no
ditto.
I don’t share that opinion.
I’ve always really loved it, but never understood why it’s, more than others, held up as Hitch’s true masterwork. The slow pace doesn’t bring that much to the film (not that it hurts it), the behind-the-back following scenes are excruciating and don’t do anything notable to advance the characters, and he uses a deus ex machina to get the girl outta that hotel. A damn good film, no doubt, maybe even great, but I don’t think its a masterwork.
*the behind-the-back following scenes are excruciating and don’t do anything notable to advance the characters, *
The scenes are a descent into the dream world/past in which the movie takes place. They define the ideal of Madeleine and Scotty’s obsession with her.
Yamamoto,
I had to watch Vertigo multiple times to fully appreciate it. I am sure if you watch it again a year from now
your opinion may change.
What about it didn’t quite work for you, Yamamoto? I always though Vertigo, like The Rules of a Game, was a canonical masterpiece that usually doesn’t jive with viewers who are familiar with the films mostly through their reputation the first time they see them.
I think it’s great
-trying to see what’s so good about it-
Here’s a good capsule summary of what’s good about it:
“It’s nice to see critics accepting Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 commercial flop as a masterpiece; when I first saw it more than 30 years ago it was a neglected film cited by Pauline Kael as a junky Hitchcock demonstrating the absurdity of auteurism. But masterpiece it is: I can think of no film that makes romance more palpable and affecting. As Scottie Ferguson follows Madeleine, the wife of a wealthy acquaintance who has hired him to help unravel the mystery of her wanderings around San Francisco, the city’s hilly topography, a redwood forest, and the seacoast all become metaphors for the illusion of romantic infatuation. Scottie’s obsession moves from seeing women as unattainable ideals to wanting to control them completely, a progression that gives the film, which is mostly made from Scottie’s point of view, a certain creepy unpredictability. The compositions and colors are profoundly alluring—never has Hitchcock’s famously preplanned imagery been more sensual and seductive. But every image is also undermined by a deep instability: sensuous colors, shifting camera angles, and the inward-directed camera movements all create an imbalance that denies the viewer any film ground. The “vertigo” shots—in which Scottie and his view seems to recede and advance at once—make explicit the push-pull that undermines every composition."
“*the behind-the-back following scenes are excruciating and don’t do anything notable to advance the characters, *
The scenes are a descent into the dream world/past in which the movie takes place. They define the ideal of Madeleine and Scotty’s obsession with her."
…as well as cement the audience’s alignment with Scottie IN his obsession to figure out the nature of the mystery. It’s like a training course for how Scottie and our analogous observational patterns will unfold throughout the first half of the movie, all of which is turned on its head halfway through with the reveal of profound privileged information to the audience.
I think the The Birds is a pretty terrible film, and Rear Window, Vertigo, and North By Northwest are really mediocre. Maybe I’m just not a fan of his later work in general other than Psycho, because I enjoyed Strangers on a Train, Rebecca, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), and Blackmail.
“Nice”?
Great art is never nice.
I’ve just watched it again…
4 times in 2 days…
The 1st time I watched was 2 years ago.
I got the thing with the impressionist scenary, I got the complexity of the characters, the judgement that reminds the one from Dreyer’s La Passion de Joan D’Arc (which is a part I really liked), it’s probably the best work of Jimmy Stewart, the photography is excelent, the sound is incredible, etc…
Still, for me, it lacks that thing that Marcel Martin calls the soul of the image.
In my opinion, Hitchcock did at least 5 movies way better than this: Rear Window, Psycho, The Birds, Rope and North by Northwest.
I might have to watch it again in the future to see if I can enjoy it.
It’s not at all like Rear Window, Psycho, The Birds, Rope and North by Northwest. It’s not a coventional thriller, but a gothic romance with thriller elements.
In many ways it’s Hitch’s realization of his dream proect — James M. Barrie’s Mary Rose. This was a play about a woman who comes back from the dead — and the problems it creates for the man who loved her when she was alive.
If any of Hitchcock’s films have soul, this is the one.
It’s always a toss-up if you’re trying to figure out a favorite Hitchcock out of the million masterworks he made. “Vertigo” is something special. It’s in my top 5 films in the history of cinema. There just aren’t enough adjectives to describe all of the beautiful and wonderful things the film does.
Yamamoto, I don’t mean to condescend, but…
You’re 21 years old. Check VERTIGO out when you’re older, with more years and experience of the world and relationships under your belt. It’ll make a lot more sense then.
I think you’re trying too hard. Watching it 4 times in 2 days is too much, when your purpose is to try to force yourself to love it because you’ve read that other people think it’s a great movie. You don’t have to love it-you should reach your own conclusion, and should use the observations and opinions of others as a guide, not a substitute for your own judgment. If you watch it again in a year or two, you will be different and may find different meanings.
When I first saw it, Vertigo was my second favorite movie. Now, there are several other Hitchcock movies that I prefer, because I find it too cold.
It is fascinating to watch Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock’s movies. He went from boy next door before World War II to an everyman with a dark side after the war, and his characters in Rope and Vertigo seem the darkest to me. The romantic obsession from Hitchcock’s point of view is Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine, a woman who he didn’t know and who existed for him only in his imagination. He can’t be satisfied with Judy or Midge, real women who each hope that he will awake from his dream and realize that he could be happy with her.
If you look at it from Judy’s point of view, it is the story of a woman who knowingly lets a man try to change her into someone else that he is obsessed with, although she knows that it will destroy her, because she loves him.
Either way it is a tragedy. Hitchcock seems to think it is the tragedy of a man who cannot attain what he wants, while I think it is the tragedy of a woman who cannot break away from an abusive relationship even though she can see that it will kill her. I still think that it is a great movie, but it seems more painful to watch from her point of view. Stewart and Novak are excellent, and Scottie’s cruelty and Judy’s resignation are heartbreaking, for both of them.
Yamamoto
Hello.
Am I the only one who finds Hitchcock’s Vertigo not that nice?
I mean, the sound is awesome, the direction is great but…
I don’t know… I didn’t like it.
I gave it 3 stars cause it’s not bad, but I didn’t think it’s good either.
I’ve watched it 4 times, trying to see what’s so good about it, but…
I guess it’s just uninteresting.
Does anyone shares the same opinion about this movie with me?