Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most well-respected directors Hollywood has ever seen, and it’s no wonder. He took cinema a whole new direction. Even when technology was still rudimentary, he pushed it to the limit with new camera angles, filters on the lens, foreshortening of the shot – it’s something else to sit and watch his films to just observe all the different things he tried with the tools he had to work with. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the film “Vertigo” so much.
Jimmy Stewart stars as John Ferguson, a man who has, until recently, worked on the police force. While chasing a fugitive over the rooftops, his fear of heights and subsequent vertigo caused the slip and fall of a fellow officer, and he can’t forgive himself for the man’s death. He retired from the force and is now trying to decide what to do with his life. He wants to overcome his crippling fear, but can’t figure out how.
An old friend approaches him to follow his wife for a time. He says she’s been acting strangely, as if she’s being possessed by the spirit of her great-grandmother. He asks John to see what he can find out, and, mostly out of curiosity, John takes the job.
The woman’s name is Madeline, and she’s a beauty (Kim Novak). She spends her days visiting her great-grandmother’s portrait in the museum, wearing her hair in the same style as shown in the portrait. She visits haunts that were known to her ancestress, and even attempts her own life, to mirror history. Through all this she’s in a trance, and doesn’t notice John’s not-so-subtle attempts at following her. When he fishes her out of San Francisco Bay, she confesses to him that she’s scared. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her, and he vows to help her figure it all out, but her compulsion to take her own life overwhelms her, and she throws herself off a bell tower.
Ah, but this is a Hitchcock and nowhere near the end of the story. I’m not going to give anything away, but this is a film you must see. The twists and turns are mind-blowing. The only thing I didn’t care for was the nightmare John has – he’s shown with his hair standing on end and purple and orange lights flickering across his face. Not the greatest camera work there. But everything else is sheer genius.
This film was rated PG.