British directorAlfred Hitchcock, the so-called “Master of Suspense,” is one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. He was behind the camera for numerous films that all arguably deserve the moniker of “masterpiece,” includingRear Window(1954),North by Northwest(1959), andPsycho(1960), and innovated or popularized countless narrative and formal techniques that are now commonplace in modern cinema.
However, one Hitchcock film in particular seems to elicit especially strong critical adulation even among his stacked filmography:Vertigo(1958). The film, which will arrive on Netflix on June 1, was ranked asthe greatest film of all timeby prestigious film journalSight & Soundin 2012 (before dropping to secondin its 2022 list) and is similarly highly ranked bythe American Film Institute. The film stars Jimmy Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson, an acrophobic and traumatized former police officer hired by a college acquaintance (Tom Helmore) to follow his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), who has been experiencing odd trance-like episodes and wandering off.
This seemingly simple premise, however,quickly twists into a more complicatedand disturbing narrative in which Scottie becomes increasingly obsessed with Madeleine, even while realizing that she and her husband might not be who they seem to be. The film’s unconventional narrative is matched by its equally avant-garde and technical elements, particularly its surrealist cinematography and visual effects. Let’s talk about whyVertigois considered by many to be Hitchcock’s magnum opus.
The Mysterious and Dreamy Style of ‘Vertigo’
While Hitchcock’s films are known for their colorful costumes and set pieces,Vertigotakes it to a whole new level, featuring some of the most visually striking imagery in cinema history.These memorable visuals are due in large part to the movie being set (and filmed) in San Francisco, one of the most iconic and picturesque cities in the United States. Numerous real-life San Francisco landmarks feature prominently in the film’s most critical scenes, including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Legion of Honor art museum, and the eponymous mission in San Juan Bautista, California. This naturally colorful scenery, combined with legendary Hollywood designer Edith Head’s costumes (particularly on Novak)and the Technicolor camerawork, results in almost every shot being washed in some jarringly sharp combination of red, blue, green, and, of course, blonde.
Furthermore, several scenes are filmed through a lens that permeates the screen in a hypnotic haze, making the film’s real locations — and the characters within them — seem like something out of a dream or fantasy, such as the cemetery in Mission Dolores, where Scottie follows Madeleine.This deliberately artificial approach to cinematography hints at the superficial nature of Scottie’s mission and his growing obsession with the woman at the center of said mission.
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Accentuating this vaguely dream-like atmosphere is frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann’s score. The strings-heavy soundtrack sounds simultaneously romantic and melancholy, as if to foreshadow both the relationship that gradually blossoms between Scottie and Madeleine over the course of the narrative and its tragic future.
The Many Spirals of ‘Vertigo’
One reason whyVertigoremains such a popular subject of academic study is the proliferation of various symbols and motifs throughout the film. For example, one recurring visual motif inVertigooccurs in shots where Scottie looks down from a great height, at which point thedown-facing camerasimultaneously dollies backwards and zooms out to make the building look like it is growing or stretching. This now-common camera movement is also known as the “Vertigoeffect” and helps the audience experience Scottie’s acrophobia from his point of view.
However,the most frequent and conspicuous recurring symbol in the film is a spiral. During the opening credits, in which the camera moves across a woman’s face, a rotating spiral emerges from the pupil of the woman’s eye, gradually growing until it encompasses the whole screen. In addition, Scottie notices that both Madeleine and the woman in the painting have their hair styled in a way that forms a spiral shape on the backs of their heads. Most memorably, after witnessing a traumatic event at the film’s midway point, Scottie has a bizarre and surreal dream in which he finds himself surrounded by dizzying spirals.
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What makes the spiral such a fascinating symbol inVertigois that it lends itself to countless equally valid interpretations of its significance. It could be a visual representation of Scottie’s vertigo symptoms caused by his acrophobia. On the other hand, it could also represent his downward “spiral” into the obsession with Madeleine that dominates the film’s second half. Further still, the spiral could symbolize the cyclical nature of time in the movie, in which past events end up repeating themselves in the present, in more bad ways than good.The thematic richness of this one simple image, along with countless others sprinkled throughout the film, makesVertigoarguably Hitchcock’s most intellectually thought-provoking film.
The Gender Politics of ‘Vertigo’ Are Timeless
Despite its cryptic narrative,Vertigois, at heart, a fairly simple story about a man’s dangerous obsession with a woman, his attempts to control as much of her life as he can, and the disastrous consequences of both.This feels like an especially prescient story in a post-MeToo world, which is full of stories of men being possessive, controlling, manipulative, and even abusive towards women under the guise of “loving” them. In fact,Vertigois disturbingly autobiographical to Hitchcock’s own life, as actressTippi Hedren has allegedthat Hitchcock treated herin a similarly obsessive and controlling wayto how Scottie treats Madeleine inVertigo.
The fact that the film is such an uncompromising depiction of the kind of behavior that its own director was capable of is certainly unsettling, but it’s also a major reason why the film continues to be such a relevant and necessary viewing today. In addition to being an excellent film, it illustrates the uncomfortable truth that even well-meaning people can engage in toxic behavior and inadvertently create disastrous consequences for themselves and others. In this regard,Vertigois less like the kind of mystery or thriller that audiences are accustomed to seeing from Hitchcock, and more like a tragic play such asOedipus RexorRomeo and Juliet —and it deserves just as much praise as those classic works, too.Vertigowill be available on Netflix starting on June 1.
