11 Dec Vertigo (1958)

Two Dizzy

One really has to separate the idea of this film from its execution. I think the idea is terrific and the execution wobbly at least by today’s standards.

First, the story, which is clever and self-referentially about the making of itself.

Initially, we are shown the female lead’s eye and told that there are spirals within spirals concerning that eye.

Then we have a prolog that tells us that the person you expect to fall isn’t the one that does, and that the overriding driver here is guilt.

Act 1 starts with a `Thin Man’ type bantering couple as a blind. But the detective format is by steps perturbed. It quickly happens that our detective falls in love with a clearly deranged married woman who kills herself by jumping off a tower.

Act 2: wracked with private and public guilt, our detective is beaten. He is literally put into the looneybin. After a year, he discovers a girl similar to his beloved. Completely obsessed, he becomes ‘filmmaker’ and casts her in the role of his unforgettable love. At the end of Act 2, we discover that she really was his lost love and was acting then. Now she has to act as if she never acted, while playing the role he ’writes.’

Act 3 has the focus on her balancing the reality of one created self with that of another created self, and interacting with our hapless detective who is part creator, part witting viewer and part unwitting viewer in the play.

The denouement comes with his realisation of part (but not all) of her act and her (accidental?) fall from the same tower and the forthcoming guilt that implies.

The ‘detective’ as both discoverer and director and at last writer.This is an incredibly rich construction, especially considering the period and the restrictions of the studio system. It has lots of folds for our actress to play one of her several personae off others and for the ’detective’ viewer/creator to be baffled by moving among layers of creation and reference. Lots of opportunities to have the ‘acting’ be movie-like, for instance in Judy’s first appearance as Madeleine but pretending not to be Madeleine, where Hitchcock has her emerge stalking from a green fog.

But now to the actual realisation as a film. The reason we love Hitchcock is because he invented the notion of a camera eye that moved with curiosity, and he was able to use this as a central element in the narrative. It isn’t exactly a new visual grammar but it was revolutionary then and common practice today. But that revolution isn’t employed in the service of this wonderful narrative. What we have are just two remarkable shots, neither anything like the ‘goodbye Babs’ shot in’Frenzy.’ The first is the explanation of the murder: we have to be impressed by the economy by which we are told how the murder was done. Only a couple seconds of images.

The other image is the first appearance of Madeleine in Eddie’s Restaurant. This is such a rich construction that Peter Greenaway was to expand it into an entire film all by itself, complete with ‘green’ and ’red’ worlds, ‘The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.’ It deals with just this same shifting in and out of actor and role denoted by kitchen and dining room.

There are a few other competent shots too, but nothing of the brilliance of eye and narrative we saw in ‘Rear Window.’ In fact, the production is rather poor once one gets past the colours, interiors and costumes. The key problem is that a narrative this complexly folded needs real actors. And not just ordinarily good like Tony Hopkins, but that rare kind who can present several dimensions at once, like Sean Penn and Julianne Moore. What we have here are pretty slim talents made worse by working for a guy that demands ‘just stand here and say these words the way I tell you to say them.’

Even played without all the dimensions (which is to say `old style,’ before Brando), Stewart can only go as far as befuddlement. Novak is decidedly a lesser talent whose only qualification so far as Hitchcock is concerned is her one look. By today’s standards, those horsey eyebrows look ridiculous.

And so does all the cheesy backprojection.

Watch this because Hitchcock was an intelligent film mind and he had an amazing idea. He didn’t pull it off here, but this still earns my ‘four’.

Posted in 2002

Ted’s Evaluation — 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

IMDB