#61. "Vertigo" (1958)

I have rappelled down the side of a tower and a rock-face, I have climbed a 75 foot rope ladder and I have gone 9 stories up the side of a building in a rickety manlift. Even though I know Alfred Hitchock is known as The Master of Suspense I didn’t think “Vertigo” would be able to creep me out very much because I’m not afraid of heights and I’ve always heard this movie plays off that fear. As it turns out, heights are about the LEAST creepy thing about this film.

The movie begins with a flashback of two police officers chasing a perp on foot, jumping from rooftop to rooftop until things go frighteningly wrong. The lead character, Scottie, played by Jimmy Stewart, finds himself hanging on for dear life as he clutches a rain gutter after having slipped on one of his leaps. His partner loses the suspect when he attempts to rescue Scottie and ultimately pays for it with his life when he slips and falls several stories to his death- leaving Scottie hanging (no pun intended).

This opening scene is masterful when it comes to setting the tone for the rest of the movie. It also packs in a lot of obvious foreshadowing and introduces themes that will resurface numerous times. To more dramatic effect though, it uses eerie string music and rapid zooming in/out camera tricks to give the viewer a sort of sickness effect. The last part of the flashback shows Scottie’s perspective of the dead officer, sprawled out and contorted.

The movie then jumps to “present” day-we see that Scottie has somehow survived his incident as he is sitting on the couch of a female friend talking about his retirement plans from police work due to the traumatic experience. At first sight it may seem like he is talking to a psychiatrist as he is symbolically sitting on the couch, but since the woman is sitting at an easel, seemingly preoccupied with what she is painting it is clear that this is a more personal relationship. However, the nature of said relationship is still ambiguous when the woman, Midge, expresses concern for his well being. As the two exchange some borderline flirtatious banter it is revealed that the two were once in a relationship and have remained friends. It is easy to see from her concern for him though that she is likely still carrying a torch for Scottie.

Though he is trying to get out of police work (so as to avoid any other work that may trigger his acrophobia) an old friend of Scottie’s, Gavin Elster, begs him to be a P.I. for him. The assignment would require Scottie to tail Gavin’s wife Madeline (Kim Novak) whom he fears is suicidal and spends all day wandering around San Francisco in a sort of catatonic state, possibly due to depression as she is repeatedly visiting a grave at the cemetery or even possession by a ghost. When Scottie recommends psychiatric help for Madeline, Gavin scoffs and indicates that he would only resort to “that kind of care” as a last resort. This scene is not only a foreshadowing of what turns out to be Gavin’s cold nature but also speaks to the recurring theme of mental illness that reveals itself several times in the film. Mental illness is likened to weakness and inadequacy in such an implied way that it almost explains why Scottie’s fear of heights and post-traumatic stress disorder go untreated and thus become so horribly debilitating.

Scottie declines the assignment but curiosity gets the better of him so he begins to follow her anyway and a beautifully suggested “love at first sight” scene ensues. As his tailing leads to stalking the directorial style becomes both more ominous and ingenious. Split screens show what both characters are doing simultaneously, dramatic music similar to the music in the opening scene plays in between destinations- not only does this hearken back to Scottie’s fearful experience, but it also suggests that something else creepy is happening too. The extensive pursuit scenes are also filmed with no dialogue, leaving the only sound to be the background music or at some points none at all, effectively recreating a mundane stakeout sort of feeling. While there is definitely an artistic value to these various montages, they do tend to run a little long at some points and slow the pace of the film down a little bit.

Based on his observations, Scottie has deduced that Madeline is possessed by the ghost of a deceased socialite and finally confronts her (actually he rescues her from what appears to be a suicide attempt but was actually her baiting him all along) and a secret and shady relationship takes shape.

This is the point where “Vertigo” starts to get REALLY weird. Madeline describes frequent visions of a Spanish church outside San Francisco. Scottie takes her there to face her fear; which illustrates both irony and hypocrisy since he will not do the same in relation to his own fear. What is also fascinating about the setting of a Spanish church is the fact that the rooftop where Scottie had his terrifying incident was also non-coincidentally done in Spanish architecture; a foreshadowing of awful things to come.

A seemingly possessed Madeline races up the stairs to the church bell-tower, Scottie tries to go after her but the vertigo from his acrophobia kicks in, preventing him from going up any more than a few steps. Eventually he sees her body fall to the ground, landing in the same position as the cop who lost his life trying to save him in the opening scene- which of course means the creepy music into play again, as does a the zooming in-and-out effect we saw earlier. A post-mortem trial concludes that Madeline’s death was clearly a suicide and Scottie is cleared of any wrongdoing. Ok, I know I mentioned the last part was when things get REALLY weird, what happens after is when they get downright creepy. I was under the impression that Hitchcock was going to exploit the fear of heights and attack the senses in a carnal way with this movie- instead it is much more psychological and thus much more effective.

