"If you miss it, take yourself to a very high place - and jump."
Vertigo is still an astonishing film, almost forty years after its initial release. Many critics regard this as Hitchcock's greatest film, even more memorable than Psycho. Whatever privileged position this film is given in the great director's huge oeuvre, there is no doubting that Vertigo is definitely his
darkest, bleakest exploration of sexual obsession to grace any screen - ever.The film begins as a mystery about a recently retired San Francisco cop, Scottie (Stewart), who is hired by an old college buddy to follow his wife (Novak). It seems she often leaves her house for hours on end but cannot account for the time away. Her husband fears the worst, and so Scottie reluctantly agrees to shadow her.
And shadow her he does. So much so that he slowly becomes entranced with this ghostly beauty, finally being tragically consumed by love.
What makes this film deliciously disturbing is that Hitchcock turns the tables half way through the film. He gives the audience information - and a punch-line - that is not available to the main character, thereby creating genuine suspense as we sit, gritting our teeth, praying against the inevitable.Vertigo isn't just a study of obsession, it is itself a relentlessly obsessive film. The attention to colours, textures, lighting and music all serve to highlight Hitchcock's own cinematic obsessions. Obsessions that led to the creation of this masterpiece. If you miss it, take yourself to a very high place - and jump. ---Paul Garcia
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