Vertigo is all about the struggle of a detective who suffers from vertigo after almost falling to his death, as he tries to solve the mystery of a woman supposedly possessed by a dead woman.
Alfred Hitchcock directed this fine film and it holds on of my favourite movie lines ever: "you know I've got vertigo!"
Let's begin breaking down my favourite frames from the film that encapsulate what I think are some of the pivotal points of importance in the story.
Let's get started!
The opening sequence as per Hitchcock style is very layered in the meanings you can take away from it. To me, this means that the story revolves around danger and blood on someone's hands. It relies around vision, that is, the perception of things. It is about a search for something both internal and external.
Here is one of the first times we are introduced to the leading lady in the film and she is framed in between two door frames. Could this be because she is being spied on by the hero? Does it mean she is never free because eyes are on her? Or does it mean she has something holding her down like chains on a ghost in limbo?
Here we get this beautiful aerial shot of the staircase. The stairs are winding and look like a maze. This isn't so much an excuse to play on the heroes vertigo condition (revealed later) but I think it is to represent his state of mind. Since almost dying, his mind is a labyrinth which he cannot climb nor navigate. It will take death and rebirth before he can conquer this maze.
When we see the detective later meet up with a woman who looks eerily similar to the woman who fell from the roof, we see them in this mirror shot. Notice how she is the only one being reflected in the mirror. I think this is because she isn't looking at herself in the mirror, she is envisioning who she wants to be and who she could become.
The loneliness of our hero is more than obvious as he is seen here in this baron and gigantic room which is completely devoid of life and appeal to the eye. This room is our heroes heart: Beaten up, ugly, worn out and completely empty. The framing just emphasises this.
That moment when you realise how everything fits together. The detective has been in and out of the dark from the beginning of the film but now he finally has all of the pieces in the right place. She is trying to kiss him, a way to show her newly acquired love for him, desperately trying to make amends for her sins. He is looking the other way, he has seen through her.
Now the roles have switched. The hero has everything in place. He has beaten heartbreak, temporary insanity, near death and emotional turmoil and finally seen through all the lies and figured out the mystery. She no longer represents herself to him, she is his inner neuroses and he is choking them, destroying his demons and reclaiming the throne of power in his mind.
The final shot of the film as the woman has essentially thrown herself off of the tower. Movie justice is fulfilled. She aided in murder and broke our heroes heart, she must die. He is damaged from this ordeal, a man in a darkened archway of a heart, however, he has died and been reborn. He has eliminated his fears and been resurrected.
Vertigo is one of those films that has so much in it but seems to be so simply presented that you could watch it as a film maker, analysing every move made and the progression of the story or casually watch as a normal viewer. It can be about a detective in love overcoming a fear of heights or it can be about a man on a journey to destroy the demons that hold the key to the labyrinth of his mind and the woman's journey to find love and a place to belong after being used as a tool for murder.
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