Vertigo: Ernies

• Beginning with an establishing shot of the exterior of Ernies, dissolving into the interior.
• MS of Scottie places him as an observer, he's sat alone in a crowded restaurant (shown by the mumbling of voice) voyeuristically watching Madeleine from afar.
• HC auteur trait of his subjective camera work is seen through Scottie.
• The camera pans back, fluidly trucking through the restaurant and floating towards Madeleine.
• Kettle location
• Madeleine mis en scene = an emerald green shall contrasting with the oppressive, red (romance / danger) set design, creating this sense of binary oppositions.
• Her icy blonde hair additionally makes her stand out from the crowd, and naked back in a time of modesty.
• The elaborate set design of the restaurant flaunts wealth and the upper middle class status of Vertigo: contrasting the working class Brooklyn, Bed Stuy neighbourhood.
• Romantic BH score.
• Slow push in to Madeleine.
• Cut back to Scottie
• Hitchcock uses frame within a frame (like RR in the dolly zoom) as M comes over to Scottie: highlighting her significance and relation to being like a painting: a false, idealised image.
• Profile shot glows, she is the idealised woman.
• Madeleine is a constructed image
• The editing SRS as she turns her head, the tension with the possibility of the two meeting eyes is gorgeous and heartbreaking.
• This is a prime example of HC 'pure cinema', there is no dialogue yet the visuals (mis en scene) and watchful gaze tells us all.
• Madeliene = She is an elegant, beautiful blonde, clothed in mystery
• The audience is first introduced to Madeleine as a femme fatale, the object of S's fantasy which he cannot resist.
• The highlighting of her naked back adds to her allure: Hitchcock using the male gaze.
• The camera focuses on Madeleine, the close-up of her chest and face as she is looking around the restaurant.
• Green = gives this supernatural allure to M, combined with her persona portrayed through facial expressions and inviting gaze which hooks Scottie and her possible possession with ghost of Carlotta.
• The camera pulls back and dollies around to reveal a neighboring dining room of the restaurant that is packed with elegant and monied diners
• that vibrant near neon green of which halts the eye and redirects it back up to the flesh of the woman's back and her up-pinned hair that is so blonde it is nearly pearl-gray white in some lights
• the only woman in the room that design and the camera conspire to grab and hold our attention