Vertigo

Vertigo (1958) was my first Hitchcock film. I was 15 years old or so, and I chose Vertigo because of its title. 'Vertigo' - what a thrilling name of a movie. I had expected it to be an action thriller, perhaps a murder mystery with some roof-top chases. I was primed for Hercule Poirot meets The Towering Inferno. Poor me, imagine my shock to find that the movie isn't actually that at all. Over the years, I've come to sample other celebrated Hitchcock films such as Rear Window (1954) and Psycho (1960), both of which I adored. I recently rented Vertigo again to see if my own age and wisdom would reveal to me new facets about the movie. Alas, I was only even more befuddled how and why this off-beat, poorly paced film come to be held in such high regard.

There are two distinct acts to Vertigo. The first act introduces us to Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart), an ex-cop who has recently developed a case of acrophobia - fear of heights - and is hired by an old friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), for a private investigator job. Elster believes that his wife, Madeline (Kim Novak), is being possessed by the spirit of her great-grandmother who committed suicide when she was of Madeline's age. Scottie's job is to keep an eye on her and to keep her safe, but he soon starts to develop feelings towards her, and after somehow getting acquainted with each other, Madeline reciprocates his love. Unfortunately, Madeline dies by falling from a church tower, while Scottie was helpless to save her because of his acrophobia. The second act starts about two-third of the way into this 2-hour film, where Scottie spots Judy (also played by Kim Novak) on the streets who bears a striking resemblance to Madeline, and we soon learn a sinister twist that the down-to-earth Judy and the elegant Madeline are the same person, and the story about the grand-grandmother was a charade to allow Elster to kill his real wife. This is not known to Scottie though, and his guilt and obsession with Madeline's death led him to groom Judy to be Madeline and reenacting his romance with her. While the first movie in Vertigo is sort of like a mystery, the second is a romance and a psychological drama.

From that description, it may seem like the two elements of Vertigo are immiscible, and this is arguably the case. I was drawn to the mysterious question whether Madeline is genuinely possessed by a supernatural power, or if she suffered from some psychological disorder. But this first act was presented in a somewhat confused, cryptic, maddeningly disjointed manner. There is a scene when Scottie takes Madeline to a forest and Madeline falls into one of her psychic episodes, and Scottie's attempt at psychoanalysis is so over-the-top and false. This went on through the bulk of Vertigo's running length; and I felt like it was just going nowhere. Then the plot twist is revealed which demands that we reassess Madeline's situation and basically throw out the supernatural mystery element altogether, rendering hollow much of what has transpired. Upon a second viewing, I reviewed the first half to see if it could work as a romance instead of a mystery. It couldn't. I don't buy how Scottie could have fallen for Madeline so; I feel this was something that was pounded on the audience as a necessary premise for the second act, but I never genuinely bought into it. The question then is why not just throw away the first half altogether or at least treat it as an extended prologue instead of hyping up what amounted to a red-herring.

If Vertigo is a cinematic masterpiece, it is so based on its technical achievements. This is an exceedingly well-made movie. The cinematography by Robert Burks with its sweeping displays of San Francisco, from the breath-taking to the lurid, is nothing short of impressive. The hypnotic score by Bernard Hermann serves a crucial function to set the mood of individual scenes, highlighting the diverse elements at play, while just stopping short of calling too much attention to itself. Then there are the compositions, colours, and inventive camera angles which clearly show Hitchcock as a director at the pinnacle of his powers. Admirers have pointed that the images in Vertigo not only show Scottie's state of mind, but also induces it in the audience. This is quite true. I especially admire one off-kilter aerial shot of a church tower after the climatic point in the movie, showing the building and its people at an odd, twisted angle, like that of an expressionist painting, which utterly reflects Scottie's confused, warped mind at the time.

But these are reasons for me to admire the movie, and I feel that Vertigo is much more a movie to be admired than to be liked. In my opinion, there lies a big problem in the way it's edited to tell its main story. The first half of the film tested my patience considerably. Character interactions here ring false all around, and often times we are not sure what's happening or what anyone is trying to do. It's almost the plot runs on a logic which the audience hasn't been clued in on. I must also mention that, upon a third viewing, Bernard Hermann's score at some points are so sweeping and sanguine that it was almost sleep-inducing. But then as the 'twist' is revealed, we realise that the cryptic, languid weirdness we endured doesn't really matter at all. By the time the second act starts, the shift in focus is so overdue that I felt a little cheated for having invested so much to figuring out what is essentially a macguffin. It must be noted that Hitchcock engineered a similar film structure again two years later for Psycho to much greater effect exactly because he did not allow himself to be so self-indulgent.

Apparently my sentiment towards Vertigo echoes those of the critics when it first opened in 1958. I still feel that in many ways, Vertigo is much more esteemed today because of its technical proficiencies. The camera work to generate the 'Vertigo effect' have been much replicated in the decades since, and it is no wonder that that sort of inventiveness and mastery inspires awe. Also, the real core of the story and its characters, which transpires in the second act is superb. The somewhat psychologically twisted romance between Scottie and Judy is ingeniously crafted both in its script and its images. Had Vertigo been all about this - that is, take out all the thriller elements and tell the story fully as a human drama - the audience might have been surprised to find 'Vertigo' not as thrilling as its title suggests, but it would still be an engrossing film. But then that may be better than what we have now: an drama frustratingly masquerading as a thriller, which actually - really - still isn't.