a thread for hitchcock's 'vertigo'

since it's never had its own thread, this seems as opportune a time as any to give it one:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/01/vertigo-hitchcock-bfi-greatest-film?newsfeed=true

The sickly green neon light when the transformation is complete coupled with the look on jimmy stewart's face. blimey.

just saw it on the big screen for the first time (prob the fifth time i've seen it in my life) a few weeks ago and it was stunning and disturbing as always. it's a film i've resisted visiting too often because i find it incredibly harrowing to sit through, especially the last half-hour. as i said to my friend right afterward, 'i always feel like i'm half dead for a few minutes after seeing that.'

http://rlv.zcache.com/congratulations_on_your_promotion_card-p137204437914754407b76me_400.jpg

Not in my top five Hitchcock.

I like it very much but there are definitely a few other films by Hitchcock that I prefer.

I have a feeling that Chris Marker had a lot to do with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZpcydFv0cA

RIP Chris Marker, RIP Charles Foster Kane

Vertigo much closer to being my favorite Hitchcock than Kane is to being my favorite Welles.

hell, I'll pimp what I wrote last year

(while encouraging you to read Chris Marker instead)

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/vertigo/5549

reads like you're pimping Roget's

That's as effective a defense of the movie as I've ever read, Morbs; but I'm still unpersuaded by the film's pace, which seems even more at this juncture like a sop to The Plausibles.

...

Obviously, this text is addressed to those who know Vertigo by heart. But do those who don’t deserve anything at all?

chris marker

ps i have never seen vertigo and may never.

i deserve nothing at all.

not a patch on, say Strangers On A Train, Psycho, The Birds etc. IMO

my favorite dave kehr capsule:

One of the landmarks--not merely of the movies, but of 20th-century art. Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film extends the theme of Rear Window--the relationship of creator and creation--into the realm of love and sexuality, focusing on an isolated, inspired romantic (James Stewart) who pursues the spirit of a woman (the powerfully carnal Kim Novak). The film's dynamics of chase, capture, and escape parallel the artist's struggle with his work; the enraptured gaze of the Stewart character before the phantom he has created parallels the spectator's position in front of the movie screen. The famous motif of the fall is presented in horizontal rather than vertical space, so that it becomes not a satanic fall from grace, but a modernist fall into the image, into the artwork--a total absorption of the creator by his creation, which in the end is shown as synonymous with death. But a thematic analysis can only scratch the surface of this extraordinarily dense and commanding film, perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema.

i am kinda incredulous that anyone prefers 'strangers on a train,' one of his most mucked-up films. the only one i might like better is 'rear window.'

My top five:

Notorious
Rear Window
Rebecca
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest

perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema

Maybe--maybe not. Welles, Chaplin, Ford, and Capra--just to name four that come to mind--surely had films just as personal. (Which I don't think is that important when responding to films anyway. Stanley Kramer's films were very personal too.)

i guess mine would probably be:

vertigo
rear window
the 39 steps
notorious
suspicion (or rebecca -- can't decide)

Psycho and Rope are my favourites. the favourites of someone who deserves nothing at all.

Rear Window
Shadow of a Doubt
Psycho
The Lady Vanishes
The Birds (iffy...I voted for it in the horror poll, then had second thoughts)

Yeah, North by Northwest instead of The Birds. And Psycho #2.

Strangers On a Train has great stuff in it, but c'mon, Ruth Roman-Farley Granger scenes are the pits.

also intensely personal: The Nutty Professor

vertigo is obvs the best one

c'mon, Ruth Roman-Farley Granger scenes are the pits.

at the bottom of that pit is Kim Novak "acting."

and Ruth Roman boasts superb Groucho Marx eyebrorws

I could be persuaded that this was his best, definitely. Vying with Rear Window, I think. Though I have many many gaps in my Hitchcock knowledge.

Kind of happy we live in a world where something as crazy and weird and just unhinged as Vertigo is considered canon "best of all time" material. Love it. More vital and fascinating than any other Hitchcock maybe because it's the one where he seems least in control of the ideas.

i genuinely don't understand the objection to novak's performance! who would have done a better job?

Actually, that's the one thing I do love about the film: its audaciousness. Just the idea that he took what I assume was a blank cheque from the studio and made this. (xpost)

yeah Alfred, i thought I carefully explained the value of Novak's casting! cheeeee!

