The Hitchcock Poll

Is there a better thread in which to discuss Vertigo? Watched it last night (working my way through a box set) and was really disappointed. I guess, by the result above, that's about to earn me a pillorying.

I'm not a huge Vertigo fan either. I admire it, in a detached way, but would much rather watch at least four or five others from the list above--not to mention Citizen Kane, which Vertigo may finally overtake in 2012's Sight and Sound poll.

Ha, I was moaning about CK only a few weeks back in another thread.

It's not that I don't appreciate the classics (I think), because I've gone through Rear Window, Psycho, The Man Who Knew Too Much from Hitch alone in the past few weeks (lot of catching up to do, as you can see) and loved every one of them.

I'm not terribly fond of Vertigo either.

Citizen Kane, which Vertigo may finally overtake in 2012's Sight and Sound poll

Man, I am so popping a cork when that happens.

Here's how the gap's been closing since Kane's appearance on the '62 list (just the critics poll for the last two):

1962: Citizen Kane--1st (22 votes)/Vertigo--not listed
1972: Citizen Kane--1st (32 votes)/Vertigo--11th (8 votes)
1982: Citizen Kane--1st (45 votes)/Vertigo--7th (12 votes)
1992: Citizen Kane--1st (43 votes)/Vertigo--4th (18 votes)
2002: Citizen Kane--1st (46 votes)/Vertigo--2nd (41 votes)

It would seem inevitable that Vertigo takes over #1 next time, although there was such a dramatic spike last time, maybe that was something of an abberation and Kane's lead will stabilize. (The Godfather's coming up fast too.)

"aberration"...I cannot get through a single post on this board without a typo or a misspelling.

Any prospect of a left-field entrant, aside from those 3?

i'd have thought mis-spelling tbh btw

The Godfather's strong showing was a cheat. They combined the votes of the first two.

that's a bit...cheeky?

Starts @ 1:37. The Birds, you see, are actually the physical manifestation of Mitch's mother's jealousy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sFqfbrsZbw

I think he's definitely on to something.

I'm not a huge Vertigo fan either. I admire it, in a detached way

Did anyone else catch the irony of this?

I should have mentioned that about GF I/II...I'm an agnostic on that issue; I can see valid arguments for and against. I don't know if there's anything that might make an unexpected appearance in the Top 10 next time. Nothing that came out since the last poll, anyway--unlike the '72 poll, where 8-1/2, Persona, and L'avventura all appeared in the Top 10 within 15 years of release, it seems to take a while now. I think Raging Bull was the most recent film to show some movement last time.

i think 'rules of the game' absolutely deserves the top spot, but i suspect it's condemned to hover just under the contested top 2-3 forever and ever.

My dream would be for the order of the 2002 top 3 to be reversed.

(And for the Godfathers to be counted separately.)

wait why the hell don't people like Vertigo

I don't dislike Vertigo; I just find it a very cold film. I realize that those who love it find it very emotional.

Eric H.: Do you want the Godfathers separated because you think there's a significant difference in quality, or is that you just think counting them together is inherently unfair? For me, they're equally great--sometimes I prefer one, sometimes the other--and, largely because of Pacino, they come together in my mind as a single film. But I think the inherently-unfair argument is a valid one.

Any prospect of a left-field entrant, aside from those 3?

Ingl**rious B*st*rds, when Idiocracy comes true.

I don't dislike Vertigo; I just find it a very cold film.

You do realize that it's interpreted, biographically, as an intensely personal, passionate film by Hitchcock, and he was sufficiently hurt by the lukewarm commercial response that he never risked another of its type?

I understand totally how personal it was to Hitchcock; obviously he had an obsession with finding the perfect blonde, and I'm sure it was personal on many other levels I'm not aware of. I don't react to films through Hitchcock's (or any filmmaker's) eyes, though; I react to them through my own.

I actually think that evaluating Vertigo on how personal a film it was to Hitchcock is just about the weakest argument you can make for its greatness. I assume that the 41 people who named it as one of their 10 favourite films in 2002 had much more personal reasons than that.

but that doesn't make it cold, tho, even if it doesn't hit you on a gut level. xp

Among many things, I partic find Midge's last line moving: "I don't think Mozart's going to help."

I actually think that evaluating Vertigo on how personal a film it was to Hitchcock is just about the weakest argument you can make for its greatness

Exactly. I just don't find it as entertaining as Notorious, Strangers on a Train or Rear Window.

it hasn't got any lousy Ruth Roman like Strangers on a Train.

Soto, I thought you'd have gone for the groovy dressing-the-corpse necrophilia!

Well, it was really more that it was unplausible nonsense, which kept bringing me out of the movie. Performances were all great, it looked fantastic, the cahracters were all taking it very seriously, but... it was too silly, I guess? And, as I've said, that didn't bother me with Psycho or The Man Who Knew Too Much so it's not like I'm too easily thrown by a ropey plot.

Soto, I thought you'd have gone for the groovy dressing-the-corpse necrophilia!

I love the last half hour, but forty minutes of languorous shots of Stewart following Novak and anomic conversations and the corpse starts to stink.

Again (I think it's a distinction worth making), I didn't say it was cold; I said that I find it a cold film, and acknowledged that defenders feel very differently.

