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Vertigo
(1958)
In director Alfred Hitchcock's perplexing, necrophiliac-tinged
thriller about obsession - arguably his most
complex, most analyzed, compelling masterpiece:
- the dazzling credits sequence,
with Bernard Herrmann's score, visualized a fragmented and shifting
image of a woman's blank and expressionless face; first, an enormous
close-up of the lower left portion of her face, then her lips,
then her frightened eyes darting left and then right, and then
a straight-on closeup of her right eye as the entire screen took
on a bright reddish hue; the title of the film "Vertigo" zoomed
out slowly from the depths of her widening pupil; spiraling, vertiginous,
animated designs (of various configurations and shapes) replaced
the closeup of the iris, and the remainder of the credits played
over a black background after the pupil was entered and the eye
faded away
- in the opening's rooftop chase scene, plain-clothes
SF police detective (later identified as John "Scottie" Ferguson
(James Stewart)) and a uniformed SF policeman (Fred Graham) were
pursuing a criminal-fugitive; the chase ended with Scottie hanging
from a gutter; he had become frozen by his debilitating fear of heights
(acrophobia) - he looked down many stories into the deadly abyss
below and experienced a dizzying sensation called vertigo (symbolized
by dizzying trick camerawork (a reverse zoom, dolly-out) visualizing
the vortex; Scottie watched in horror as his fellow officer tried
to assist him and fell to his death
- Scottie was helped to recover with his longtime
friend and ex-fiancee, Marjorie "Midge" Wood (Barbara
Bel Geddes), an artist (and fashion illustrator) who was in unrequited love
with him
- Scottie, now semi-retired,
was hired by his old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore),
to trail his potentially-suicidal and possessed wife as she wandered
around San Francisco (Elster asked: "Do
you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter
and take possession of a living being?") - Scottie experienced
his first view of her in Ernie's Restaurant - a striking half-profile
view of the face of ethereal, lovely, elegant blonde Madeleine
(Kim Novak)
Scottie's Stalking of Madeleine
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Profile of Madeleine (Kim Novak) in Restaurant
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Art Gallery
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Golden Gate Bridge Rescue After Attempted Drowning
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- Scottie continued to stalk after Madeleine,
and followed her into the art gallery at the California
Palace of the Legion of Honor where he found her hypnotized, motionless
and trance-like in front of a portrait painting of a woman named
Carlotta Valdes, her ancestor's portrait; Scottie noticed that
her single lock of swirling (vertigo-like) hair and hand-corsage
bore a striking resemblance to the bouquet and hairstyle in the
painting; Madeleine's obsession with her
tragic ancestor Carlotta Valdez intrigued Scottie
- Scottie rescued the suicidal Madeleine at the Golden
Gate Bridge, when she tore and threw flower petals from her Carlotta-like
nosegay into the water, and then jumped into the cold waters of the
bay
- Madeleine recovered in Scottie's apartment, where
he took care of her, gave her a red robe to wear, and became
entranced and bewitched by her
- they took a car trip together
to the evocative, centuries-old redwood sequoias; in a dark, moody,
giant redwood forest, in the filtered, impressionistic light of the
woods where they wandered, she spoke about the ancient, towering
trees over 2,000 years old - and how they reminded her of her own
smallness and mortality; he noted: "Their true name is Sequoia
sempervirens, 'always green, ever-living'"; while pointing toward the concentric,
spiraling rings in a cross-section of the stump of one of the felled
trees in a display showing thousands of years of history (historical
events, wars and treaties from 909 AD to 1930 when the tree was cut
down), she indicated with a black-gloved finger the place where Carlotta's
life had spanned a short period of time - she enigmatically traced
the times of her birth and her death in one of the film's key speeches: "Somewhere
in here I was born. And there I died. It was only a moment for you,
you took no notice"
- in the next sequence, Madeleine begged him to take
her to "somewhere in the light" and they appeared on a
Monterey Bay ocean cliff next to a classic Monterey pine; after telling
him about a disturbing, ambiguous, symbol-filled dream, she became
frightened and ran down the rocks to the water's edge where waves
crashed in; he chased after her and they embraced - and he pledged
to protect her forever: "I'm here. I've got you...All the time!"

