Analysis of Vertigo’s opening sequence
The opening sequence of Vertigo is perhaps one of the finest ever seen in all of cinema. It brings about the main character’s fascination with vertigo and here one can observe James Stewart’s phobias and brilliance in portraying the main character which is Scottie who is a private investigator who suffers from agrophobia which is the fear of heights. The title clip was recorded in 1958 with Panavision cameras.
The shot chosen focuses on Scottie who is seemingly dreaming and is reflecting on his fear of heights. The shot lasts no longer than 30 seconds and is extremely descriptive in more ways than one. We identify with the situation of Scottie who feels the terror of heights and who can really do nothing about it as the fear paralyzes him.
The camera angles focus intrinsically on Scottie and there is what might be termed as a funnel effect which brings about uncertainty and terror. There is also a panning and sweeping across Scottie’s room with the camera angles changing accordingly. One can detect the compression in the opening sequence and this sets the atmosphere for the film which is full of uncertainty and double meanings. The shot also includes some locations in California such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and other landmarks such as skyscrapers et al.
One cannot compare this opening sequence to an advert as these are two completely different scenarios. However there is a lot of advertising jargon which is subtly inserted into the sequence itself and which is instantly recognizable.
The use of the Panavision camera is extremely enticing as this uses colouring effects and luminosity in more ways than one. The colouring is extremely effective for its age and one can almost say that this is demonstrative of a modern film.
Bernard Hermann is perhaps one of the finest movie scorers and composers ever to have walked this earth. His collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock is seen as being extremely important and in films such as Vertigo and Psycho he achieved a certain amount of notoriety for using advanced techniques in his musical scores which made it hard for the audience to accept at first but which also demonstrated that he could wield his influence greatly without any qualms or restrictions.
Herrmann was born in New York in 1911 and studied at the Juilliard School. In 1934 he joined CBS radio and soon graduated to conducting the CBS Symphony Orchestra; it was at this time that he started to compose and conduct music for radio dramas. Within a short time he had moved on to film scores, travelling to Hollywood on the wake of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane in 1941. From the beginning, Herrmann was determined to create something new and different from the swoony, Romantic music practised throughout the 1930s by European emigré composers.
Herrmann felt that the very nature of cinema itself required music, but what marked him out from older film composers was his choice of what to illustrate musically. Rather than
thematic reverences (like a flurry of sea-shanties for a shot of a sailing-ships), he concentrated on the psychological state of the characters, almost to the exclusion of everything else. A Herrmann film score can be dominated not only by one character’s neuroses, but also by a single sound world, such as the monochrome string orchestra
Long stretches of the Hitchcock-Herrmann films have no dialogue, and we find ourselves anxiously watching a single character while the music winds up the tension to an unbearable degree: in Psycho, Janet Leigh drives for hours along the freeway, away from the scene of her theft towards the scene of her abrupt murder, accompanied all the way by the relentless sound of racing
The score for Vertigo opens with a staccato reference to the height theme which recurs quite often in the movie. The themes are more often than not interlinked and also contain an amount of reflection as the strings are also used quite often especially in the manner with which they describe the main characters of the film which are Scottie, the private detective and Madeline, the doomed woman.
The music that opens Vertigo is classic Herrmann: gently spinning in space, it draws the viewer into James Stewart’s dream-like state. But Herrmann also knew when to break out of these repetitions and deliver the winning punch when the film demanded it: at the point in Vertigo when Stewart’s dream seems to have come true, the music blossoms out into an ecstatic expression of love. Another famous example is the sudden outburst of shrieking violins that accompanies the murders in Psycho: so horrific are the events that normal music is forced to give way to inhuman sound.
Probably Hitchcock’s greatest achievement, Vertigo tells the tale of a troubled detective who becomes obsessed with the woman he intends to shadow. Once again James Stewart is a magnificent actor who plays about with the audience especially where it concerns the fear of heights and which is the film’s major strongpoint. The music used by Hermann observes several actions from the film and is almost continuous in certain parts it is also crucial and very important to the whole storyline.
The beautiful Kim Novak is also a central part of the film and the mystery of her disappearance makes the audience constantly yearn for more all the time. Yet again as in Rear Window, Hitchcock plays upon the voyeuristic instincts of the audience who are constantly looking at the film from different angles. This is mixed with the musical staccato effects but when Madeline enters the scene, more often than not, her love theme recurs and shows that there is a palpable scene of emotion in the air
Hitchcock also uses the locations in San Francisco to his advantage especially where it regards deserted monasteries and hotels. The fantasy and obsession with heights is another important apex of the movie which eventually leads us to believe that the woman is dead as she has thrown herself from a bridge. Yet again the music plays a very important part here as it seems to precede what is going on all the time and this shows Hermann’s instinctive facility to pre-empt those pressure points of the film which are the parts when everything comes to the fore.
