![]() ![]() A professional seamstress and designer, Midge streamlines and engineers bras. That she loves Scotty is clear, but how she loves him remains unclear throughout the movie. Scotty’s best friend is Midge, his longtime and, presumably, only girlfriend, who called off their engagement sometime during college, but who still clearly loves him. This is a huge fall for Scotty, as he had been a lawyer turned detective, hoping one day to become San Francisco Police Commissioner. An official inquiry clears Scotty of any wrongdoing, but, wracked with guilt, he quits the police department. As a fellow police officer tries to aid Scotty, vertigo strikes the detective, causing his would-be helper and colleague to fall several stories down, dying upon impact with the ground. Just as the chase begins, Detective Jimmy Stewart (John “Scotty” Ferguson) slips, holding onto a drainage pipe for dear life. There’s nothing happy about this movie.Īfter the opening credits, the opening scene is an absolute classic, as several men run across the rooftops of San Francisco at dusk, a scene imitated by Dark City and the Matrix. The credits should also serve as a warning: If you watch this movie believing you’ll end two hours later with a smile on your face and in your heart, you will be sorely mistaken. Designed by famed animator Saul Bass, they consist of swirling designs, taking ours eyes and minds into the depths of psychological despair and horror-into a personal and existential abyss. Even the opening credits-disturbingly Freudian and Jungian-disorient the viewer. It is a full work of art, and as such it demands everything of us. This is simply not the kind of movie that can serve as background wallpaper. No matter how many times one watches Vertigo, it demands full attention and immersion. Since its re-release in the early 1980s, critics have generally considered it one of the two greatest movies ever made, vying for first place with Citizen Kane. And strangely, Vertigo disappeared, becoming one of Hitchcock’s so-called “lost movies.” In 1983, it finally appeared again in movie theaters, and a year later on home video. Hitchcock, deeply embarrassed by its box-office failures, blamed the aging Jimmy Stewart as no longer appealing to the public. Though critics loved Vertigo when it first appeared in 1958-the New York Times especially lauding it as a masterful work of cinematic art-the public, by and large, ignored it. If Rope is philosophical, Vertigo is equally psychological. Symbols abound in the movie-symbols of American antiquity, of American nobility, of American industrialism, of American Hispanicism, and of American Catholicism. ![]() And unlike the confined space of the upper-class Manhattan apartment in Rope, Vertigo centers on a very middle-class detective in San Francisco. The movie relies on setting and mood more than dialogue. In contrast to the stripped-down minimalism of Rope, which also stars Jimmy Stewart, Vertigo is in every way lush and voluptuous. It's a film that can be seen by teenage audiences, despite having some more dramatic scenes, and probably will please the majority of audiences.Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” explores pretended and real madness, its plot twisting and turning in ways perhaps only logical to the perplexing soul of its director.Īs with all his best movies, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) brutally analyzes modernity, finding it schizophrenic and wanting. Essential for all Hitchcock fans, this film is a must-see for any lover of suspense and mystery. Stewart shows why Hitchcock was so fond of working with him and Novak can perfectly be, at the same time, the damsel in distress and the femme fatale, who leads men to act without thinking. The performance of the actors also deserves congratulations. Technically impeccable, this film has an excellent picture, sound effects and a soundtrack where the emphasis is given to the opening theme that, in all fairness, became one of the most famous of Bernard Herrmann. ![]() The script is very good, mixing love, obsession, loyalty, madness and mystery in an irresistible recipe that takes the seal of quality of one of the most brilliant masters of suspense in cinema. I never understood why but, nevertheless, is one of Hitchcock's films that I most like to see. This film is considered by experts one of the best films ever made. Taylor, with the participation of James Stewart and Kim Novak. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, has script Alec Coppel and Samuel A. His life changes when he accepts to watch a woman at the request of her husband, who suspects that his wife has been visited by a ghost. Scottie Ferguson is a police officer, retired because of fear of heights. ![]()
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