Kissing with Madeleine by the Ocean
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Driving to Spanish Mission
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Madeleine: "There's something I must do"
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- Scottie and Madeleine drove and
visited San Juan Bautista's Spanish Mission, about 100 miles south
of San Francisco - hoping that visiting the real-world California
mission would end her nightmares, cure her fears, dispel the dream's
power, or prompt her memories; when they arrived, they kissed and
he confessed: "I love you, Madeleine"; she glanced across
the courtyard toward the mission's church and bell tower, hurriedly
confessed her own love for him, became frantic ("There's something
I must do...It's too late!"), and ran from him; she climbed
up the bell tower's crude, winding and rickety wooden staircase,
and as he followed and climbed after her, his acrophobia and vertigo
slowed him as he ascended the spiraling stairs
- at the top of the tower, Scottie heard a shrieking
scream as a gray-clothed body resembling Madeleine's was seen through
a side tower window falling to her death far below; Scottie looked
down through the tower opening and saw a still body lying dead on
the adjacent rooftop below - Madeleine had apparently committed suicide
- the disturbed, depressed and distraught Scottie suffered
vivid nightmares following Madeleine's death - real nightmares, flashing
lights, vivid, and shattered, exploding images, and a vision of a
bottomless pit accompanied by a frightening silhouette of his body
falling into the mission roof
- haunted and obsessed with the dead woman, Scottie
experienced his first view of a Madeleine look-alike on the street
outside the flower-shop; in profile - a dark, red-haired woman was
wearing a tight green sweater dress, and was identified as shopgirl
Judy (also Kim Novak); Scottie increasingly manipulated, reshaped
and remade her into the dead Madeleine's image
- in a magnificent dream-like scene in her hotel
room, Judy emerged from the bathroom in a sickly neon green
light - transformed completely into Madeleine as the camera swirled
around them during a series of kisses
- then came a striking moment when Scottie was attaching
a necklace around Judy's neck, and he realized that Judy was Madeleine
(imagined in a momentary flashback of the necklace in the portrait
and Madeleine gazing at it from a museum bench) -- he suddenly knew
there was no Madeleine, and that he had been tricked by Elster
- while trying to recreate the past, they traveled again
to the mission, where Scottie asked agonizing questions as he dragged
Judy into the mission and up the stairs of the mission tower during
a second visit, to recreate the death scene of chasing Madeleine
earlier when he had experienced his acrophobia and vertigo; Scottie
asked agonizing questions as he dragged Judy up the stairs of the mission tower: "Did
he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you
exactly what to do and what to say? You were a very
apt pupil, too, weren't you? You were a very apt pupil. Why did you
pick on me? Why me?...I was the set-up. I was the set-up,
wasn't I? I was a made-to-order witness" - there was a second
final terrifying sequence in the bell tower, when she sincerely professed
that she still loved him even though he had been her victim
- in the finale - footsteps of a black-clad figure in
the shadows startled Judy, and she backed away from Scottie gasping: "Oh,
no!"; the dark, shadowy figure (a nun) said: "I hear voices"
- terrified, thinking and believing she was seeing the
ghost of the murdered Madeleine (or the reincarnation of the ghostly
doomed mother Carlotta Valdes), Judy recoiled, stepped and fell backwards
through an opening in the tower and plummeted to her own death (off-screen)
in an emotionally-shattering climax; the figure, actually a nun from
the mission, crossed herself and murmured the last words of the film: "God
have mercy"
- the last shot was of a stunned Scottie standing on
the belfry tower ledge as he stared down at Judy's dead body in the
tragic ending - Scottie had tragically loved and lost the same woman
twice
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The Second Bell-Tower Sequence and Second
Fatal Fall
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Opening Credits
Scottie's Fear of Heights - Acrophobia with Vertigo

Suicidal Madeleine Recovering in Scottie's Apartment
Madeleine Tracing Rings in Giant Sequoia Tree
Vertigo Effect in Bell Tower
Madeleine's 'Suicidal' Death
Scottie's Nightmares
Shopgirl Judy (also Kim Novak)
Judy Transformed into Madeleine

Swirling Around During Kisses

Startling Moment of Realization - The Necklace

Nun: "God have mercy"
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