By%20Artemus%20Ward

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Vertigo A Study of Obsession, Manipulation,
and Power
By Artemus Ward Department of Political
Science Northern Illinois University
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Cinema 101

• Vertigo is a master class in film technique.
• For example, the first half of the film
  alternates scenes that are silent vs. those that
  involve dialogue. The silent scenes are composed
  primarily of subjective point-of-view (POV)
  shots, while the dialogue scenes tend to isolate
  the participants in separate shots.
• The first half of the film is largely from
  Scotties POV. Beginning with Judys flashback,
  her POV is used to shift our focus from Scottie
  to her.
• Scottie's mental breakdown, caused by "acute
  melancholy combined with a guilt complex," as
  well as his continuing love for Madeleine, serves
  a plot function in allowing a year to pass before
  the story resumes with the appearance of Judy.
• The "Vertigo shot" was created by simultaneously
  zooming in and tracking backward the result is
  that the foreground remains stable while the
  background expands backwards. The shot was done
  using a model of the tower stairs laid
  horizontally on its side. The Vertigo shot has
  been widely imitated, including in Jaws,
  Goodfellas, and the first Lord of the Rings
  movie.
• Hitch pays careful attention to colors throughout
  the film including Madeleine/Judys primary color
  (green) and Scotties (red) swapping them and
  changing colors to suit the narrative when needed.

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Storyboarding
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Vertigos Mythology IOrpheus and Eurydice

• Vertigo is based on a series of ancient Greek and
  Roman myths.
• Perhaps the most obvious mythological influence
  on the film is the Greek myth of Orpheus and
  Eurydice, in which the musician Orpheus loses his
  wife, Eurydice, to death and ventures into the
  underworld to rescue her, only to lose her again.
  Vertigo plays off of two central themes of this
  story. First, Scottie's Orpheus character
  attempts to save Madeleine, the Eurydice
  character, from drowning in the San Francisco
  Bay. He succeeds, only to lose her in a suicide
  off the bell tower.
• He then gets a second chance to save Madeleine
  from death, this time by recreating Judy in
  Madeleine's image. He achieves this resurrection,
  but then loses her again when she plunges from
  the bell tower. And just as in the Orpheus myth
  it is Orpheus's faulthis failure to follow the
  instruction not to look back at his beloved as he
  leads her out of Hadesthat he loses Eurydice
  again, so in Vertigo it is Scottie's flaws that
  lead to his losses his acrophobia causes him to
  lose Madeleine and it is his insistence on
  recreating a dead woman that leads him to lose
  Judy.

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Vertigos Mythology II Pygmalion and Galatea

• The Roman myth of Pygmalion and Galatea is also a
  clear influence on Vertigo. The sculptor
  Pygmalion (Scottie in the film) uses his art to
  create a sculpture of the perfect woman
  (Vertigo's Madeleine) and then tragically falls
  in love with his creation.
• George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which was
  later adapted into the musical My Fair Lady
  (1964), also echoes here, particularly in the
  scenes in which Scottie, as a Pygmalion Professor
  Higgins, attempts to transform Judy, his Eliza
  Doolittle, into a proper lady, but without any of
  the comic effects of the play.
• Other film representations of Pygmalion occur in
  John Landis Trading Places (1983) John Hughes
  Weird Science (1987) Woody Allens Mighty
  Aphrodite (1995) the Freddie Prince, Jr. vehicle
  Shes All That (1999) and Lars and the Real Girl
  (2007).

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Vertigos Mythology III Tristan and Isolde

• Scottie can also be seen as Tristan, the
  ill-fated lover of the medieval legend Tristan
  and Isolde, who marries a second woman named
  Isolde when the true Isolde of his passions weds
  another. That legend ends with the death of
  Tristan and the suicide of his beloved, just as
  Vertigo ends with Judy/Madeleine's accidental
  death and Scottie's living death in the wake of
  tragedy.
• A film version of Tristan and Isolde was released
  in 2006 with James Franco in the lead role.

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Manipulation

• This is a film about obsession and control by
  manipulation and fabrication of reality
• Scottie (Stewart) is manipulated by his friend
  Gavin, who also manipulates the woman (Kim Novak,
  brilliant in a dual role) who in turn manipulates
  Scottie.
• Indeed, three times in the film Scottie attempts
  to leave a room to escape the manipulation but
  each time he returns only to get more deeply
  involved in the plot In Midges apartment just
  before he tries to lick his acrophobia, in
  Elsters office when he tries to get out of the
  job, and finally in Judys apartment when he asks
  her to dinner.
• When the deception is complete and Scottie
  believes that the woman he loves has died, he is
  lost until he sees a girl who resembles her. (She
  is her, but not her, at the same time.) He then
  does to her what had been done to him he
  manipulates her, denies her her own identity and
  makes her over until she is the simulacrum of a
  woman who never was. When he discovers how he had
  been fooled by a theatrical illusion, he hisses,
  Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he
  tell you what to do and what to say?
  apparently not realizing that he is furious and
  indignant about the very behavior he has been
  exhibiting.
• Hitch uses mirrors and mirror images to reinforce
  the idea of manipulation and confusion over what
  is real and what is not.
• Madeleine It's as though I were walking down a
  long corridor that once was mirrored, and
  fragments of that mirror still hang there. . .
  .Scottie The small scenes, the fragments of the
  mirror. . . . Do you remember those?