Yeah I worry it's status will blind new audiences to how nuts it is. They will expect some austere cool masterpiece and that's not the appeal at all to me.

Novak's performance reminds me that this is one of those films whose flaws seems to resonate. Tho I always did think Vera Miles looked pretty hot in those test photos.

Novak IS well cast but so are Roman and Granger.

but the roles are boring. They kinda had to be cuz Hollywood was not ready for Highsmith.

i do love the first half of 'strangers,' and the ending, but it just feels like there's so much held back.

notorious uber alles

that is my personal fave, but i think vertigo is better. whatever that means.

Vertigo's my favorite by far, and that doesn't diminish his other great movies by any means

Ugh you people. North By Northwest is the WORST!

I'm perfectly fine with settling on Notorious or Rear Window as his masterpiece if not Vertigo, but just stop trying to make Northwest happen.

gay panic

Hate fuck.

(In any case, at least Vertigo doesn't have a queer villain.)

Ugh you people. North By Northwest is the WORST!

― Eric H., Wednesday, August 1, 2012 10:09 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

worse than topaz???

I mean, if someone makes the case for Topaz being Hitch's masterpiece, maybe I'll relent.

fortunately Hitchcock, like the other Old Hollywood Masters, made a bunch of terrible movies for auteurists to revie.

I'll say.

http://ochmonek.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/northbynorthwest.jpg

as David Edelstein wrote today, NxNW "is too much fun."

(oddly left off "for Eric")

really dude, do you hate The 39 Steps too?

definitely prefer notorious, on some days might prefer marnie. love nxnw but c'mon (do prefer that score though). vertigo was one of the ones that was out of circulation right? morbs you're old enough to remember that period - was it really that hard to see them? as great as it is i do wonder how much of a role that lost treasure aspect plus the super prominent 90s rerelease (first s&s poll after that is the first where the hitchcock vote noticeably unifies around one film iirc) played in burnishing rep.

Schools may have shown it and some bootleg prints were apparently available in the years it was withdrawn, but I never had the opportunity to see it til the '84 re-release.

When I finally watched Black Narcissus a few years ago I was surprised by how much Vertigo seemed to have borrowed from it, especially the crazy climax. The nun at the end of Vertigo almost seems like a deliberate reference.

really dude, do you hate The 39 Steps too?

Nope, that's all good. The Lady Vanishes is even better.

I did debate including T39S in my top five.

i could probably watch '39 steps' once a week. it's pretty much the perfect movie.

Plays well projected on the walls of gay bars, tho maybe not quite as good as Sabotage.

vertigo in 70mm or gtfo

so, what about The 39 Steps isn't utterly improved in NxNW?

gay villains are awesome btw

The 39 Steps is trim, isn't bloated, doesn't bend over backwards to shoehorn in irrelevant setpieces, doesn't include among its cast members Cary Grant. Nice opening credits, tho.

xpost you should know, right?

doesn't include among its cast members Cary Grant.

what the.

nearly came to blows once with a friend who insisted that grant was a bad actor. well, not to blows, but we both yelled a lot.

I guess he was serviceable in Notorious.

It's not that he's a bad actor, but my ultimate "do not want" gay archetype.

gay archetype.... Chevy Chase has usurped Eric's keyboard.

"bloated"

oh Eric H. i could have gone the rest of my life not knowing you have no use for cary grant :(

btw Vertigo was not MADE in 70mm. I don't care for the new gunshot sound effects in the first scene either.

"serviceable"!!!

Boy, Vertigo is awesome.

"irrelevant setpieces" [sic] objected to by de Palma/Tarantino fan -- extry, extry!

what gay archetype is cary grant

if you don't like screwball or NxNW there's not much grant left to like!

i used to call him my favorite actor but i think stewart wins by a nose these days.

English, acrobat, likes Irene Dunne

xp

so was Hitchcock lying when he claimed he'd offered Vertigo to Grant first?

Thanks for taking the bait, Morbs.

xpost so not only is it the greatest film ever® it's also the biggest narrowly averted train wreck!

the thought of grant in 'vertigo' is genuinely unsettling.

i am really glad it wasn't Cary Grant in Vertigo because i need to love him

Hitchcock was miffed at Vertigo's lukewarm box office, tried to blame Stewart's age -- we know this, right?

So is Madeleine's escape from the McKittrick Hotel a ghostly enigma, or is Grandma Walton ("Oh, Mr Detective?") in on Elster's plot?

