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KIL [ 3.0 ]
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I wanted to see Rear Window, but I couldn't, so I watched Vertigo, the #2 rated Hitchcock film. I was wary, because I usually, if not always, am very disappointed in 'old' movies. This was again, the case. As far as my interest goes, the movie began for the most part, without my full interest. 1-2 minutes into the movie, there was a part which defied logic, and I believe that to be realistic, the main character should have died at that time. In my opinion, that is an inexcusable mistake, and it totally discredits the believability of the entire movie. For my rating, however, I will not count off very much for that transgression. Midway through the movie, my interest waned, but was slightly rekindled about 5-10 minutes later. From then on, I was again only mildly interested, but I did pay attention for the duration of the movie. James Stewart's obsession with something(I won't say what)was not very believable, not so much because he did not act it well, but because it was not that good of a piece of film-writing, anyway. I think most people gave this one a good rating because it had a bit of twist, and there was one part which attempted to simulate something like an acid trip/psychadelic experience. www.outcrybookreview.com/meat.htm
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Qaizer [ 8.0 ]
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I must say, seeing a classic in the theater does add up to the fun. Another brilliant piece of work from the hands of the master himself ...Hitchcock. The movie sets a standard for visual excellence, a wit for plot and brilliant acting. Though, the movie fails to be what it could have been. It stays on the surface too much and doesn't go into the characters deep enough. Comparing it to Spellbound or Saboteur, it is most certainly not Hitchcock's best.
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chapter11 [ 9.5 ]
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Another Hitchcock masterpiece, this one equal parts huge psychological epic and Hitch's disturbing confessional. Terribly difficult to wrap your head around, but once you do, you realize that it's profoundly brilliant, and that Hitchcock will heretofore reign as filmdom's ultimate master of the psychological thriller.
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scottwblack [ 9.0 ]
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Now considered Hitchcock's best and most personal film, this dense psychological drama works best during its second act, in which James Stewart's character attempts to remake apparent innocent Kim Novak in the image of his dead girlfriend. Stewart's own transformation from a fool in love to a controlling obsessive is as disturbing as anything Hitchcock has done. David Lynch's work (especially Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.) have obviously been heavily influenced by this film.
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jeff_v [ 10.0 ]
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Quite simply, this is the greatest film of all-time. Hitchcock at the height of his considerable powers. James Stewart's finest hour. Bernard Herrmann's most heart-searing score. A tale of obsession, necrophilia, and dread. This is what cinema can do.
My all-time favorite scene in any movie is also in Vertigo. It's a scene that was conceived and scripted in vivid detail before the screenplay was completed, a year before shooting began. This scene, I think, was the germ of the idea Hitchcock had for this film. It's the defining moment of the film (and also, I would reckon, Hitch's career), the moment when dream and obsession cede to reality.
The suspense is palpable. Unbearable. Scottie (James Stewart) sits in a hotel room waiting for his date, Judy Barton (Kim Novak) to emerge from the bathroom. He has spent weeks molding her into the image of a dead woman, a fictitious dead woman, actually, one who haunts his dreams and has left him a lonely, solitary man. The camera stays with Scottie for a full minute as he waits by the window. During this moment, and in many other wordless passages throughout the film, we are left to ponder: What is Scottie's motive? What is he hoping to accomplish here?
Scottie has his back to the camera as he faces the window. [The camera is our eyes, our viewpoint, in this film as much as any.] Slowly he turns around and the camera tracks forward to his eyes. Cut to the doorway, where, bathed in a phantasmogoric green light, Judy stands in her fog-grey suit and blonde hair, an exact replica of Madelaine. She steps forward from the shroud of ghostly green mist and her eyes match Scottie's. (Hitchcock uses these matching eyeline cuts to great effect in this film, establishing an unspoken link between two people with powerful simplicity.) She slowly walks toward Scottie, staring straight into his eyes as she walks. They clinch. They kiss. The music swells. The camera slowly revolves around them and the background fades away to reveal the stables at Mission Dolores, the scene where Scottie last kissed Madelaine. The charade is over and dream has become reality. Scottie has recaptured, briefly, his last moment of happiness.
The colors in Vertigo convey, in an external sense, the internal psychology of the characters in the film. I wish more film directors were as suggestive. It allows an access to the inner working of a character's mind. It places you in their head, and lets you share their dreams and obsessions. One of the reasons Vertigo is such a spellbinding film is that the unreality of the otherworldly greens and lush reds isolate and intensify the feelings present in those scenes. A staid, realistic representation would cut off our interiority, and keep us at arm's length. Paradoxically, the more outwardly realistic, the more obvious it is that I'm just watching a movie, because I'm not in the movie. Significantly, the scene in which fantasy becomes reality is a metaphor for what I hope for every time I go to the cinema. Thus, as a cinephile, I cannot help but be moved.
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Love_Spoon [ 7.5 ]
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One of Hitchcock's best films, starring one of film's greatest actors-- James Stewart. Deathly afraid of heights after an incident in which a policeman is killed trying to save him from falling, he retires as a private investigator but is lured back by a friend for one last case. Ironically, this case will take him to the top of a tall belltower, not to mention all the other spooky fun. Gotta love classic Hitchcock. There's just not too many things in film that are better. Not quite the film that Rear Window is, but a must-see classic by all means.
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DeadCanadian [ 8.0 ]
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This movie goes very slowly, with it's constant "man drives slowly, gets out of his car slowly, walks slowly to a door, opens the door slowly, walks into building slowly, etc.", but, strangely enough, it never lost my attention. The acting is all very well done, and no one acts stiffly like in most Alfred Hitchcock movies. Jimmy Stewart is especially good as the private eye. Heck, even Kim Novak turns in a good performance! The plot is a bit far-fetched, and the movie is a bit too long, but it's a generally entertaining movie.
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| Weighted Rating | : 7.9 |
| No. Ratings | : 31 | |
| No. Reviews | : 12 | |
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