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The Image of a Woman I

• On one level the film is about men
  manipulating/shaping the image of a woman.
• Many have argued that Hitchcock was portraying
  his own failed attempts to re-create Grace Kelly
  in other actresses.
• Kelly was Hitchcocks favorite actress and the
  two worked together in three successive films
  Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and
  To Catch a Thief (1955). He made her a star.
• But Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco and by
  becoming Princess Grace, she gave up her career.
  For the rest of her life, she was to remain in
  the news with her marriage and her three
  children. She missed Hollywood and even planned
  to return to make Marnie for Hitchcock. But the
  people of Monaco were incensed and she withdrew.
  On September 14, 1982, she was killed in an
  automobile accident, on a cliff road she had
  known so well since her first visit to the
  Riviera. The spot is said to be the same spot
  where the picnic scene from To Catch a Thief
  (1955) was filmed in 1954. She was just 52 years
  old.

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The Image of a Woman II

• In the years that followed, Hitchcocks leading
  ladies were all cool, platinum blondes in the
  mold of Kelly including Vera Miles in The Wrong
  Man (1956) and Psycho (1960), Doris Day in The
  Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Kim Novak in
  Vertigo (1958), Eve Marie Saint in North by
  Northwest (1959), Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960),
  and Tippi Hedren in The Birds (1963) and Marnie
  (1964).

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James Stewart as Scottie

• Hitchcock was one of the few filmmakers who
  recognized that Stewart had a complex, even dark
  side and wanted to explore that in Vertigo.
• Morality, decency, kindness, intelligence,
  wisdomall the qualities that we think heroes are
  supposed to possess and that we have seen Stewart
  exhibit in film after filmdesert him little by
  little in Vertigo until he has nothing left.
• Stewart once said I look for a manwhose
  judgment is not always too good and who makes
  mistakes. I think human frailty is a very nice
  thing to portray.

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Kim Novak as Madeleine and Judy

• Novak commented on her role When I read the
  lines, I want you to love me for me, I just
  identified with it so much. It was what I felt
  when I came to Hollywood as a young girl. You
  know, they want to make you over completely. They
  do your hair and makeup and it was always like I
  was fighting to show some of my real self. So I
  related to the resentment of being made over and
  to the need for approval and the desire to be
  loved. I really identified with the story because
  it was me saying, Please, see who I am. Fall in
  love with me, not a fantasy.
• Hitch deftly softens the sobering abuse of his
  female protagonist, Madeleine/Judy, by focusing
  on the passion and torment of her lover, Scottie
  (and by casting the likeable Stewart).
• Consider the scenario, though, from Judys
  perspective
• Shes picked up by one significantly older man,
  Elster, who gives her a new persona (Madeleine)
  and then involves her in the original Madeleines
  murder.
• Elster promises her a deeper attachment, only to
  dump her unceremoniously after the deed is done.
• Then Judy finds the process repeated with
  Scottieyet, despite his earnestness, his
  behavior is doubly humiliating, as it carries an
  implicit rejection of Judys own self in favor of
  the fantasy of Madeleine.
• Judy, like so many of us, is so desperate for
  approval and love that she allows all of this to
  happen, ultimately leading to her death.

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Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge

• As he does in so many of his films. Hitchcock
  casts a strong, domineering motherly figure for
  the leading man. In this case, his former fiancé
  and best friend Midge.
• Midge reinforces Scotties helplessness. He has
  been overwhelmed by the events of the past and
  looks to a female figure to comfort him. During
  his first attempt to cure himself of acrophobia,
  he collapses on Midges shoulder in a position
  that suggests maternal comfort.
• Midge is grounded in practical reality from her
  practical job designing underwear to her
  skepticism of Madeleine.
• She takes charge of his care at the hospital
  after Madeleines death just as a mother
  should.
• Though she is Madeleine/Judys rival for
  Scotties affections, she has no scenes with
  Madeleine/Judy.

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Voyeurism

• One of Hitchcocks major themesparticularly in
  his 1950s worksis voyeurism.
• The film Rear Window, which also stars Stewart,
  is the master study of the subject.
• Yet Vertigo can be seen as a long romantic poem
  to voyeurism that leads the viewer through
  lengthy specific sequences of silent pursuit, and
  through a much darker and broader story of one
  mans pursuitto unthinkable extremesof his
  chosen romantic ideal. Scottie watches Madeleine
  and we watch Scottie watch Madeleine.
• Indeed one way Hitch establishes his voyeurism
  theme is through the use of eyes and swirlsfrom
  the opening sequence, to Madeleines hairstyle,
  to the expressive eyes of the main characters

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The Wrong Man Or Woman

• Perhaps Hitchcocks most famous recurring theme
  in many of his films is the innocent wrongly
  pursued. And it is not the pursuer whom the
  pursued has to fear as much as the circumstances
  into which he or she must run to escape.
• Though not one of his classic wrong man films,
  Vertigo is still a variation on this theme. In
  Vertigo, Hitchcock chose a woman as the party to
  be pursued and, eventually degraded.

