Vertigo (Collector's Edition) | James Stewart, Kim Novak

Vertigo (Collector's Edition) | James Stewart, Kim Novak | Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece

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Vertigo (Collector...

	Vertigo (Collector's Edition) James Stewart, Kim Novak Universal Studios, 1998 average customer review:based on 328 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece

Alfred Hitchcock made "Vertigo" at the height of his creative power. I first saw it in 1984, during its first release in almost twenty years, and viewed it over a hundred times since. In 1996, James Katz and Robert Harris painstakingly restored it, and although I have some issues with the restoration of the audio tracks (there are some sound cues missing, a couple obvious tape drop-outs from Herrmann's soundtrack), "Vertigo" would've disappeared without the TLC they put into saving it from total deterioration. It is this restoration that is on this DVD.
What really makes "Vertigo" stand out is its synthesis of both pure technique and pure emotion. This is a rare combination in any art form, as the technical is often equated with cold, objective detachment, and emotion is equated with sloppiness.

Hitchcock was probably more personally involved with the making of "Vertigo" than any other film, and it shows. Beginning with Madeleine Carroll, Hitch obsessively cast cool blondes as his heroines. Following Carroll were Joan Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich and Anne Baxter. But it was Grace Kelly whom Hitchcock felt most represented ideal woman. She starred in three of his movies ("Dial 'M' For Murder," "To Catch a Thief" and "Rear Window"). When she married Prince Rainier of Monaco, Hitchcock felt the loss deeply, and tried to recreate Grace in the form of other actresses. He attempted to groom Vera Miles to fill Grace Kelly's shoes (literally, Hitch was a foot fetishist you know), but Miles got pregnant as shooting got underway on "Vertigo". Hitch then brought in Kim Novak from Columbia studios, and found an actress with depth, beauty and empathy far beyond what Grace Kelly ever achieved. It is eerie, watching Jimmy Stewart re-create a love lost, realizing all the while that Hitchcock was attempting to recreate and monumentalize his own unrequited love for Grace Kelly. Strangely, Hitch's molding of Tippi Hedren into Grace's double during the filming of "Marnie" (1964) mirrors Stewart's obsessive attempt to bring Madeleine back from the dead.

The acting is stellar across the board: Jimmy Stewart's fear, depression and cold sweat come across as real, not as some "method" acting technique. You sense that he brought out a lot of his own hidden fears, desires and obsessions in fleshing out Scotty Ferguson. The supporting actors, Barbara Bel Geddes as Stewart's plain, practical girlfriend, Tom Helmore as the suave, manipulative Gavin Elster and Konstantin Shayne as Pop Liebl, the bookstore owner with a knack for oral history, are all perfectly cast.

But what makes "Vertigo" is more than just acting. To have realized this film, Hitchcock's crew was so in-sync with each another that "Vertigo" is experienced as the singular vision of one mind. Samuel Taylor's screenplay, which was worked out in writing sessions with Hitchcock, is intelligent, yet emotional, and the actors' lines resemble poetry more so than everyday conversation. Yet, the lines are delivered naturally.

Saul Bass' iconic whirling abstract titles open up the movie and set its tone. You realize that you are in for a movie unlike any other you've experienced.

Robert Burks was Hitchcock's cinematographer, and on no other film, was Hitchcock's visual sensibility so keenly felt. Burks was a DP at Warner's, and his impeccable craftsmanship can be seen in such non-Hitchcock movies as "The Fountainhead" (dir: King Vidor) and "The Spirit of St. Louis" (dir: Billy Wilder). But, it was his work with Hitchcock that his potential was most realized, and "Vertigo" has got to be the most beautifully filmed movie ever seen. The infinite perspectives, the jarring angles and the surreal lighting attest to Burks' visual genius. Working with editor George Tomassini, who cut this film really tight, and Technicolor advisor Richard Mueller, "Vertigo" shows what is possible in color moviemaking. The scene in which Kim Novak is dropping broken flower petals into San Francisco bay with the Golden Gate Bridge receding in the distance, silhouetted before a cerulean blue sky is reminiscent of a Vermeer painting, and just as skillfully executed. The interiors were designed by Henry Bumstead, and are expressions in simple elegance. Bumstead had to design the bell tower for the Mission scene, and its staircase is a visual expression of the vertigo that haunts Scottie.

Edith Head was Hitch's favorite costume designer, and Kim Novak's severe yet sensuous gray tailored suit is the most beautiful woman's costume I've ever seen in any movie. Much talk is made about how Head won the Oscar for "Sabrina" when Audrey Hepburn was really wearing a Givenchy gown, but Kim Novak's entrance in that gorgeous emerald evening gown always makes every head turn, and makes Hepburn look like a gawky teenager in a rented formal by comparison.

But it is Bernard Herrmann's beautifully Romantic and polytonal score that really completes Hitchcock's artistic vision: It is a haunting and obsessive score, and the ostinato of the swirling strings accentuates the vertiginous feelings Robert Burks' complex camerawork instills in the viewer. In the scene in which Scottie finally has recreated Judy in Madeleine's image, the kissing and caressing that is a prelude to their lovemaking is set to Herrmann's Wagnerian "Scene d'Amour," which runs over five minutes with only a few seconds of dialogue. However, Herrmann's scoring was so integral to the film that the scene never seems like a showcase for the music; instead, one can really understand how Hitchcock was a master of silent film, and how Herrmann composed music that was the perfect counterpart to the action onscreen.