Because Cary Grant was so much younger. Or younger at all in the first place.

well, there's the irony.

and you've all seen the "censorship" ending? talk about a third nipple...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imbLXT2K--M

kinda glad that scene exists because i always wanted to know what happened to midge!

glad it wasn't in the actual movie, of course, because the actual ending is jesus christ wtf just happened here oh god no.

holy crap, why did they do that?

also midge deserved better

well the idea was the audience has to know that Gavin Elster is punished.

No one is thinking about Gavin Elster in the last 5 minutes.

lol true. but even then, it's pretty lame - they're going to extradite him from the south of France? come on!

also I like the interp that Scottie jumps to his death right after the fadeout.

I like the interpretation that the nun blows him away.

well, then it mighta made ke1th u's list

I kid, but The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein was sooooo bad

That's very weird--I'd never seen that. (I was thinking it was some user-generated parody at first, concocted from DVD extra footage, and that something preposterous was going to be spliced in.)

but yeah, i mean, it could be because that original ending to me is absolutely all-time undefeatable, but the alternate ending is just ugh

Yeah, Hitch really stuck the landing with Vertigo.

but still Hitchcock put in a joke with the radio guy: students "pshing a cow up the steps"... just like Judy!

pUshing

pshaw-ing Judy ... maybe Cary Grant should've been cast after all

CTRL-F "Shadow Of A Doubt"

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Delete bookmark from this thread

My first argument with Morbs was when he shook his head after I called Cary Grant the greatest actor of the 20th century.

My first argument with Morbs

should be a thread

i like this movie more when i'm not watching it. the colors sure are pretty tho.

i like this movie more when i'm not watching it

Actually kinda sorta think this might be true of me too. In that sense, it's the counterpart to Rear Window, which is at its most awesome when you're actually watching it.

And you're later thinking, Grace Kelly is so hot for this guy?

No, more that Thelma Ritter works magic with her fingers.

and she can twirl a snifter

Cary Grant was not versatile enough to be the greatest actor of the 20th century. He was brilliant at what he could do.

Favorite non-Vertigo performance of Henry Jones, who plays the droopy-dog coroner? I'd have to go with either the town drunk in 3:10 to Yuma or Cloris Leachman's father-in-law on "Phyllis" (also set in SF btw).

I'll go with the gimmicky early-70s made-for-TV movie where he played a mailman delivering three critical letters to various people...no idea what the title was.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070304/fullcredits

He's also in The Girl Can't Help It, Dick Tracy, and Butch Cassidy.

That's it! Lyle Waggoner and Ken Berry--that's bringing out the early-'70s heavy artillery.

Carol Burnett musta been on hiatus

you're not versatile enough!

http://trueclassics.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/devlin-notorious.jpg

who needs versatile anyway

Hedda Hopper, apparently.

Fri, Sep-21; see also Sep-25
6:00pm @ Gene Siskel Film Center
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, 129m)
NOTE: "Vertigo will be screened in a rare original IB Technicolor release print. If you have only seen one of the recent restorations, or seen the film on DVD or other video, you haven't really seen it. The sound in the most recent restoration was badly redone, and this is a film that especially depends on the 'look' of IB Technicolor. "

Sounds like the same print showed last weekend in NYC.

Did you see it?

nope, not this time. I've seen various incarnations of the movie at least 8-10x.

also have visited the Mission Dolores graveyard, Scottie's house, Fort Point, etc.

(not the "fall" mission -- there is no tower)

That's it! Lyle Waggoner and Ken Berry--that's bringing out the early-'70s heavy artillery.

― clemenza, Thursday, August 2, 2012 10:14 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Carol Burnett musta been on hiatus

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Thursday, August 2, 2012 10:15 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Haven't seen it since I was 19, when I wished it had been called Midge. Will plan to catch that Siskel screening in Swpt.

who needs versatile anyway

Versatility is overrated. A spork is versatile.

a spork compares poorly with James Fuckin' Cagney.

http://trueclassics.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/devlin-notorious.jpg

who needs versatile anyway

― horseshoe, Thursday, August 2, 2012 7:34 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i watched this movie w a girlfriend, who was brilliant and thoughtful and impeccably progressive and also high, and we got to the part (like ten minutes in only!) where ingrid bergman gets really mad, because cary grant abruptly got a cop to leave them alone after ingrid bergman was acting all insouciant and bad-girl about driving drunk, and because she now realizes that cary grant is some kind of cop himself and that the power dynamic is not what she thought, which in her drunken state causes her to Become Hysterical when cary grant insists on driving her home, and cary grant first karate-chops ingrid bergman's steering hand and then wrestles with her a bit and then hits her so hard she goes limp, and my gf turned to me in total rapt stoned melodramatic involvement and said with complete earnestness "movies used to be so exciting!"

