What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here:http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Vertigo is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#61)
100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#18)
100 Years...100 Passions (#18)
25 Film Scores (#12)
The Revised Top 100 (#9)
10 Top 10's (#1 Mystery)
I warn you gentle reader: this is going to be a highly unpopular review. Prior to this current incarnation of serious AFI viewing, I had seen Vertigo once before and had determined that this was my least favorite Alfred Hitchcock film to date. I walked into this revisit (instantly on Netflix) with as open a mind as I could muster – and have concluded that I feel the same way about this movie as I did the first time I watched it. This may be troubling to some, as Vertigo is widely considered Hitch’s masterpiece. In fact, the AFI’s re-rank of this film is one of the largest rank jumps on the Revised list (third only to City Lights and The Searchers). As a satisfying story, which is one of my primary biases toward any film I watch, I find Vertigo to be somewhat convenient and trite. Those who love the film make much of the mid-movie reveal that changes the film from an alluring mystery of possibly paranormal proportions to a disturbing psychological thriller of one man’s obsession with a woman that does not exist. The problem is, these reveals happen in such a jarring way, they feel rushed and unsatisfying. The mid-movie reveal, in particular, made me think both times, “Well, that’s convenient.” Hitch repeated this pattern in Psycho, and it was far more satisfying in my eyes and executed in a more seamless two-act fashion than in this first attempt. I’ll get to that in a minute.
Vertigo features one of Hitch’s go-to leading actors and one of my favorite actors too. Jimmy Stewart plays John “Scottie” Ferguson, a detective who discovers during an opening cat-and-mouse chase that he has acrophobia (the fear of heights) and a resulting vertigo condition (the accompanying dizziness and lack of balance ensuing from such a fear). The loss of balance and sudden freezing sensation he experiences causes him to be unable to prevent a colleague from falling to his death, and Scottie’s guilt prompts him to retire from the police force. Scottie, however, is contacted by his old college friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), who commissions him to follow his wife Madeline (Kim Novak) to the mysterious places to which she travels. According to Elster, it seems that the ghost of a dead woman, her ancestor, has possessed her, and that this ancestor was prone to madness and ultimately committed suicide at the age of 26, Madeline’s apparent age. Scottie reluctantly takes the job and follows Madeline to various places of interest in 1950s San Francisco according to the habits of her ancestor, but his professional distance is compromised by a growing love uncharacteristic of the otherwise confirmed bachelor after he saves her from a suicide attempt via plummeting into San Francisco Bay at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. As he trails her to what seems an inevitable conclusion, tragedy strikes again, complicated by Scottie’s vertigo, and this tragedy is the catalyst for what becomes something of a whole other movie, challenging the viewer’s notions about the characters up until that point and bringing the Scottie character to a riveting if disturbingly dark place.
Ok. Brace for impact. I will try not to spoil this film for those who have not seen it. Vertigo is not a bad film. The story itself is intriguingly original, and even the fact that the story changes direction in a completely 180-degree, harum-scarum, unexpected way makes the film unique, even to Hitchcock’s filmography, since Psycho does not necessarily change direction as much as jump to a parallel track and progress from that jump. My trouble with Vertigo is that this twist arises from a convenient plot device that seems almost too convenient for anything ever offered in a Hitchcock film. Spoiler: The viewer barely has time to process the fact that Scottie is starting to see visions of Madeline in another woman again, and that his obsession is spurring him to ask questions, before this other woman offers a bit of plot exposition while writing something of a Dear John letter that she never sends to him that suddenly explains her appearance in the film to begin with. This is the kind of plot device that I, personally, would expect from another film director, a lesser film director, and I, literally, sat watching the film and said, “Seriously?”
Now, the second half of the film, the psychological and emotional-thriller half of the piece is probably less interesting than the first half. The mysterious dead-woman possession portion presents a puzzle that almost cries out to be solved, and this first half holds the viewer’s attention, particularly mine, enrapt. In fact, this mystery hits a strident chord when the mid-film tragedy strikes, because there is a palpable fear that the mystery will not find resolution, which is why the trite addition of the mid-film explanation feels so anticlimactic and, frankly, disappointing. The psychological thriller portion of the film lacks the mystery of the first portion; the primary appeal of this portion is that Stewart is playing a character against type, as his obsession descends into disturbing dimensions and, eventually, something like the madness in which he thought Madeline found herself in the first half of the film. This new direction, and the new information, may turn the viewer’s preconceptions about the characters on their heels, but, again, the resolve of these twists and turns is an ending that feels too pat, too convenient, and offers seemingly no satisfaction for the Scottie character, even as he is struggling toward redemption and the assuaging of his guilt.
These are my feelings, and I can’t help feeling them. I also know that I’m not alone in this view of Vertigo – there are better executed twists in many of Hitch’s films, including in North By Northwest and in Psycho – and so, therefore, I struggle with the AFI’s re-ranking and the wide critical acclaim that this film seems to inspire. To be fair, I watch films as less of an intellectual film student than as a pure, plebian film fanatic, and if I don’t like something about a film, regardless of any high-minded reason for the something, it’s going to detract from my overall enjoyment of the film.
What’s great about Vertigo, though, is the fact that Stewart does get to stretch his otherwise tried and true acting chops through a character that becomes wholly dislikable and creepy. That novelty alone makes Vertigo worth the watch. In addition, this may be one of Bernard Hermann’s best scores. North By Northwest’s score is more fun to play on a violin, but the overall illustrative technique of the Vertigo score is unmatched. This score I feel should be ranked above the score for Psycho, but then again, what do I know? I’m not a member of the American Film Institute.
I’m also not overly fond of Kim Novak, but this is a minor point. It’s probably the twists and turns of her character that prevent the viewer (or me) from truly subscribing to her performance, because it’s not a character designed to foster a connection to the viewer. She’s meant to be an enigma from start to finish, and I would guess that she played the part as good as any, though I wonder how an actress of the caliber of Ingrid Bergman might have handled the part in her stead. Ingrid was probably too old by the release of this film, and, of course, fans of film and/or Hitchcock will never know.
In the end, though, I have very mixed feelings about Vertigo, and I’m sure many a Spouter will cry foul. Whatever. I’ve given Vertigo two attempts, and I still like most of the other Hitchcock films I’ve seen over this one for exactly the reasons I’ve stated. As a storyteller who also appreciates the art of storytelling, I find more than minor flaws with the telling of this particular story; they’re forgivable in light of the originality of the piece but are ultimately unsatisfying in the end, and that’s where the ultimate disappointment lies. After considering these points and trying to be fair with the ranking, I’ve landed on a 7 for Vertigo, representing shaky but entertaining – although, even entertaining is a relative term. Vertigo is a long and slow movie, but it is consistently long and slow, and the first portion of the film, the unusual mystery of Madeline, is the film’s hook, line, and sinker. As to the test, Vertigo does not pass. I do not plan to own Hitchcock’s entire collection, only the films I enjoy the most, and frankly, this film does not qualify. I invite anyone else interested in Hitchcock and this film not to overlook it, though. The disagreement about Vertigo is not new, since many critics did not like it upon release either, and each new viewer should formulate his or her own opinion for him or herself, rather than base any potential opinions on the judgments of amateurs like me J.