It is really astounding when one considers how all these masterful artists' talents are so seamlessly woven together. "Vertigo" is truly larger-than-life and unrepeatable, despite its numerous imitations.

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Alfred Hitchcock's Masterpiece

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DIZZINESS REACHES NEW HEIGHTS

I was always of the opinion that this was Hitchcock's best film and I'm very happy to see that so many other reviewers feel the same way.I'll not ruin things with a detailed description,but I first saw "Vertigo" as a kid and was totally spellbound by it (no pun intended). The film was then out of circulation for years afterwards for reasons that I'm too lazy to look up.In those intervening years,however, I came to realize what I was missing: a really terrific film that seems to captivate all age groups, even the most restless of children and adolescents.Which brings to mind another Hitchcock trait: his films are almost impossible to compare. Granted, "Vertigo" may not stand up as well as "Psycho" as far as multiple viewings are concerned, yet the quality of the photography, the interweaved plots and subplots, the overall dimensions of the story itself, leave the viewer almost completely agog at film's end.The irony, as others have mentioned,that this film never won the acclaim it deserved, may in fact be its highest compliment. What award has the "Mona Lisa" ever won?

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Great film, old DVD

"Vertigo" is, for me, hands down my favorite movie of all time. Either you "get it" or you don't. That remark is partially in response to a complaint here about the slow exposition with Scotty following Madelline ("ok, he's following her, we get it")--if you can't get into the rhythm and tone of the film and want everything to happen immediately then this movie isn't for you. Nor is it for anyone who needs a "rational" explanation for events, like how did Scotty get down from that drainpipe. I doubt he fell and only broke his back as someone suggested, and I don't know how he could have gotten down, and that's the point--he's figuratively dangling throughout the film. (But as to that last point if I was to speculate I'd say he continued to hang on for dear life until someone got to him, like via a fire truck ladder. But again that isn't important, and if you feel that's a flaw in the film then, sorry, you "don't get it".)

But enough of that. There are two reasons I'm posting here today. First, from the DVD specs listed here this appears to be the original 1998 restored rerelease, which I own (fortunately with the original poster artwork, as opposed to the "Hitchcock Collection" artwork that deprives the buyer from owning the original designs). If the specs are correct then as this version is not anamorphic then it won't fill the screen of an HD TV--it's inset with bars at the top, bottom, and sides (though one can zoom in, that's just a band-aid as the quality of the image is degraded). To understand what I mean I can point to the new rerelease of the Beatles' second film "Help!" which fills the screen in HD mode, even though it's not an HD release--I don't have to zoom in.

Second--and in direct relation to the above--is that 2008 is the 50th anniversary of "Vertigo". I haven't been able to dig up anything online so far, but one can only hope that Universal will plan a theatrical release accompanied by a new, updated DVD version of this classic film in both HD and non-HD, anamorphic formats (with new extras, of course).

This is a major opportunity for updating the release for modern television equipment with a big promotion. I'd be both surprised and dismayed if this opportunity was missed for a film that is still hailed in critics' polls and elsewhere as one of the greatest films ever made.

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Hypnotic Obsession

Like the (not so Great) Jay Gatsby, who assumes a false persona to make his way in the world, the protagonist of "Vertigo" - in American innocent James Stewart's most nuanced performance - pursues a woman who isn't really what she appears to be. In Gatsby's case, his lost love was easily found in the flesh on the north shore of Long Island but proved elusive upon reunion as Gatsby pined to fulfill the dream that had escaped his grasp. In "Vertigo", it is Kim Novak's false identity (a la Gatsby) that leads retired San Francisco detective Scottie (Stewart) on a psychological odyssey more trecherous than Gatsby's - because Scottie believes his love is dead but then is shaken to the core by a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his fixation. Her true physical presence can never be reclaimed... perhaps.

Based not on "The Great Gatsby" but on the French novel "D'Entre les Morts", this is Hitchcock's finest work and also his most subtle. Stewart and Novak give the performances of their careers, and longtime Hitchcock composer Bernard Hermann works in highly effective shades of grey during much of the musical undertow that pulls you deeper into the vortex. The film is shot in glorious color, but director Hitchcock imbues parts of it with an errie, fog-like quality. (According to the notable Hitchcock-Truffaut recorded conversation of the early Sixties, Hitch shot the cemetery scene through a fog filter and chose the Empire Hotel as the haunt of Novak's character because the green neon sign flashing outside the window gave Novak a ghostlike quality.)

Novak was not Hitchcock's first choice for the female lead in "Vertigo". He wanted yet another icy cool leading woman, Vera Miles, but she became pregnant and Novak was called in, a disappointment to Hitch, who, like his alter ego Scottie, had conjured the image of the iconic woman and wanted nothing to get in the way of consummating that image. He must have been extraordinarily pleased with Stewart's performance, because Scottie looks like he's about to crumble several times in the film. His facial expressions in the scenes near the fireplace and in the hotel room are remarkable.

"Vertigo" is a rich, multi-layered study of obsession that ranks among my Top Five. Watching it can become its own obsession.

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