”We stood there and I kissed her for the last time, and she said, 'If you lose me you'll know that I loved you and wanted to keep on loving you.' And I said, 'I won't lose you.' But I did!” (Scottie Ferguson, “Vertigo”)

Scottie sinks into a deep depression after Madeline’s death. He breaks all ties with his only real tether to reality, Midge, and begins obsessively stalking Madeline’s old haunts as well as another woman, Judy, who he swears reminds him of Madeline. Amid a whirlwind courtship Scottie slowly begins to transform her into Madeline; first in her clothes, then her hair and even her eating habits. As the disturbing transformation unfolds it becomes clear that a fear of heights is the least of Scottie’s mental issues.

Judy is torn between her lovesickness for Scottie and her own dignity- compounded especially by the fact that she (SPOLIER ALERT) IS Madeline… well at least who Scottie thought was Madeline. Using his astute police work, Scottie determines that Judy was playing the part of Madeline all along so that Gavin could kill the “real” Madeline, who we never actually have seen, by throwing her off the church bell tower, knowing full well Scottie would never actually see this as his acrophobia would prevent him from going to the top. Judy could pull of the switcharoo with Madeline and stand in the shadows while Madeline Version 1.0 is thrown to her death. Scottie would be able to testify that nobody else was there besides them and her recent “attempted suicide” would give credence to the theory that she was depressed and wanting to die anyway, thus making it an open-and-shut case. I half expected either Judy or Gavin to exclaim that they “would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those pesky kids and their dog” but it was not to be.

Instead Scottie takes Judy back to the scene of the crime with dark intentions-so much so that he is able to conquer his fear of heights, which is depicted brilliantly by Scottie ascending the steps to the bell tower with Judy and finally not having that creepy music/zoom effect thing happen to him again when he looks down the stairwell and sees how high up he is. However he has a change of heart when he realizes that Judy has legitimately fallen in love with him, and since he never loved the real Madeline anyway, it’s a no-harm-no-foul type scenario. Unfortunately for the happy, twisted couple, Judy ends up stumbling from the top of the bell tower to her death, and you guessed it, the last image Scottie sees of her is the dead cop/Madeline spread.

Ultimately, the main theme that runs through “Vertigo” is the profound conclusion that nobody is who they seem to be. Obviously Madeline/Judy isn’t, but also Gavin is actually the exact opposite of a concerned husband and even Scottie is far from being any kind of hero or even a real serviceable protagonist thanks in large part to his methodical torture of Judy through his ongoing attempts to bend her into what he wants her to be. In addition it is clear that Scottie is not the kind of friend anyone would want to have as he actively pursues a woman is, to the best of his knowledge, his friend’s psychologically vulnerable wife. However the creepiest element of Scottie’s nature is the one thing that Hitchcock devotes the most time to so that there is no doubt we will catch it; his repeated stalker-like tendencies. Here we have a character who, for all intents and purposes is supposed to represent a victim, though he is depicted through the whole movie as a man who is prone to one of the sickest and most evil forms of mental cruelty imaginable.

The notion that anyone from a cop to a well-off businessman to a woman who is just doing as she is told are capable of the kind of deception that all these main characters practice is spine-chilling when you put it into the context of real life.

Like I mentioned earlier, attacking a person’s basest fears is completely secondary to the unsettling level of psychiatric manipulation that Hitchcock achieves in this picture. This is very fortunate for the narrative since the extremely dated and almost corny “moments of vertigo” scenes are relatively harmless in the big picture. Had these scenes been the basis of the suspense of “Vertigo” then the whole movie would have become obsolete within a decade or so; in other words “Vertigo” sidesteps the danger of being a “Child’s Play” kind of horror movie and instead succeeds in being a far superior “Nosferatu” kind of suspense movie.

Sure this film, like practically any other movie, has its shortcomings; why lift a principle character like Midge, who also represents an edgy, independent career woman out of the picture entirely? How did Gavin know for sure Scottie would take Judy to the bell-tower on cue? How does a police officer have a career as long as Scottie has without having to encounter heights before the traumatizing incident? But even with all these flaws “Vertigo” still manages to accomplish an aim that VERY few movies, especially the ones that are “meant” to, is able to do; LEGITIMATELY creep the viewer out!