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Law Power and Freedom I

• How is the law portrayed in the film? Through the
  lens of power and freedom
• Midge says to Scottie You were the bright,
  young lawyer who decided... ...he was going to be
  chief of police someday. What does this tell us
  about Scottie? He is a do-gooder who sacrifices
  wealth and a life of comfort (power and freedom)
  for the gritty reality of police work such as
  chasing suspects across rooftops. He wants to
  change things from the ground up rather than from
  the top down.
• Elster dominates Scottie and uses Scotties
  do-gooder mentality, obsessive personality, and
  vertigo to commit the perfect crime murdering
  his wife for money and getting away with it. He
  says "The things that spell San Francisco to me
  are disappearing fast. . . . I should have liked
  to live here then. Color, excitement, power,
  freedom. . . .
• Pop Liebel "The beautiful Carlotta, the sad
  Carlotta. . . . A rich man, a powerful man. It is
  not an unusual story. He took her. . . . Then he
  threw her away. . . . You know, men could do that
  in those days. They had the power and the
  freedom."
• At the end of the film Scottie says "I need you
  to be Madeleine for a while, then when it's over
  we'll both be free. And then what did he do? Did
  he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell
  you exactly what to do, what to say? You were a
  very apt pupil too, weren't you? You were a very
  apt pupil. . . . He made you over, didn't he? He
  made you over just like I made you over, only
  better. . . . Not only the clothes and the hair,
  but the looks and the manner and the words. . . .
  Oh Judy, with all of his wife's money and all
  that freedom and power, he ditched you.

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Law Power and Freedom II

• In most cases, an inquest is judicial
  investigation by a group of court-appointed
  people (a jury) into a cause of death. How is the
  coroners inquest into Madeleines death
  portrayed?
• The coroner knows it is a routine proceeding and
  a formality because Scottie is a former Detective
  and will be cleared by his friends in the
  prosecutors office. Hence the coroner resents
  that he powerless and his skeptical, cynical tone
  imparts blame on Scottie, who is also powerless
  It is a pity that, knowing her suicidal
  tendencies... ...he did not make a greater
  effort. But we are not here to pass judgment on
  Mr. Ferguson's lack of initiative. He did
  nothing... ...and the law has little to say on
  the subject of things left undone. Nor does his
  strange behavior after he saw the body fall...
  ...have any bearing on your verdict. He did not
  remain at the scene of the death. He left. He
  claims he suffered a mental blackout and knew
  nothing more... ...until he found himself back in
  his own apartment in San Francisco hours later.
  You may accept that, or not.
• The jury of course finds that Madeleine committed
  suicide by reason of insanity just as Elster
  had planned. They also clear Elster of
  responsibility for not reporting his wife's
  mental instability.
• The scene demonstrates how the law is about power
  and manipulation as both the coroner and Scottie
  are dominated by more powerful adversaries.
• The scene also parallels the opening scene where
  the police officer stops his pursuit of the
  accused in order to go back to help his
  colleague. The result is that the accused gets
  away, the officer dies, and the detective has to
  quit the force because of vertigo. The inquest
  similarly shows that when the judicial process
  protects its own by exonerating Scottie the
  real criminal goes free and Scottie is further
  damaged.

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Is It All a Dream?

• How does Scottie get down from his dangling
  position at the start of the story? One critical
  theory is that he doesn't, that the entire movie
  is a hallucination, an oneiric narrative. Vertigo
  ends as it begins, with Scottie staring down
  helplessly from a great height--though with his
  vertigo cured.

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Deleted Scene

• Hitchcock shot an additional scene following the
  climax at the tower. In a single shot lasting 75
  seconds with no dialog, it shows Scottie
  returning to Midge's apartment, where she is
  listening to a radio report about the impending
  arrest of Gavin Elster in Europe. This scene
  apparently was intended as insurance against
  objections from the Production Code either in the
  U.S. or in other countries. It may have been
  shown in some places, but was not part of
  Hitchcock's final cut of Vertigo.
• Does it make a difference whether Elster was
  caught or not?

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Conclusion

• Hitchcock wants us to consider how desire for
  power and freedom can lead to obsession,
  manipulation, and ultimately immoral and illegal
  behavior.
• Like everything in life, both law and morality
  are subject to manipulation, thereby blurring the
  line between what is real and what is unreal.

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Credits

• Auiler, Dan. 1998. Vertigo The Making of a
  Hitchcock Classic. New York, NY St.Martins
  Griffin.
• Dirks, Tim. Undated. Vertigo (1958).
  Filmsite.org. http//www.filmsite.org/vert.html
• Spotto, Donald. 1992. The Art of Alfred
  Hitchcock, 2nd ed. New York, NY Doubleday.