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| Vertigo (1958) |
Okay, I know I just talked about how this movie hasn't aged the most gracefully, let me just touch on the ways I think the film shows its age in a good way. There's a sort of charm to this movie that I think you'd find in a lot of movies made around this time. The way the backgrounds tend to look like paintings; I find that charming. The way the dialogue is written and the scenes are structured; it almost feels like a play at times. There's a lot of expository dialogue, not a lot of real-estate is wasted. The opening scene with Scottie and Midge especially had that vibe: long dialogue heavy scenes with shots that last longer than they would in films made today. Follow that up with another expository scene between Scottie and Gavin, and follow that up with a long series of short scenes with no dialogue... it's a really unique style that probably wasn't so unique back then, and it does add a lot of charm to the movie.
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| James Stewart as John Ferguson |
The acting across the board was really good. Of course, the easiest person to praise is James Stewart. He's given a lot of time and variety in this film and he handles it all incredibly well. He plays it so likeably that we really want to see him push through his acrophobia and work out the mystery. They don't spend a lot of time delving into what makes Scottie work as a character, and I think a part of that is because we basically learn all there is to know about him through Stewart's performance. Kim Novak is the other person who's given a lot of screentime, and she was great too. It's an interesting performance, in that the entire point of her character is that it's a mystery and she's supposed to be confusing and hard to work out, but Novak's performance allows the character to shine through underneath. The two of them have a really good chemistry together, which is good because of reasons I'll get into later. The only other character I really need to mention is Midge. She's the best and she should have gotten more screentime. The movie hints at an arc with her character and just doesn't do anything with it, which is a shame, as I feel like both Midge and Barbara Bel Geddes were underused here.
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| Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge |
Right, now let me just talk for a moment about the ways the movie maybe hasn't aged quite so well. I mean, it came out 61 years ago, it's almost inevitable that not everything held up extraordinarily well. And, let me just come out and say it: the romance. It's really the only part of the movie that I wouldn't say is 'charming' so much as it is 'icky'. That was my first thought when it came up, and while the movie did prove me somewhat wrong, it was still a little icky to me. I'm not sure if that was the intention or not, but it was still a little off by today's standards. First of all, there is clearly at least a 20-year time difference between the two, but that's neither here nor there. It's more that, by the film's own admission, they'd only known each other for 2 days before they were saying they loved each other. That just wouldn't fly now, and that's a big problem, especially when the entire back half of the movie is based around the romance. Like I said, it could have been a lot worse, and the twist the movie pulls did win me over a little bit, but it wasn't enough to render me 100% on board. I also feel that there was an issue with pacing in general here. There's nothing wrong with a slower-paced movie, but this, I felt, was a little too slow. I was on board with the slow first act; it did a good job building the intrigue. Then something happened at the end of the first act that had me thinking this was when it would pick up, but it didn't. It kept that pace for the second act, which I also thought was fine, as it was establishing the romance. Then something major happens at the second act break, but the third act basically kept the exact same pace until around 20 minutes until the end. There's a slow pace that builds throughout the story, and then there's a slow pace that just happens for almost 2 hours. I do feel like it is a problem with the script, and it could have maybe been a little more focused. The first scene is laser-focused on Scottie's acrophobia, to the point where they use the word 'acrophobia' 3 or 4 times in the one scene, and it only becomes relevant to the story again at the 74 minute mark. I don't need every story beat to harken back to it, but if the movie wasn't titled 'Vertigo', I would have completely forgotten it was a thing. Let me put it this way: at some point in this movie there's a pretty sizeable time jump, and I didn't even know we'd jumped ahead until 15 minutes after we had. And I don't need a title card for every time jump, but some indicator would have been nice. Or maybe another draft would have fixed everything, as at times this script felt a little messy to me.
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| Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster |
However, Alfred Hitchcock did a fantastic job with what he was given. It should be clear to anyone who knows cinema, but this man knows how to create and build tension. The atmosphere he creates for this story and the suspense that rises is so masterfully done that it's unsettling. It's hard for me to describe, but he does a great job of putting you in the shoes of Scottie, and he sort of creates acrophobia for the viewer. I'm pretty afraid of heights myself, and this movie does a great job of showing us how that manifests. Let me put it this way: the movie is not 10 minutes in, and Hitchcock manages to turn walking up a stepladder into a genuinely nerve-wracking experience, and that's a situation where everyone, including the characters, know that there's no harm that can come from this situation. It's one of those things where if you told me beforehand that I'd be on the edge of my seat watching a man climb a stepladder, I'd laugh in your face. Granted, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's kind of true. The direction in this movie is world class, and had anyone else attempted this story, I don't think it would have come out nearly as well, and it makes me overlook some of the bigger problems I have with the movie, or, at least, to not dwell on them as much.
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| Tom Helmore as Gavin Elster |
Vertigo (1958) is an imperfect movie that I really enjoyed and would watch many times in the future. It's gotten me in the mood to review more classic films, or at least more Hitchcock films. Who knows? You may see some more soon. Don't hold me to that, though. 8/10.
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