a thread for hitchcock's 'vertigo'

my favorite dave kehr capsule:

One of the landmarks--not merely of the movies, but of 20th-century art. Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film extends the theme of Rear Window--the relationship of creator and creation--into the realm of love and sexuality, focusing on an isolated, inspired romantic (James Stewart) who pursues the spirit of a woman (the powerfully carnal Kim Novak). The film's dynamics of chase, capture, and escape parallel the artist's struggle with his work; the enraptured gaze of the Stewart character before the phantom he has created parallels the spectator's position in front of the movie screen. The famous motif of the fall is presented in horizontal rather than vertical space, so that it becomes not a satanic fall from grace, but a modernist fall into the image, into the artwork--a total absorption of the creator by his creation, which in the end is shown as synonymous with death. But a thematic analysis can only scratch the surface of this extraordinarily dense and commanding film, perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema.

i am kinda incredulous that anyone prefers 'strangers on a train,' one of his most mucked-up films. the only one i might like better is 'rear window.'

My top five:

Notorious
Rear Window
Rebecca
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest

perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema

Maybe--maybe not. Welles, Chaplin, Ford, and Capra--just to name four that come to mind--surely had films just as personal. (Which I don't think is that important when responding to films anyway. Stanley Kramer's films were very personal too.)

i guess mine would probably be:

vertigo
rear window
the 39 steps
notorious
suspicion (or rebecca -- can't decide)

Psycho and Rope are my favourites. the favourites of someone who deserves nothing at all.

Rear Window
Shadow of a Doubt
Psycho
The Lady Vanishes
The Birds (iffy...I voted for it in the horror poll, then had second thoughts)

Yeah, North by Northwest instead of The Birds. And Psycho #2.

Strangers On a Train has great stuff in it, but c'mon, Ruth Roman-Farley Granger scenes are the pits.

also intensely personal: The Nutty Professor

vertigo is obvs the best one

c'mon, Ruth Roman-Farley Granger scenes are the pits.

at the bottom of that pit is Kim Novak "acting."

and Ruth Roman boasts superb Groucho Marx eyebrorws

I could be persuaded that this was his best, definitely. Vying with Rear Window, I think. Though I have many many gaps in my Hitchcock knowledge.

Kind of happy we live in a world where something as crazy and weird and just unhinged as Vertigo is considered canon "best of all time" material. Love it. More vital and fascinating than any other Hitchcock maybe because it's the one where he seems least in control of the ideas.

i genuinely don't understand the objection to novak's performance! who would have done a better job?

Actually, that's the one thing I do love about the film: its audaciousness. Just the idea that he took what I assume was a blank cheque from the studio and made this. (xpost)

yeah Alfred, i thought I carefully explained the value of Novak's casting! cheeeee!

Yeah I worry it's status will blind new audiences to how nuts it is. They will expect some austere cool masterpiece and that's not the appeal at all to me.

Novak's performance reminds me that this is one of those films whose flaws seems to resonate. Tho I always did think Vera Miles looked pretty hot in those test photos.

Novak IS well cast but so are Roman and Granger.

but the roles are boring. They kinda had to be cuz Hollywood was not ready for Highsmith.

i do love the first half of 'strangers,' and the ending, but it just feels like there's so much held back.

notorious uber alles

that is my personal fave, but i think vertigo is better. whatever that means.

Vertigo's my favorite by far, and that doesn't diminish his other great movies by any means

Ugh you people. North By Northwest is the WORST!

I'm perfectly fine with settling on Notorious or Rear Window as his masterpiece if not Vertigo, but just stop trying to make Northwest happen.

gay panic

Hate fuck.

(In any case, at least Vertigo doesn't have a queer villain.)

Ugh you people. North By Northwest is the WORST!

― Eric H., Wednesday, August 1, 2012 10:09 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

worse than topaz???