I'll give it credit for one thing: it's reputation grows as more and more people see it. When it was fairly high in the '72 and '82 polls, I think it was out of circulation at the time; I saw it for the first time in the early '80s, a pirate screening at a small rep, and I wondered if part of its stature was tied in with its inaccessibility. But since it was officially re-released sometime after the '82 poll, its standing has just grown and grown.

Wasn't RW also out of circulation?

Yeah--also The Trouble with Harry. I saw Rear Window at the same time (possibly even a double-bill); now that film I love, give or take a bit of stilted dialogue between Stewart and Kelly.

I watched RW with my mom this afternoon during my weekly visit -- I can watch it anytime.

RW is still probably one of my 3 favourite films ever - the thing's unstoppable.

One of my favorite shots ever: the close-up on Kelly wiggling the ring, followed by the camera gliding up to Raymond Burr, who shifts his gaze from the ring to Stewart.

Oops: spoiler alert.

or Wendell Corey, Kelly, and Stewart swirling brandy snifters in the evening light.

you know when a director reaches a zone where every single shot is immaculate? yeah that

midge is my favourite character in vertigo - dunno if that means I didn't get the film

it was really more that it was unplausible nonsense

ah, so you're one of 'The Plausibles' Hitchcock sniffed about! :)

forty minutes of languorous shots of Stewart following Novak and anomic conversations

love it all.

Those three '50s films you mentioned, plus Man Who Knew Too Much '56 and Rope, were held out of circulation by Hitchcock and his estate until they were re-released theatrically with great fanfare in '84. You can imagine how maddening how maddening it was coming of age as a Hitchcock fan in the late '70s not to have those films available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phmDP4LSz1Y

I wonder whether this accounts for Pauline Kael's silence. She had something to say on almost every Hitch film from the early thirties through The Wrong Man, then there's a gap between it and Psycho.

ah, so you're one of 'The Plausibles' Hitchcock sniffed about! :)

guilty, guilty. i'm certainly missing something, it seems.

any single frame of rear window would make a great poster.

I've definitely seen a Kael mini-review of North by Northwest

I was in the film program at the University of Toronto when I saw those pirate prints of Vertigo and Rear Window. (No idea how they got hold of them; it was a long-gone rep called the Nostalgic Cinema that seated about 50 people.) This was probably about '82. I have a clear memory of being really excited, and of raising my hand in one course to tell everyone that these two famous and impossible-to-see films would be showing at the Nostalgic. I expected to see virtually everyone from the class there--we were film students, right? Exactly one other guy showed up. Which may or may not say something about people who study film at universities.

I always assumed Kael's silence on Vertigo was disapproval; with only a small handful of exceptions, she didn't think much of Hitchcock's American films. (And even when she liked something, like North by Northwest, she could be very flippant.)

the Kael review of NxNwest was folded into her Cary Grant essay.

SPOILERS

In the long sequence in which Scottie trails "Madeleine," we are led to suspect some supernatural force — reincarnation, ghostly possession, perhaps — as motivating "Madeleine's" strange behavior. But the film disavows such forces by resolving the mystery with a rational explanation, grounding the story in the worldly realm where suspense more naturally results from the indeterminism of free will, as dramatized by Scottie's uncertain choices, rather than the possibility of some karmic comeuppance, irrelevant in its random nature. To fall back on fate after establishing the independence of freedom is a retreat.

is maybe a good explanation of how I felt the ending to be unsatisfactory- the nun popping up out of nowhere and Judy flinging herself out the window felt like an arbitrary cop-out right at the climactic resolution of both plotlines (Madeleine and Judy). Hitchcock all but promises us a reasonable explanation with his unveiling of the 'mystery' element midway through, only to pull the rug under us right at the death.

which might be fine next time i'm watching, but i sure as hell didn't appreciate it first time round. i'll get over it i'm sure.

Strangers On a Train is great, though it really shouldn't SPOILERS have a happy ending.

I wonder whether this accounts for Pauline Kael's silence.

Kael's North by Northwest blurb in 5001 Nights isn't flippant; I may have gotten it confused with her short Rio Bravo entry ("Silly, but with zest..."). I think the fact that there's no Psycho entry in 5001--no review by her in any collection, as I recall--supports the idea that Vertigo's omission is intentional. Obviously she saw Psycho, and I'm quite sure she would have seen Vertigo (and Rear Window) on initial release.

Eric H.: Do you want the Godfathers separated because you think there's a significant difference in quality, or is that you just think counting them together is inherently unfair? For me, they're equally great--sometimes I prefer one, sometimes the other--and, largely because of Pacino, they come together in my mind as a single film. But I think the inherently-unfair argument is a valid one.

If the two had been filmed simultaneously, it would maaaaybe be fair, but even then, not really. Say, for the sake of argument, I think the first one is one of the ten best movies of all time, but I am indifferent or worse to the second one, I sure as hell wouldn't want my vote helping the latter to ascend into the overall list of the top 10 (which it did -- I separated the votes back in '02 and the first one would've landed in slot #10 and the second was, I think, #12).

Strangers On a Train is great, though it really shouldn't SPOILERS have a happy ending.

It doesn't. Heterosexuality triumphs.

Does it? Granger's foxy enough for a lifetime of strangers on trains.

The haste with which he gets up with his woman suggests, if anything, he's forever locked that door and thrown away the key.