Vertigo (Collector's Edition) | James Stewart, Kim Novak | One of the best movies I have ever seen

Vertigo (Collector's Edition) | James Stewart, Kim Novak | Kim Novak....Ooooo.....la......la.....!!!

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Vertigo (Collector...

	Vertigo (Collector's Edition) James Stewart, Kim Novak Universal Studios, 1998 average customer review:based on 327 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of the best movies I have ever seen

I have recently got into watching Hitchcock movies; this was the fifth I watched and by far the greatest one so far (and one of the greatest of all movies I have ever seen). Jimmy Stewart plays his part even better than in Rear Window, and this was the first time I had seen Kim Novak in a movie - she was wonderful! At first I expected her to be a pretty face and an enticing voice, but she was so much more than that, proving to be a versatile actress, in a demanding role!

The movie kept me hooked throughout - I forgot where I was; nothing mattered but the film. In typical Hitchcock style, the film is thrilling and mysterious, and leaves you changing your mind about the plot every few minutes. He knew exactly how to keep you guessing and keep you enthralled.

See this if you haven't already - they don't make 'em like this anymore!

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Kim Novak....Ooooo.....la......la.....!!!

This is a classic film. I was a teenager when I first saw it and I fell in love with Kim Novak just like Jimmy Stewart did---so I was in good company! (And, "once in love always in love! :o) Besides the beautiful Kim Novak, you have Mr. Hitchcock using San Francisco's Fort Point as a backdrop where Kim Novak jumps into the SF Bay. Also used is the little town of San Juan Bautista some miles south of San Francisco. This little town is where the old Spanish Mission is located and important scenes of the movie were shot. If you are "new" to "Vertigo" you must see it! Enjoy! Email is boland7214@aol.co

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Alfred Hitchcock at his best.

What can I say that hasn't already been said by the other reviewers, this film is a Hitchcock masterpiece and is considered to be one of his greatest achievments. The film is about how far a person can be pushed by obsession and whether it can take us over the edge of sanity, James Stewart does a great job with his role as a retired detective who is acrophobic has a fear of heights, he is hired to follow the wife of an old friend but then becomes increasingly obsessed by the beautiful blonde played by the brilliant actress Kim Novak. The woman actualy thinks that shes possessed by a ghost or old spirit called Carlota and as you'll see in one of the paintings in the art gallery she has the same hair and wears the same necklace, this being a Hitchcock film nothing is what it seems and there are plenty of twists and turns and the suspence is at an all time high. This film is a murder mystery as well as a romantic drama and it also helps that the music done by Bernard Herman is absolutely amazing and it feels very emotional. If you've seen Hitchcock's other films like Psycho, The birds or Rear window then its obvious that you need to watch this its fantastic and one of the greatest films ever made, everything from the direction to the memorable and weird dream sequence and the script is 100% pure genius. I got this film along with the Hitchcock collection boxset from Amazon.co.uk and I thought it was worth it now all I need is to get To catch a thief which I also heard was pretty good. Overall Vertigo was both very suspencefull and thrilling and is probably the one Hitchcock film that stands out from his other great films with all due respect it is absolutely perfect and I highly recommend this.

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The master filmmaker's finest and most complex film

It is unusual to see a director produce his best work after the age of 50, but that is exactly what Alfred Hitchcock did. Starting in 1948 with "Rope" and ending with "The Birds" in 1963, this was the era of his most inspired films. "Vertigo", in my opinion, is the best film of his entire body of work.

It is funny to note that when this film was first released in 1957 that it was not that popular in theaters and was pretty much universally panned by critics. In 1992, when the British Film Institute performed a survey of the world film critics to compile an all-time ten-best list that comes out every decade, Vertigo came in at fourth place. It didn't even make that list in 1962 or 1972. Part of the reason for the delayed popularity of the film could be that it requires repeated viewings to really gain an appreciation of it. Such repeated viewings were not possible for most viewers until the advent of home video systems and cable around 1980.

As for the film itself, it is a brilliantly twisted movie infused with touches of genius and madness that focuses on the interconnected nature of love and obsession. Interwoven with this main theme is a crime mystery that is revealed to and solved for the audience but not the protagonist, James Stewart's character, for the last 45 minutes of the film.

Alongside these themes is the issue of lost opportunities - how we grieve over them, and whether or not what we perceive as lost opportunities were ever "real" opportunities in the first place. This issue is raised not only for Scotty (James Stewart) - if only he could have gotten to Madeleine (Kim Novak) in time, if only he could have rescued the policeman from falling to his death at the beginning of the film, if only he could have seen through the scheme that manipulated him so perfectly and ultimately drove him temporarily mad - but for just about everybody else in the cast too. This includes Scotty's college girlfriend (Barbara Bel Geddes) who has remained his friend through the years and obviously still harbors thoughts of what might have been if only she had accepted Scotty's marriage proposal years before.

Besides the excellent acting and superb plot, the score is outstanding as is the cinematography, especially the visual darkness of the mission San Juan Bautista versus the angelic beauty of Madeleine which belies what is really going on. I highly recommend this film to anyone who has the time to watch it more than once. Just one viewing won't do it justice.

As an aside, this film is so contagious that I am sure that it has influenced other filmmakers over the years to the point of plagiarism, the most obvious example being Tim Burton's 1989 film, "Batman". The Joker dragging Vicki Vale to the top of Gotham cathedral's stairway and the confrontation and revelations of the past once at the top of the tower sure look like the closing 15 minutes of this movie.

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You Were a Very Apt Pupil

The script has James Stewart deliver this line not once but twice near the end of this once-in-a-lifetime movie.

The observation underscores a simultaneous strength and weakness of the movie. How plausible is it that someone could be so overtaken by a "job" of assuming someone else's identity, for money or love, that they would complete that job with such conviction? However, the movie's acceptance of that plausibility is itself questioned by Stewart's pleading and accusatory statement.

"You did such a good job that you convinced me to love the person you became," he says to her in these lines.

But the movie's greatest resonance is that we all do this when we fall in love. Love's noblest outcome is that the lover strives to become everything her partner comes to desire, and can define no other role for herself than the one she has assumed. "Why couldn't you learn to love just me instead of the person I imitated to gain your love?"

The timeless quality of this film is that, in the coldest and seemingly most hopeless terms, Hitchcock tells us, honestly and simply, that romantic love is mutual deception at best and narcissism at worst.

If you don't get scared off the tower by an approaching nun, try jumping off...

This sounds really depressing, but underneath that is the film's haunting and puzzling final visual image, Stewart is unafraid to look down, and see reality for what it is. He is cured of his illusions and, nasty as that shock was, he is now healthy. Hitch's message is that delusions, even romantic delusions, help nobody, and that honesty is much, much better than overadaptive madness.

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