I mean, if someone makes the case for Topaz being Hitch's masterpiece, maybe I'll relent.

fortunately Hitchcock, like the other Old Hollywood Masters, made a bunch of terrible movies for auteurists to revie.

I'll say.

http://ochmonek.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/northbynorthwest.jpg

as David Edelstein wrote today, NxNW "is too much fun."

(oddly left off "for Eric")

really dude, do you hate The 39 Steps too?

definitely prefer notorious, on some days might prefer marnie. love nxnw but c'mon (do prefer that score though). vertigo was one of the ones that was out of circulation right? morbs you're old enough to remember that period - was it really that hard to see them? as great as it is i do wonder how much of a role that lost treasure aspect plus the super prominent 90s rerelease (first s&s poll after that is the first where the hitchcock vote noticeably unifies around one film iirc) played in burnishing rep.

Schools may have shown it and some bootleg prints were apparently available in the years it was withdrawn, but I never had the opportunity to see it til the '84 re-release.

When I finally watched Black Narcissus a few years ago I was surprised by how much Vertigo seemed to have borrowed from it, especially the crazy climax. The nun at the end of Vertigo almost seems like a deliberate reference.

really dude, do you hate The 39 Steps too?

Nope, that's all good. The Lady Vanishes is even better.

I did debate including T39S in my top five.

i could probably watch '39 steps' once a week. it's pretty much the perfect movie.

Plays well projected on the walls of gay bars, tho maybe not quite as good as Sabotage.

vertigo in 70mm or gtfo

so, what about The 39 Steps isn't utterly improved in NxNW?

gay villains are awesome btw

The 39 Steps is trim, isn't bloated, doesn't bend over backwards to shoehorn in irrelevant setpieces, doesn't include among its cast members Cary Grant. Nice opening credits, tho.

xpost you should know, right?

doesn't include among its cast members Cary Grant.

what the.

nearly came to blows once with a friend who insisted that grant was a bad actor. well, not to blows, but we both yelled a lot.

Scotty is one sick fuck

turns out Maddin put The Green Fog up for free on Vimeo six months ago

Wow

yeah! so good

omg thanks sic

Awesome! Good work sic

was I too high when I re-watched this for the first time in 10+ years last night or 1) does the lighting in the scene at the Argosy book shop actually gradually dim throughout the scene and 2) are they driving on the "wrong" side of the road both times they drive to the bell tower?

1. Yes https://alfredhitchblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/vertigo-deconstruction-of-a-scene-argosy-book-shop/

Saw 1958's Bell, Book, and Candle listed on TCM over the weekend, didnt get a chance to watch it but looking to catch it this week. Posting here bc wiki sez: "It stars Kim Novak as a witch who casts a spell on her neighbor, played by James Stewart"... wtf! Surprised I never heard of this, anyone seen it? Is it the rom-com companion to Vertigo that it sounds like?

Yes, it's charming (no pun intended) and it features a cat named Pyewacket, you can't go wrong

I only saw this for the first time last night (the list of films I haven't seen would make people on ILF blush and turn away, I suspect). Damn but I can't stop thinking about it. I'm unsure about Novak - there's a blankness there but it feels deliberate and stylised: she's a vessel or a plaything that various men manipulate and distort. The analogue for Hitchcock is pretty clear.

So many great scenes but the scene with the sequoias is running round and round my head. And the line that jumped at me was (if films are Rorschach then...): "Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere."

I keep thinking about this today. It's impossible coming to such a revered film (a film that comes at you out of a bathroom, cloaked in neon mist) - such that I already want to watch it again, now that I've got the first watch out of the way. The thing that keeps coming to me is James Stewart's eyes - how much acting he does with them. There is a moment in Ernie's, the first time he sees Judyline, when a look almost passes between them, that is all eyes: after the fact it's clear that he'd fallen for her, and she was trying to tell him (tell might be too strong a verb - suggest, insinuate).

