Vertigo (1958) | Movies To See Before You Die

What makes Vertigo such a powerful movie isn’t its twist, but the core themes and characters that exist at the heart of it. Some movies don’t have the same effect once you know what the twist is, but that’s not the case with Vertigo. There’s infinitely so much to enjoy, and is one of those films that offers something new every single time you watch it.

I first watched Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece in a film class in University. At that point, my only knowledge of film was whatever blockbuster that was playing in my local cinema, or anything entertaining that popped up on cable. Movies at that point were just mere entertainment to be consumed. This all changed with Vertigo. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t get a movie out of my head, which feels fairly apt considering the theme of obsession that inundates the entire tale.

The movie begins with a title sequence built around a woman’s face, which is symbolic to what happens in the film. Scottie – played with everyman greatness by Jimmy Stewart – is a retired detective, forced into retirement due to his acrophobia, a fear that led to the death of a fellow officer. Months later, Scottie has recovered physically but still hasn’t been able to overcome his fear of heights, which results in crippling vertigo. He’s not even able to climb something like a small stepladder without feeling the crushing effects of vertigo. He laments all this to his friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) – short for Majorie – whom he once had an engagement with, which she broke off. Despite Midge’s occupation with her work while Scottie lounges about confiding in her, it’s clear the feelings she still has for him.

What I always love about Hitchcock’s films is how lived in the interiors feel. Midge’s space is cluttered and filled with objects that give us a sense of who she is. Also, we’re able to instantly know why Midge called off the engagement to Scottie, even though we’re never explicitly told. Midge is desperately in love with Scottie, but he doesn’t feel an ounce of the same passion for her. He sees her as a good friend and confidant, and that’s it. She continues to stay in his life in the hopes that his position will change, but we all know it never will.

Scottie is hired by his friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), who believes his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak) is possessed by the ghost of her ancestor. He wants Scottie to follow his wife, either to prove this theory or disprove it. Scottie is initially reluctant to take on the case, given that he doesn’t believe the supernatural theory Elster is so keen on, but changes his mind once he sees Madeleine in the flesh. His first proper glimpse of her is her luminous profile in an emerald dress set against the red walls of the restaurant, and somehow, the red walls make the green more striking in contrast. Green becomes the colour associated with Madeleine, chosen for its association to the mysterious and illusive. Probably the same reason why Fitzgerald chose the green light to capture Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy.

Madeleine’s car is also green, and we watch as Scottie’s pursuit of her leads him down a dangerous path. When she falls into San Francisco Bay, he dives without hesitation to rescue her, and instead of bringing her home, he takes her to his own home. When Madeleine changes into a red robe, we can’t help but notice that Scottie is wearing a green sweater. These colours are paired together again, and we understand that him donning green indicates a desire to be part of her world. The choice of red is meant to reflect the passion that is brewing between them, but red is also a colour meant to signal danger, for both parties involved.

Scottie doesn’t love Madeleine, he’s obsessed with her image and the mystery she’s associated with. After all, he barely knows anything about her, yet is caught up in this desire to rescue her from herself. There is a need within him to play the hero in his romantic relationships, which is why his relationship with Midge remains platonic – she’s independent and self-sufficient and doesn’t need him the way he thinks Madeleine does.

Despite Scottie’s ardent efforts, Madeleine takes her own life, and he fails to stop her because of his vertigo. This haunts him, as this is the second time someone has died because of his fear. He’s plagued by nightmarish dreams and has to be checked into an institution. He cannot get Madeleine’s image out of his mind, so when he finds a woman who looks like her, Judy, he is driven to completely remake her into Madeleine. Judy fights this transformation every step of the way, but nevertheless still bends to Scottie’s will. Why? Well, it’s a combination of guilt and love. She’s the one Elster hired to play a counterfeit version of his wife, and Scottie was following her around this entire time, instead of the real Madeleine. So there’s guilt here in the part she played. She also fell in love with Scottie when she was not supposed to.

Judy is remade into Madeleine not once but twice: once by a man who used her to commit murder, and a second time by a man who used her to satiate his obsession. The film highlights here how women are used by men as mere objects, for their own desires and purposes. Because it is the image he coverts, not the real woman, it is then Scottie’s fate to lose both. We notice that his anger and fury at the end is not because she duped him, but that another man molded her before he did. There can be no happy ending for either Judy or Scottie. In this moment she realises he will never love her for who she is, while he despairs that his dream is lost forever. She is then discarded, a victim of the male gaze, as she falls to her death.

To experience vertigo is to feel dizzy and off-balance, much like the experience of falling for someone. We see then that both characters are equally plagued by their own form of vertigo, and suffer incessantly because of it. Because the story is told from Scottie’s perspective, we are mostly privy to his suffering, and sometimes forget how Judy suffers too. She is in agony because of what she’s done to him, but also made to feel the torment of loving someone who can never love her back. It is the ticking time bomb that governs male-female romantic relationships: how much of that love is real, and how much of it is illusive? We sometimes accept illusive love because we feel that it is better than no love at all, but really, the inverse is true.

Judy would have been better off without Scottie. She made the mistake of letting him in, and that cost her her life.

READ NEXT: The Godfather (1972) | Movies to See Before You Die