lots of exciting stuff going on there obv but cary grant not irrelevant

anyway it is my favorite movie that isn't the third man

and Claude Rains.

ingrid bergman is also the dreamiest in that movie. they are the dreamiest dreamboats ever to dream.

louis calhern!

eating food in bed

all of the above, especially

who needs versatile anyway

Versatility is overrated. A spork is versatile.

― LISTEN TO THIS BRAD (Nicole), Thursday, August 2, 2012 11:49 AM (Yesterday)

Claude Rains is excellent in a little-seen David Lean film The Passionate Friends in which he plays a less milquetoast version of his Notorious role. I think it may be on youtube now.

TV Guide Magazine: What were your thoughts when you heard your movie Vertigo was picked as the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound's poll of international film critics? It dethroned Citizen Kane!

Novak: [Laughs] I was just so grateful to be alive to witness it! And, of course, I was wishing Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock could have been around, as well. They were both such magnificent men. How much that would have meant to both of them! Back when we made the film, none of us could have imagined it would have such longevity or acclaim. For all my misgivings about my life and choices in Hollywood, seeing Vertigo voted No. 1 made me think that maybe my trip was really worth it. Maybe I did have a certain amount of value.

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/reclusive-film-legend-kim-novak-opens-life-regrets-024000533.html

Did 'Vertigo' Introduce Computer Graphics to Cinema?

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/may/9/did-vertigo-introduce-computer-graphics-cinema/

i wish i liked this movie more. i keep waiting for an epiphany while i'm watching it. nope.

^

like it's good and all but i don't get emotionally involved in it

^^

it's one of those where the music swells and the actors are clearly feeling all sorts of important things and somewhere btwn them and me the dreaded sillies intervened, this movie is just silly

eff you, and wait til yer middle-aged

Middle-aged guy agreeing 100% with the late great (though not darraghmac).

That link is great, Morbs!

this is not really the kind of movie where its admirers get caught up in the plot and characters (at least i dont) but it does have a strong pull in its surface appeal--the music and hallucinatory way its edited. once that pulls you in the "important things" everyone is feeling starts to have meaning.

the late great otm.

Sux to be all of u.

Kim Novak always a stumbling block; however, I wish more steakhouses looked like Ernie's.

see, novak is almost the "flaw" or humanity of it that makes it real and approachable for me.

darraghmac, tlg, Sotosyn, youve all seen it in *a theater* at least once, yes?

Sux to be all of u.

― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Monday, May 13, 2013 10:09 AM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

novak is amazing!

Sux to be all of u.

― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Monday, May 13, 2013 10:09 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like the way this movie looks... the sunny version of mid-century san francisco it presents. rear window is better, i think. both are kind of ridiculous and overblown in their attempt to tackle "psychological" themes. i think it's cool how this movie and citzen kane and vertigo go back and forth on critics' "greatest movie" lists because both films seem to disdain the idea of subtlety, and i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. they are ambitious hollywood productions.

subtlety is what closes on saturday night.

darraghmac, tlg, Sotosyn, youve all seen it in *a theater* at least once, yes?

in '96 before its VHS reissue. It's not a big deal. There's at least six other Hitch movies I'd watch again.

Can only think of 2 or 3 Hitchcocks I *wouldn't* see again.

I think Teddy Roosevelt is winking at you....

There's at least six other Hitch movies I'd watch again.

Well, there are at least six English professors I'd marry ahead of you.

well, i would have seen her, you know! i've been right here all the time putting olive oil on my rubber plant leaves.

there's only one veritgo for me: http://bit.ly/8RqSDk

also I like the interp that Scottie jumps to his death right after the fadeout.

