{"id":4525,"date":"2018-09-16T10:22:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T04:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/?p=4525"},"modified":"2018-09-16T15:58:12","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T10:28:12","slug":"vertigo-1958-sixty-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningandcreativity.com\/silhouette\/vertigo-1958-sixty-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Vertigo (1958): A Question of Identity Sixty Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A scene from Vertigo<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Vertigo<\/em> (1958) was not a commercial success when it was first released. But over time, it has been considered as \u201cAmerican cinema\u2019s supreme treatment of romantic obsession\u201d (as proclaimed by Martin Rubin) and has been explored, dissected, critiqued and analysed ad infinitum by viewers, critics and film scholars. Vertigo<\/em> forms a segment of what is termed the \u201cGolden Period\u201d for Hitchcock as a filmmaker after a rather fallow response to his works in the 1940s. This began with a series of box office hits among thrillers like Strangers on a Train<\/em> (1951), Rear Window<\/em> (1954), North by Northwest<\/em> (1959) and Psycho<\/em> (1960) considered to be his best film.<\/p>\n

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Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958)<\/p><\/div>\n

Here is the story in brief sourced from IMDb.<\/em> Gavin Elster, a wealthy shipbuilder approaches Scottie, an acquaintance from college days. He is a retired police detective who has arrived in San Francisco. Elster asks Scottie to follow his beautiful wife, Madeleine. He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, he believes she is possessed by Carlotta, a dead ancestor. Scottie is sceptical, but agrees after he sees the beautiful Madeleine. John “Scottie” suffers from acrophobia (a psychological fear of heights) from which the film gets its title. The highly sophisticated and beautiful Madeleine with her air of mystery and intrigue, mesmerises Scottie, introduces him to the elite crowd of San Francisco. He falls in love with Madeleine and she too, apparently falls in love with him. But soon after, she dies as she falls off the church tower\u2019s roof. Is it suicide, murder or accident? \u00a0Scottie, a victim of vertigo, witnesses the fall and goes into shock.<\/p>\n

That is not quite the point. The completely broken Scottie, who his fianc\u00e9 Midge tries to console, suddenly chances upon a young woman who bears a strikingly identical resemblance to Madeleine. But she dresses and behaves differently. Her name is Judy. Scottie, now takes it upon himself to give Judy a complete makeover with the hairstyle, the ornaments, the make-up and the dress that Madeleine used so that he can \u201cget back\u201d his lady love. He does not feel the need to ask Judy whether she agrees to this makeover. After all, he is a decision maker on what a woman should wear or not wear, how she should speak, how she should braid her hair and all that stuff. Judy turns into putty in his hands though we can see that she is intrigued by the behaviour of a man she feels she had fallen in love with. Hitchcock shows firstly that Judy is prepared to do anything for money and secondly, she is prepared to do the bidding of the man she believes might love her. In other words, the woman is beautiful, but she lacks spine, character and decision-making powers.<\/p>\n

Even the painting of Carlotta in the Legion of Honor Madeleine\/Judy pretends to be mesmerised by is another \u2018object\u2019 meant to excite the audience and also Scottie. Judy as Madeleine pretends to identify with Carlotta. Carlotta, though a painting, is also unstable and fleeting; her face in the portrait differs from that of the figure she becomes in Scottie\u2019s nightmare, and in both, her hair is arranged in the same fascinating spiral style. As D.A. Miller writes in his piece on Vertigo<\/em> in Film Quarterly<\/em> (Winter, 2008-09, Vol. 62, No.2.) that through \u201ca series of shots at the Legion of Honor in which Scottie looks at Madeleine while she is looking at the portrait of Carlotta; he sees the posy at Madeleine\u2019s side, then sees it held by Carlotta in the portrait; he sees Madeleine\u2019s cyclopic coiffure, then sees it on Carlotta, too. These shots seal Scottie into the belief that Madeleine is, or thinks she is, possessed by Carlotta\u2019s spirit\u201d. At the same time, Hitchcock has cleverly reduced the woman in the painting into an object of beauty to be looked at, admired and be mesmerised by.<\/p>\n