to indicate Scottie’s growing obsession/love for her.
• The film contains numerous, lengthy passages without dialogue, only music.
• Judy’s voiceover as she reveals her story splits the narrative and changes the film.
• The score has a cyclical nature, as Martin Scorsese said, 'the music is also built around spirals and circles, fulfilment and despair'.
• The repetition in the score could allude to obsessive recurring thoughts and poor mental health.
• Classical Music (Bach and Mozart) is used in scenes with Midge, lighter and more frivolous than Herrmann’s score, reflecting the lighter tone of her interactions with Scottie.
• The relationship between Scottie and Midge, although complex, appears more conventional when compared to Scottie and 'Madeleine'.
• Social

  • The USA in the 1950s: racism both social and

  institutional, entrenched sexism. The USA was

  a segregated society, and the end of the decade

  saw the beginnings of the civil rights movement

  and the women’s movement of the 1960s.

  • The film can be read as emblematic of men

  trying to re-assert their control over women in

  post war America. One of the first things Scottie

  asks of Judy is that she not go to work but spends

  time with him instead, “let me take care of you.”
• Historical

  • President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

  vice President Richard Nixon.
• Political

  • The USA locked into a cold war with the Soviet

  Union. Both sides had nuclear weapons.
• Technological

  • Use of Paramount’s wide screen process

  VistaVision, created in 1954. Restored 70

  mm version of Vertigo in 1996 after many

  years of anonymity and deterioration.
• Institutional

  • With the demise of the Studio System in

  the 1950s more freedom for a director to

  take control. Kim Novak under contract

  with Columbia Pictures could only be in

  Vertigo with the permission of Columbia

  chief Harry Cohn who was paid $250,000.
• Auteur

  • Recognised in the 1950s by the writers of

  Cahiers du Cinema as a master film-maker,

  Hitchcock is an example of the classic auteur, a

  master of mise-en-scène with an unmistakable

  ‘world view’. The ‘Hitchcock film’ contains

  elements of style and distinctive marks

  identifiable with his presence as a creative force

  who brought together a number of elements –

  the graphics of Saul Bass, the music of Bernard

  Herrmann, the performances of Cary Grant

  and James Stewart.
• Hitchcock was influenced by German Expressionism and Soviet montage cinema.
• Hitchcock's elaborate editing techniques came from Soviet films of the 1920s.
• Hitchcock particularly acknowledged the significance of the Kuleshov experiment, from which he derived his fondness for the point-of-view shot and for building sequences by cross-cutting between person seeing and things seen.
• Hitchcock was a commercial film-maker, who sought and achieved boxoffice success.
• Hitchcock was always happy to exploit his ‘auteur status’ as a marketing device, through his TV series no less than his films.
• Hitchcock's films are assigned to him as in the credits and publicity material making him a ‘star’ director.
• Hitchcock also ‘signed’ his films through his personal non-speaking appearances in them.
• In Vertigo, Hitchcock appears outside Elster’s office.
• Vertigo has recurring themes from Hitchcock’s other work including guilt (Strangers on a Train), voyeurism (Rear Window) and taboo subject matter (Psycho).
• Vertigo’s themes can be seen as revealing a lot about Hitchcock and the film is often considered his most personal.
• The representation of Scottie as lonely links to Hitchcock’s lack of childhood friends, Scottie’s treatment of Judy could reflect the way Hitchcock treated actresses working on his films and the guilt Scottie feels could be linked to Hitchcock’s Catholic upbringing.
• Hitchcock was a master of the art of film making, using techniques such as the inspired use of scale models and matte painting to create the bell tower scene.