As a couple of people have said, I want to eat in Ernies. All that red though - like a restaurant in the Tanz dance academy.

Good posts, Chinaski!

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/robert-downey-jr-vertigo-remake-paramount-1235563018/

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/272/014/e6a.jpg

No. Just no.

imagine if it's terrible and people watch it as a joke and it becomes more well known than the original with a generation of people.

Rewatched for the first time in a long while, because my wife and kids had never seen it. My wife liked it but was skeptical of its claims to all-time greatness — "Not even the best Hitchcock," she said. The kids were mostly kind of baffled, my oldest objecting particularly to the fact that by the end there are no sympathetic characters in sight. His most telling comment was, "I don't know, it made me uncomfortable." I said, don't you think it was supposed to? He said, "Maybe, but I didn't like feeling that."

I do think it's great, and also uncomfortable. Mostly it's a really strange film. It never loses its eeriness, even once you get the reveal of Judy's complicity. It's like the film has conjured ghosts and loses control of them, it stays haunted. Also this was the first time I'd watched it since Twin Peaks: The Return, and it reminded me how much Vertigo is embedded in the Twin Peaks DNA.

Cool. Feel free to watch THE GREEN FOG when you get a chance.

turns out Maddin put The Green Fog up for free on Vimeo🕸 six months ago

I always wonder if Vertigo, (or the book it was adapted from, which I haven't read) was drawing in some way on this Capek short story.

https://openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu/premedical-society/2020/10/29/karel-capek-vertigo/

Huh! Good little story, and definitely seems like it could be related.

It'll never be my favorite Hitchcock.

Same; it'll always be my second- or third-favorite

I have too many I need to revisit to have a solid ranking. Vertigo's in the top tier. And I think it's distinct — obviously it shares a lot of obsessions with other Hitchcocks, but its vibe is specific and odd.

What are the chances that "Mad Men"'s Matthew Weiner had this film in mind when he created his own character named Midge, who was herself an illustrator/painter?

Very good. I'd never even considered that.

Oh, good call on Midge in Mad Men. I mean, the Mad Men opening montage of the silhouette guy falling is a direct Vertigo reference, right?

I think Vertigo is a great art installation and a middling movie. Your oldest kid is right!

It's an interesting question whether it's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. Hitchcock wanted his audiences to feel scared, sure, but he was also firmly on the entertainment side, I think if you had suggested to him he was trying to challenge his audience he'd have reacted with disgust. He's def using Jimmy Stewart for shock value in the way everyone's described, but does he want the audience to be freaked out by him? Or to relate to him, while still feeling weirded out by the turns the film takes?

Well, it explains why the film was a box office disappointment.

Yes, and Hitch saw it as a failure because of that. So I don't think his intention was to alienate people.

Most directors make a film which departs quite a bit from what they have been doing.

Saw "Make way for Tomorrow" (McCarey) yesterday and you can see the comedic touch that he displayed in "Duck Soup" which ultimately served other, more tragic, ends and ended up bombing at the box office.

I think this is where auteur theory can really fail as often directors aren't in control, is how I break it down

Oh they often aren't but I think Hitchcock absolutely was throughout the 50's.

Amusing to imagine Hitchcock crafting *that* ending and thinking he had a box office success on his hands.

Yeah I mean, it's hard to say his intention wasn't to alienate people when he a.) abruptly shifts the POV from Scottie to Judy in the last section, and b.) makes Scottie more and more unlikable and crazy right up to the end. Basically daring audiences to follow along. Which was part of his bag of tricks anyway, confounding expectations — but maybe in Vertigo he went farther than the audiences were willing to.

Yeah what I doubt a bit is that Hitchcock viewed the "unlikable and crazy" behaviour of Stewart's character through the same lens we do now; I think he probably thought this dare was less of an ask than we think.

Anyway apparently his own reasoning for why it failed commercially was that Stewart was too old, which, that's a factor but hardly in anyone's top5 haha.