Film Criticism: Vertigo (1958)
There are certain films that, upon first watch, stir within me a response which is easy to identify.
Such films play out either predictably or wonderfully unpredictably, and both outcomes satisfy some preconceived and unknown expectation I held upon taking my seat in the theater or flipping on my television. I sit in those first moments as the end credits appear with a distinct gut reaction: joy, disgust, confusion, unrest, intrigue, etc. But as the closing shot of Vertigo faded to black, I looked down, I looked up, and I wondered why I felt so little about a film for which I had secretly hoped to feel so much.
Vertigo, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, is a film which I am convinced requires repeated viewing in order to fully assimilate the intoxicating intrigue I suspect bristles right under the surface of a film which seems to take for granted the intended effect it hopes to produce for its expectant audience. Beginning as what appears to be a thrilling mystery, Vertigo presents its twists and turns as though they are meant to be an exhilarating gut punch, when in actuality these “big reveals” are commanded by an entirely different realization altogether: the unnerving manipulation of a woman at the hands of an obsessive, haunted man. What I wanted was The Sting (1973). What I got was a sort of dark and twisted My Fair Lady (1964).
Maybe herein lies the hidden and perhaps accidental brilliance of Vertigo I must (reluctantly) dig deep for: as I watched James Stewart’s detective realize what he thought was one thing was really quite another, I too was realizing Vertigo was not what it had first seemed.
Vertigo follows John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart), a former police detective who has recently retired due to developing an extreme case of acrophobia (and thus vertigo) as a result of a tragic accident on the job, and who now spends his days wandering San Francisco and visiting his former fiance, Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes). Soon after his accident, Scottie is tasked by his friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) to follow Elster’s wife, who Elster believes is possessed by the suicidal spirit of her great-grandmother, Carlotta Valdes. Scottie is reluctant to take the job but soon changes his mind after seeing Elster’s wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), and becoming swept up in her beauty. As Scottie follows Madeleine, he not only becomes more convinced she needs to rid herself of the nightmares her husband has wrongly associated with possession, but that he himself can help her as his infatuation with her quickly grows. Madeleine reciprocates this infatuation for Scottie even while she continues to try and kill herself in his presence by jumping into the bay or running towards the ocean during a trip together to Muir Woods, where Scottie remarks that the sequoia’s scientific name means, “Always green, ever living.” (One could conduct an entire case study on the use of color in Vertigo, a not-so-subtle artistic choice which appears so explicitly throughout the film I found myself almost distracted by its presence. Hitchcock utilizes color particularly in the case of Novak’s two characters, Madeleine and Judy, dressing her in bright reds and greens or framing her silhouette against a glowing green light, and does so with so much frequency one half expects him to jump into the scene, jowls wobbling excitedly, and gleefully shout, “See? Do you get it? She is ever living!”)
Eventually Madeleine succeeds in killing herself when she plummets from a belltower. Scottie, unable to save her because he cannot mount the stairs after her due to his acrophobia, spirals into a deep and catatonic depression.
To be sure, Vertigo is in fact a murder mystery. Immediately following Madeleine’s apparent suicide, the viewer is left to wonder if she was in fact possessed by Carlotta’s ghost all along, even if Scottie tried to convince both himself and Madeleine it was all in her head. If prior to viewing Vertigo I had announced to the room that what I hoped to experience was a movie in which I could follow each metaphorical breadcrumb to a reassuringly placed plot twist, I would make a fool of myself to claim these expectations were not met. It happened. I got what I wanted. And yet.
Perhaps the fault is mine, and I am in fact a prime example of what director Hitchcock meant to achieve for both his characters and his audience: a trick.
Because although we successfully experience our beloved “plot twist” when Madeleine is revealed to actually be Judy (Elster’s former mistress who helped Elster murder his wife - the woman who actually fell from the tower), the lingering effect of Vertigo is not an exhilarating high at solving the mystery but rather the vague distaste of watching a film where a man obsesses over and controls a woman for his own self-interest.
To be sure, I understand why Scottie takes this approach in the end. While he had no qualms about starting a quick affair with “Madeleine” (despite his friendship with her husband), Scottie manipulates Judy to once more transform into Madeleine not because his purity demands justice but rather because he is desperate to recreate her final moments in order to rid himself of vertigo. In the final, pivotal moment when Scottie confronts Judy (dressed to look like Madeleine) in the belltower, Vertigo invites us to be shocked at the revelation that Scottie knows everything. He knows Madeleine was a false identity, and he knows Judy helped Elster murder his actual wife. These accusations spill out and Judy frantically owns up to them before she herself accidentally plummets from the belltower.
It is here I needed Hitchcock to insert his trademark color; as the two grappled in the tower, I demanded a signpost, a landmark. What exactly was I supposed to focus on? The loud revelations obviously meant to thrill me, or the chaotic energy of Scottie finally ascending those stairs as he has successfully used Judy as a means to his own end? Hitchcock, perhaps, is pleased that I am disoriented. Perhaps these ambiguous feelings which linger as Scottie looks down from the belltower are no accident, unlike Judy’s death.
There are films meticulously crafted to leave one in ambiguity of feeling, and then there films which arrive at their conclusion in accidental ambiguity. I sustain a hunch, like a small chip on my shoulder, that Vertigo always planned my disorientation; a companion who turns wandering into going somewhere. I suppose one must decide if these unmet expectations are a satisfying mystery or a disappointment.