Vertigo Review

SPOILER ALERT

Click here to go to my previous review of Casablanca

Number 76 on the top 1000 films of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo.

John "Scottie" Ferguson (James Stewart) is a former police officer who suffers from a severe case of vertigo.  However, when Gavin Elster hires him to privately investigate the strange happenings of his wife Madeline Elster (Kim Novak,) Ferguson slowly begins to become obsessed with her.

So I read a few reviews on IMDB that say that you have to watch this film a few times before you truly understand it.  This was true for me as well.  After I had watched Vertigo, I had to read a few online summaries before I got the gist of what was happening.

This is my attempt to summarise the narrative and the plot twist at the end.  After Ferguson begins investigating Madeline Elster, he becomes obsessed with her.  As the two confess their love for each other, Madeline suddenly runs up to the top of a clock-tower before falling to her death.  Ferguson's vertigo prevents him from intervening.  With Madeline's death, Ferguson only becomes more obsessive.  He starts to visit all of their old haunts which is where he sees a woman who looks strikingly like Madeline.  Intrigued Ferguson follows her and finds out that she is Judy Barton.  The two then start a relationship, but Ferguson still obsessed with Madeline demands that Judy dress up and act like Madeline.

Keeping up so far? Good.  Because this is where it gets confusing.  In a flashback it is revealed that Gavin hired Judy in a plot to murder his wife.  Taking advantage of Ferguson's vertigo, he throws Madeline from the top of the clocktower and pays Judy to impersonate her.

The fact that I've had to explain this is a testament to the layered and complicated writing of the film.  Vertigo isn't a film that gives you everything on a silver platter, rather you have to figure things out for yourself.  You need to pay full attention throughout the film.

On one hand Vertigo is very much a film about obsessive love and the dangers of it.  It warns about the consequences of becoming too involved in something or someone.  On the other hand it is a film about conquering fears.  Ferguson is very much paralysed by his vertigo and it isn't until the end of the film, where he pushes himself to break out of his fear.  However, what he is unable to overcome is his powerful obsession with Madeline Elster/Judy Barton.

Although my main problem with this film is something I've experienced with other Hitchcock films, e.g. Rear Window: the tension-building.  I know that Alfred Hitchcock is supposed to be the "master of tension," and whilst it works well in films like Psycho, it doesn't work so well here.  A lot of this film seemed to be the characters driving in silence from place to place.  For me, this really slowed up the pace and just made the film boring to watch.

So, all in all, compared to other Hitchcock films that I've seen, Vertigo left little impression on me, but it is still a subtle film with quiet understated writing.