From the Queue: 'Vertigo' (1958)

by Brian Kesler

The first half of Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' is anything but perfect. There are plot holes, pointless sequences, and dropped plot developments. The second half, however, is so close to perfection that it almost makes up for the first half entirely, which is why it's seen as Hitchcock's masterpiece.

Like 'Psycho,' the plot for 'Vertigo' is not what we think it is. This review is abound in spoilers, so if you'd prefer to be surprised, steer clear. It begins as a sort of metaphysical mystery. A man hires a private detective with a fear of heights to follow his wife, whom he believes is occupied with the spirit of a dead historical figure. The detective, Scottie, is Hitchcock's favorite actor, Jimmy Stewart, and the woman has all the attributes of the typical Hitchcock femme fatale. She has blonde hair, pulled up tightly and pinned at the neck. She wears a gray dress-suit. Her face is pale, her eyes are bold. The first time Scottie sees her Hitchcock freezes the camera on her profile. He follows her to a floral shop, to a museum, to a graveyard, a Spanish mission cathedral, and - in an inexplicably stupid scene - to a boarding house. They all have something in common. They all have some connection with the dead Carlotta.

When Scottie follows her to the San Fransisco river and witnesses her jump in, he rescues her and takes her back to his place where they fall in love. Together they try to solve this mystery. He takes her to the Spanish mission, trying to get her to remember something, anything, that might connect her to Carlotta. He's searching for the missing piece of the puzzle. He doesn't find it. She runs to the top of the mission tower and, with his fear of heights, he fails to run after her. She jumps and breaks her neck.

At this point, the movie still has an hour to go. We never get a direct answer to these questions of resurrection, of the boarding house, or the mission cathedral, or of their importance, other than that they are not. After a hallucinatory, abstract nightmare that haunts him with the memories and images of Carlotta, Madeleine, the mission tower, and his extreme case of vertigo, Scottie ventures into the streets of San Fransisco and sees a group of young women and the profile of a girl with anything but Hitchcockian attributes. Still, there's something about that profile.

Her name is Judy. He follows her and tells her she has a striking resemblance to his dead lover. She's cold and haughty and refuses his offer of a date. His sadness, however, compels her to agree finally, and he leaves. She starts packing and writes a letter to him, telling him that she is indeed Madeleine. Woa, what? Confused! She wasn't actually Madeleine, but an actress trained to make Scottie believe she was and be a witness to her suicide. His client had already broken the real Madeleine's neck and flung her dead body out the window of the tower.

It was a remarkable choice of Hitchcock to reveal the secret and all of the twists that come with it at this point in the film and not at the end. She tears up the letter, leaving only the viewer as witness to who she really is. This is not a mystery film, you see. This is a film about a man so obsessed with bringing back his long lost lover that he will take advantage of this girl, manipulate her, force her to color her hair and get her make-up done, force her to dress in Madeleine's clothes and make love with him, everything the way she had done. And she goes along with it because she loves him too.

There is a pivotal point in which she comes back from the parlor. Her hair is the exact silvery blonde it should be, her makeup as subtle and alluring, her gray dress the exact one Madeleine wore. She hasn't done her hair up, however, and Scottie forces her into the restroom to change it. Everything must be exactly as it was. When she emerges from the restroom and Scottie sees her, Hitchcock bathes her in a green light, as though the dead lover has been resurrected from the grave. She smiles and advances, feeding his obsession. They embrace and kiss. The camera circles around them and the background changes to the stable at the Spanish mission as the memories return and Scottie finally has her back in his arms.The expression on Stewart's face is heartbreaking.

Of course, what Scottie doesn't realize is that it actually is her. Hitchcock's pleasure is in letting us watch how Scottie handles discovering what we already know. Without our knowledge of her identity, the final sequence wouldn't be as powerful or as sad.

"Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you exactly what to do, what to say? You were a very apt pupil too, weren't you? You were a very apt pupil! Well, why did you pick on me? Why me?"

That is the heartbreaking cry Stewart yells at the end of the film, when he discovers the woman he loved, the woman he fought to recreate, never existed in the first place. He takes Judy back to the tower and forces her to the top, determined to make it despite his vertigo. At the top, Judy sees a dark figure emerge from the shadows and, overcome with guilt, jumps out the window and kills herself, leaving Stewart alone, confused, and tormented.

By this point in the film, we are at a loss to sympathize with one character over another. It's tragic that Stewart was fooled into falling in love with a woman who never existed and his humiliation over this realization is shared with the audience. However, there is also an element of sympathy with Judy - which is unusual for a Hitchcock film - who we've watched subject herself to the ridicule and torment of Scottie's obsession, all because she will do anything to get him back. At a dress parlor, Scottie makes them stay for hours watching an endless parade of models sporting gray dresses until he finds the exact dress he's looking for. Judy cries and the manager says, "The gentleman certainly knows what he wants." He does. He wants the Madeleine he fell in love with. Even though Judy is the same person, Stewart is reaching for something unattainable. He will never have her back no matter how much he tries, and that is what makes 'Vertigo' a masterpiece.