“The canonization of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo as the greatest film by all time by Sight & Sound, might seem obvious at first, but there are many reasons it stands out as an odd choice in the Master of Suspense’s filmography. Vertigo plays like many of Hitchcock’s countless great works, but it also might be said to lack the perfective harmony of something like Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, or Psycho. How did Scottie get down from the ledge? What happened to Madeline in the hotel? Where did that nun come from? Not only that, while most of his films are playful, Vertigo is mournful, hypnotic, and often uncomfortable in a way different from the violence that percolates other Hitchcock’s.It is perhaps the most open of his films, inviting theory and interpretation to fill in the gaps raised. As any search of a scholarly film resource would show, almost every single theoretical model of film analysis (auteur, genre, psychoanalysis, feminist, semiotics, and so on) has been applied to the monster.
“I use ‘monster’ because Vertigo is a monstrous film for so many reasons. Scottie, the loveable protagonist played by the usually lovable Jimmy Stewart, slowly turns into a monster, his eyes shooting fire across the screen with burning desire. There is, of course, the “monster creature” of the film, the ghost of Carlotta Valdes that haunts Madeline (another viewing reveals how Hitchcock treats the ghost story with serious and genuine reverence). Finally, the film itself is monstrous; one that cannot be explained, simplified, or discussed without feeling reductive. For as much one can explain how the shots, the score, the acting, the camera movement, and colors, and the dialogue all contribute to making Vertigo the film I see on screen, there is something missing from any description that strikes me deep when I watch the film, an unsettling quality of both desire, longing, and even mourning.
“Vertigo’s monstrous nature and canonization has much to do with the film’s relationship to filmmaking and cinephilia. As Andre Bazin describes in his iconic essay, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, film is only a continuation of the process of preserving and resurrecting the dead, which dates all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. And as Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut, “I was intrigued by the hero's attempts to re-create the image of a dead woman through another one who's alive.” Taken together, Vertigo is about our ability to save the past from extinction, to view what was as of what is. It’s a film that speaks to why and how we watch the moving image, taken all the way to the director who must create his own image of perfection. Scottie demands everything from Judy, just for that chance to see Madeline again. An exact visual representation, tinted with a ghostly presence,finally appears. It’s sealed with a kiss that brings him round and round and into the moment of his past he desires to resurrect. Then the necklace appears, and the dream, just like the film, comes crashing down, leaving the man to stare at his destructive act. Is this Hitchcock’s warning to not only himself but the cinephiles like this? If there was an answer, it wouldn’t be considered one of the greats.”
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