a thread for hitchcock's 'vertigo'

this movie gave me nightmares as a kid. didn't rewatch again until about 2-3 years ago, was reminded why it's probably my favorite Hitchcock.

even the muted moments have great beats, even if there aren't as many of them.

i need this on blu-ray

xpost I don't mean the ending as written, the plot. It ends "perfectly." I just mean rhythmically, I find it a little abrupt.

It'd be like if "Psycho" (which has its own problem ending) ended with the reveal of Norman in a wig and mother in the chair, then just splashed "The End" across the screen. Like here, if the end of the movie was right at the 1:30 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHYmNrAFlI

It would work perfectly fine, but would feel just as abrupt.

Hmm, this was interesting:

http://www.alfredhitchcockgeek.com/2007/06/end-according-to-hitchcock.html

Of course, all of Hitch’s films end with a dénouement. But if you blink, you’ll miss it. What’s missing is the feeling of decompression or the restoration of equilibrium that accompanies a lengthier conclusion. Hitchcock consistently cheats us out of that feeling.

pulling Marion's car out of swamp = restoration = return of the repressed

Vertigo ending just looks into the abyss (and perhaps leaps into it)

i didn't know about the alternate Vertigo ending. reading about it, it almost sounds like Hitchcock sort of snarkily made a weak "happy ending".

yeah he didn't give a shit, i imagine him saying under his breath "fuck the Italians"

The link upthread is dead...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJBSSkn0Ldw

if you watch that ending more than once it's in danger of becoming the actual ending in yr head so NO THANKS

Vertigo on blu-ray is what I bought a blu-ray player for lo! these many years. Such a beauty ( the film, not the machine). Hell, think I'll watch this tonight.

They were lamenting the lack of Midge in the last section.

i had noticed this on early viewings. in my opinion: midge is a wholesome love interest, somewhat maternal to johnny, that he rejects, which is why she isn't in much of the second half.

The bell tower scenes....man

I'd love more restaurants to look as plush as Ernie's.

i'm glad that ending isn't in the actual film but i dunno, i'm sort of glad it exists

saw a 70MM print of this last night on a double bill with De Palma's "Body Double" for my birthday and sure enough

the line where theater audiences tend to produce a sickened laugh is "Judy, it can't matter to you."

this happened

Vertigo is one of the few films that does actually get better with every viewing.

had no idea about the alternate ending posted upthread, that's nuts. Excluding Midge from the back half makes it much more removed from reality.

i think "judy, it can't matter to you" prob struck audiences as messed up even at the time

Didn't Cary Grant say something about Judy in one of his films as well?

"Vertigo" is one of my all-time favorites. Thread reminds me that I have to ask for this back from someone who borrowed it years ago and moved provinces. :-/

i wish i liked this movie more. i keep waiting for an epiphany while i'm watching it. nope.

― the late great, Monday, May 13, 2013 12:49 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

saw Vertigo for the first time last night and this is exactly how i feel. time to read some wonky academic essays about it.

do you believe that someone out of the past -- someone dead -- can enter, and take possession, of a living being?

this movie creeps into your soul more than it wows you on first viewing.

agreed, then one day you wake up and

http://images.popmatters.com/features_art/e/ending-vertigo-1.jpg

i think ryan's probably right but i also think a first viewing in the right frame of mind should be more than sufficiently soul-wrenching

^^^ lol DN

1st viewing clicked for me this movie is a mind blowing proto-Mulholland Drive visual tone poem/psycho drama.

https://media.giphy.com/media/RurmdGzFD628E/giphy.gif
https://media.giphy.com/media/WlN3Oz873pKdq/giphy.gif
https://media.giphy.com/media/bryCtjGB4Vt72/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/129ghIFY6s1HEI/giphy.gif

whats not to like about this? at the very least it is stylistic as heck

does flappy bird have any correct opinions

i have been to a bunch, incl the cemetery

https://sf.curbed.com/maps/a-carefully-plotted-totally-stalky-map-of-hitchcocks-vertigo

https://i.imgur.com/kB3vkq6.png

he's a fucking vampire!

(or a projector. or a director)

(repeat of the art museum tableau in which she stares at a two-dimensional version of herself designed by a man while he stands behind her, first as curious audience then as evil auteur)

Rewatched yesterday in DCP theater showing, followed by this:

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-week-green-fog/

There's a very funny meta Michael Douglas ass joke.

a friend the other day: "what's that movie-- the one about the blonde?"

(if we'd already been talking about hitchcofk

--i would have had to have been like lol be more specific, but we weren't, so I was like, ...vertigo?)

Judy's not a blonde

death, tho

First released sixty years ago today

xxp first draft Ramones tune

Lol

More vital and fascinating than any other Hitchcock maybe because it's the one where he seems least in control of the ideas.

― ryan, Wednesday, August 1, 2012 9:22 PM (five years ago)

So otm. I'd say the same about Shadow of a Doubt.

I can get with that. My other fave Hitchcock, Rear Window, is the mirror image, where he's most in control of the ideas.

I'm not sure he's not utterly in control here, just because to Truffaut he led with "He wants to go to bed with a girl who's dead."

I'd say he's more of a loss in Marnie, which many of you like.

of = at

nobody's in charge of the ideas in Suspicion