Member review

Vertigo was directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958. It is a film noir psychological thriller. The story was based on a novel by Boileau-Narcejac called D'entre les morts. The film stars a former police detective John Ferguson (Scottie) who is forced into early retirement due to developing acrophobia (A fear of heights) and Vertigo (a false sense of rotational movement). Scottie is hired by an old acquaintance to follow his wife Madeleine, who is behaving strangely supposedly due to being possessed by a dead ancestor. The story is very gripping right from the start as it creates a strong mystery as the viewers and wondering if Madeleine is faking her condition or if she is indeed possessed. The viewers are put with Scottie in figuring this out by piecing together everything they see when Scottie is tailing Madeleine, and seeing if she is only acting. This creates a good hook at the start and pulls the viewer in. Hitchcock uses over shoulder shots and perspective shots to great effect here in enhancing this hook. There were many points in the story when I thought I had it figured out, but then the story would completely turn on it’s head, for example, when Midge thinks that Scottie is in love with Madeleine I thought the movie would go for a liar revealed storyline in which Scottie would fall in love with Midge, but she will keep thinking that he was in love with Madeleine, but the movie quickly changed directions when Scottie falls in love with Madeleine, or when I think the movie is over but then it is revealed that Madeleine or Judy is still alive. This does raise some problems, such as why Judy is still in love with scottie as the movie had led us to believe she had fallen in love with him due to him comforting her because she was possessed. I enjoy movies that keep me guessing a lot, and this movie definitely threw me for a loop. The character’s aren’t very memorable and are overshadowed by the plot, there isn’t a single character in this movie that stuck with me, all of them are very forgettable. The only character that goes through a proper story arc is Scottie, and that story arc is very uninteresting as it is only him overcoming his fear of heights. Other than this the character’s are the same at the start as they are at the end. Vertigo is full of things that don’t add up, but it keeps my attention the whole way through, which is more than what I can say of most movies, but it doesn’t leave an impact on me afterwards as most great movies do.