Among the many phobias I experience is acrophobia—the fear of heights. I’ve had episodes of vertigo and they never really leave me in the mood to reflect upon them. And yet, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a classic I’d never seen and about which I knew nothing. Well, very little. I knew that Jimmy Stewart’s character suffered from vertigo and that Mel Brooks had done a spoof called High Anxiety. Hitchcock wasn’t a horror auteur, although he gave the world The Birds and Psycho. He’s often cast in the “thriller” or “mystery” category, but these things all blend into one another and someone of Hitchcock’s interests might be placed in different genres, depending on who’s doing the placing. So my wife and I watched Vertigo, not knowing what to expect.
The first thing is it was longer than expected, especially given the deliberately slow pacing. The story, in case you’re behind too, involves a guy looking for a way to murder his wife to get her money. It involves a convoluted plot of finding a near double of his wife—whom he seems to love (but not as much as money), to trick Scotty (Stewart) into thinking that she committed suicide while he was helpless with vertigo. Even when the reveal finally came, I scratched my head a bit trying to figure out why all the elaborate trickery was necessary. It was, of course, based on a novel that might explain things a bit more thoroughly. But movies are about visuals and Vertigo is full of those. Lots of green. A dolly zoom (a film first). Even some animation.
Although there’s murder and fear—and even an accidental death because of a nun (not the Nun)—it seldom nudges north of drama. It’s one of those movies that has gained in reputation since its initial appraisals. Much of this has to do, it seems to me, with its visuals and subtlety. (Film critics seem to love those.) Of course, Psycho was still two years away, and The Birds five. I’m no Hitchcock connoisseur by any stretch. Indeed, my life has tended to be bits and pieces of this and that. (It takes a far larger following than I have to be able to opine on any subject and have people take you seriously.) Vertigo is, however, one of Hitchcock’s better-known films. Well enough known to have had a spoof made of it. And to have drawn me in to a movie themed on something I legitimately fear.
