Context (C3)

• What company produced vertigo?

  Paramount
• Who was paramount head?

  Barney Balaban
• Who designed the dream sequence?

  John Ferren
• Who designed the title sequence

  Saul Bass
• Who designed the lissajous curves in the title sequence?

  John Whitney
• Who was the costume designer?

  Edith Head
• Who made the create decision to keep the flashback sequence where it was in the film?

  Samuel Taylor
• What's Paramount's Vista Vision?

  Widescreen cinematography developed to encourage people to come to cinemas
• Social/cultural context:


  -Strong taboos around sex/sexuality

  -Decline in going to cinema after WW2

  -Women forced back into passive roles after the war as men return home

  -Men returning feeling emasculated as women can do active roles

  -Consumerism key component of western society

  -Sexism --> women's movement of 1960s
• What's Laura Mulvey's theory?

  The male gaze --> women are passive and to be observed, men are active and observers
• What's scopophilia?

  The desire to see and objectify
• Old Hollywood features...
• What's the hays code?

  strict set of guidelines filmmakers had to follow
• Mass produced films
• What's the star systen?

  A set cast of actors who worked under strict contract of the studios (Kim Novak on loan from Columbia)
• What's vertical integration?

  Company takes control over one or more stages in the production/distribution of its products
• What's an oligopoly?

  Market dominated by a small number of companies -big 3
• What are the features of the standardised Hollywood aesthetic?

  -Classical continuity editing

  -Shallow/soft focus

  -Object permanence

  -Establishing shots

  -Linear plots (Vertigo non-linear)

  -Objective camera work (Vertigo subjective)

  -3-point lighting
• What's object permanence?

  centre, balance, frontally, depth
• What's continuity editing?


  180/30-degree rule, match on action, shot reverse shot, eyeliner match