The audience is also tricked into believing that Judy and Madeleine are different women when in actual fact they are the same. The scene were Scottie uncovers Madeleine’s tombstone in the cemetery is a poignant one as Scottie eventually realizes that he is slowly but surely going mad and without any hope for returning to normality. The innovative camera techniques which are used in Vertigo show that the audience can be captivated and kept in line with certain intriguing effects. Yet again we have an intermingling of themes here with Scottie and Madeline coming close to each other in an indirect way but really through the soul of Carlotta Valdes. The music makes us believe that they are intrinsically the same person although this is not the case.
The various camera angles which are chosen during the opening sequence recur throughout the film as leitmotifs ad everything becomes more clear and apparent as time goes by. One can also compare the voyeuristic aspect to Rear Window which also stars James Stewart and is a similarly informed film which uses the latest Panavision cutting edge techniques.
Rear Window is a film which has a considerable amount of voyeurism in it and also shows that Hitchcock was a master at creating suspense and unbearable tension out of apparently normal situations. The seemingly innocuous pastime of the injured professional photographer played by James Stewart turns into a wild murder chase which is actually played around from the window of his own 7th floor apartment.
The film also includes audience participation on a larger scale which shows that this may be the fulcrum of the film. Hitchcock is a master at involving audiences who may initially seem detached from proceedings but the suspense which is created in Rear Window is hard to parallel. Initially the film is slow and rather boring although with the entrance of Grace Kelly there is also a level of sexual tension which heightens everything accordingly. In fact the audience is almost voyeuristic as it begins searching for the clues of the murder which is happening before their very eyes but where there is no conclusive proof that it actually happened.
The camera angles in the film are also of crucial importance and are tied up in the opening sequence in more ways than one. Principally we have the obsession with heights which is very important throughout the film and we also have the colours which permeate the Madeline sequence through and through. Here one can compare Vertigo with North by Northwest which is another of those classic Hitchcock films which also uses Panavision techniques and colour schemes.
Character studies are also essentially part of the film especially where one is concerned with the lonely athlete who feels rejected and the single man who is actually beside himself with grief and unhappiness. Perhaps it is also a window on one’s life. The film critics such as Wood perhaps disagree between themselves on the nature of the film’s message but it is crucial to note that at the end of the day, Hitchcock wanted to concentrate on the audience who participates in the film in more ways than one. The audience thus has a window on what is happening and this makes them feel important as a crucial part of proceedings. The camera shots are filmed with a 3D dimension thus showing the audience a different perspective of things and almost serves as an observation point in this respect.
The scene at the tower of the monastery is also haunting as here when Scottie experiences agrophobia, he is rooted to the spot as Madeline plunges to her death after running up the steps. We are made to feel Scottie’s helplessness by the camera techniques which are used and the sense of involvement is absolutely unmistakeable. Once again we have Hermann using all sorts of techniques to empathise with Scottie and the scene at the fall is class Hermann with the score becoming all the more anguished by the second.
The film’s twist at the end is also very poignant as Scottie eventually realizes that he has been tricked by his best friend Midge who had already murdered his wife before. The tragic twist of luck that eventually leads to Judy’s death is also part of the film’s vertigo and the audience is left to absorb the shock as everything happens extremely quickly.
Comparing Vertigo to the other classic Hitchcock films such as Rear Window and Psycho shows that the movie is probably the best of the trilogy. The original angles which focus on Scottie’s agrophobia are perhaps not initially appreciated but when the re-enactment of Madeline’s death happens we begin to appreciate everything with a clearer eye.
Works Cited:
The Dime Novel and the Master of Suspense: The Adaptation of D'Entre Les Morts Into Vertigo, By Dan Jones; Published by University of St. Thomas (Saint Paul, Minn.), 2002
Dan Aulier, Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic (London: Titan Books, 1999), p. 30.
Dan Aulier, Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic (London: Titan Books, 1999), p. 51.
Dan Aulier, Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic (London: Titan Books, 1999), p. 61-2.
Patrick McGilligan. Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, ReganBooks, 2003. 547-548
Patrick McGilligan. Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, ReganBooks, 2003. 563-564
Vertigo 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2008.
Vertigo on the BBFC website.
The Best Music in Film from the September 2004 issue of Sight & Sound
Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic, By Dan Auiler, Martin Scorsese, Contributor Martin Scorsese; Edition: reprint, illustrated; Published by Macmillan, 2000 ISBN 0312264097, 9780312264093, page 185
Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco By Jeff Kraft, Aaron Leventhal, Contributor Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell; Edition: illustrated, Published by Santa Monica Press, 2002, Original from the University of California, ISBN 1891661272, 9781891661273
Les Inrockuptibles, Vertigo's, by different journalists, March 1997
Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal, Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco (2002).
