Vertigo is a brilliant piece of work that presents psychoanalytic issue in an efficient manner. Vertigo is a psychological thriller directed by A. Hitchcock. The movie was premiered during sixties and praised by the audience. The director utilized all film elements in a manner to create an impression on the minds of audience. All filmic elements such as sound, color, music makes the movie very remarkable. This paper presents a detailed analysis of movie Vertigo, and how director illustrated psychoanalytical issue in an impressive manner.
Vertigo has great influence of 1920’s art and movies that emphasize on imagination and experiments. Vertigo is a true reflection of the ideal women and one can easily relate her character with ideology. Hitchcock selected Kelly, to live the role of Judy who had great influence on the director. At the beginning of the movie loud sound reaches into the ears as prologue. First scene began where Scottie, a person who is scared of height displaying his guilt due to the death of a person. Scottie is lead actor and hero of the movie (Vertigo).
Scottie presents tension and feels embarrassed because of his fear of height, like any other normal person feel. The overall appearance and style of the hero of the movie gel with story and his personality. The director provided a special identity to the Scottie that seems ideological for his responsibilities. The director in his movies presents the hero in most cinematic and active way. Majority of Hitchcock movies shows that the hero holds all the power, and can dominate anyone. Vertigo is another example that shows Scottie as very active, dynamic and powerful person. The whole story is developed around the hero, and role of female actress i.e. Judy is very limited.
Subjective camera is utilized in the movie, and story informs about what is seen & felt by the hero. Judy is only presenting the flashback in the movie. Hitchcock presents the movie in a way that it directly gets connected with the audience. Audience feels what director wants them to feel. Audience gets fascinated when hero performs an action or showing his feelings (Vertigo). Scottie’s voyeurism is depicted shamelessly everywhere. Hero fancies a woman and starts following her without her agreement, he spies on the women without her permission.
Scottie uses all the tricks to impress the women i.e. Madeleine; he informed her about sadistic characteristics in order to grab her sympathy. However, after meeting with the women Scottie interrogate her, and asked her to please his ego. In the second part of the movie, Scottie again shows his attraction and infatuation towards Judy. Scottie asked Judy to respect him and follow all instructions given by him in order to satisfy his ego (Vertigo).
Madeline was perfect from Scottie’s point of view due to her masochism. Madeline understood the fact that she needs to keep Scottie’s interest alive; however, she did not succeed, and give up at certain point. She got exposed to Scottie and received punishment for it. At some point of time audience get confused because they feel that they are facing all these things personally. Scottie is shown as patriarchal egoistic in the movie who carries ideas and traits of egoistic person.
The director also emphasizes on sexual dissimilarities and presents weak sense of male supremacy. Marnie is another male character in the movie that is quite alike Scottie, and carries all male dominating characteristics. Marnie is wealthy and powerful person who is unable control any wrong thing. Madeline is presented as a strong and attentive woman, who does not like men voyeurism. She raises her objection when finds anything wrong or unethical. She is feminist and does not support vulnerable position of females in male dominating society. She strongly feels that things should change (Vertigo).
Hitchcock conveys his message to the audience through actor and actress of the movie. The director informs audience about male dominating society, and how things should change in order to make the world a better place for women. Story content, dialogues, and words selection are done in very impressive manner (Vertigo). Dialogues in the movie are small but carry a lot of meanings. All actors justify their role by showing acting skills, and expressions.
Hitchcock movies are well known for their dialogues. Dialogues used in the movie are capable of grabbing attention of the audience, and send right message across the audience. Vertigo has several mind twisting lines that are mysterious, but understandable. Acting performed by the performers is very real and expressive. The viewers get connected with the scenes in no time. Overall Vertigo is an excellent movie that does not allow audiences to divert their attention.
Vertigo is memorable work done by Hitchcock. Each and every scene of the movie performs the idea and thoughts of the director. The movie is excellent on all filmic elements such as the story line, performance of actors, dialogues, screenplay, sound, and emotions. Hitchcock did not leave any single aspect for criticism, and brought excellent cinema to the people.
Work Cited
Vertigo. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock. 1958.