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:49 AM (1 year ago)

haha morbs don't you also think this is how "it's a wonderful life" should have ended?

i think i prefer that last shot to the scream

also lol

if only "the searchers" had ended with john wayne shooting his niece

I would LOVE to have eaten at Ernie's. Hitch shoots that place more attractively than any woman.

anyway dud

i just wanna hang out in midge's apartment

"midge"

theory: any fictional character named 'midge' is inevitably adorable

http://www.archiefans.com/gallery/d/15365-1/Midge+1+BV+55+Jul+1960.jpg

only in "Dallas"

part of the problem is you people thinking Kim Novak is an attractive man

"you people"

don't listen to dlh: he was "rescreening" "Zizek."

a do-it-yourself type thing

a 30-film Brooklyn fest of movies that "engage" Vertigo

(before clicking, guess as many as you can)

http://www.bam.org/film/2015/the-vertigo-effect

The lack of Les Diaboliques there seems the most obvious omission

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/13/alfred-hitchcock-peter-ackroyd-michael-wood-review

two new bks.

A former ILXer gives the Ackroyd book a brutal review in the latest Sight and Sound

a 30-film Brooklyn fest of movies that "engage" Vertigo

more (at least in my mind):
antonioni l’avventura
wenders paris texas
hitchcock rebecca
almodovar broken embraces, talk to her, skin i live in, etc

Don't forget La Jetée and, more obviously Twelve Monkeys.

and High Anxiety

Ah yes.

Don't forget La Jetée and, more obviously Twelve Monkeys.

― You Play The Redd And The Blecch Comes Up (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, April 13, 2015 6:11 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and High Anxiety

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 13, 2015 6:12 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

absolutely. those are included (i already clicked, so i'm not guessing)

Doesn't Les Diaboliques come before Vertigo?

The museum sequence in Dressed to Kill.

they included some movies earlier than Vertigo, so "engagement" applies before and after

XP The source novel for Diabolique was written by the same guys who wrote the Vertigo novel.

yes!

i'm thinking no one guessed Pal Joey.

Nope. Think it may be time to peek

go ahead, i was not meaning to make it a contest.

no memory of the Demme film included.

I just bought this yesterday for $1 on VHS, going to watch it towards the end of the week. Excited!

More on this series below... I wish Legend of Lylah Clare was in it. btw The Joy of Life is a must.

http://bam150years.blogspot.de/2015/04/filmmakers-film-vertigo.html

some more (not included) films that engage with vertigo in my mind:
solaris
not just mulholland drive but twin peaks, lost highway, inland empire, etc
that obscure object of desire
the double life of veronique
exotica
in the mood for love/ 2046
black orpheus
last year at marienbad
postman always rings twice
the third man
peeping tom

The museum sequence in Dressed to Kill.
not really crazy about dressed to kill, but man, that sequence justifies its existence.

this movie is insane

key to its greatness

idk if I would rate it my favorite Hitchcock - that's probably Psycho, or maybe Rebecca. Having never seen it start-to-finish before last night I was shocked by how unrelentingly bleak it is, how there's no real protagonist or antagonist, the degree to which it just seems relentlessly morbid and nihilistic.

also man SF used to be a lot less crowded, apparently.

even before AIDS! (purposefully morbid and offensive)

Scottie is p much his own antagonist.

Not in my top five but Stewart is bonkers

the line where theater audiences tend to produce a sickened laugh is "Judy, it can't matter to you."

Scottie is p much his own antagonist.

this is how I started to feel about halfway through the film when his stalkerish obsessive craziness really starts to make him look unhinged. by the end I was practically expecting him to throw her out of the tower (which in some ways does sort of happen - man kills the thing he loves, twice!)

sometimes I walk around muttering YOU WERE A VERY APT PUPIL

Muttering? He SPITS that line out ... twice!

My favorite Hitch is Rear Window, but this is the closest runner up.

But I don't spit...movie lines.

Remind me to tell you about the time I swallowed the heart of an artichoke.

*pushes Eric off bell tower*

calm down guys

there's something about all the static framing in Rear Window that I just don't enjoy watching. Probably a result of never having seen it on the big screen, but in general it's a film where the formal conceit - I'm watching a film about watching things! - turns out to be more appealing in theory than in execution.

gentleman seems to know what he wants

Big screen helps immensely. The sound design seems far more "active" inside a cavernous theater too.

You can go up, you can go down

Take a look at the clip I just posted in the Kubrick thread.

Agree, Vertigo is great. The hero of the movie is actually is villain, but the twist is done in the most brilliant way.

this is a seriously upsetting movie, every time i see it i end up feeling like i've been through the movie equivalent of a panic attack. rebecca is my favorite hitch these days but i have no problem with vertigo getting the automatic top spot.

how unrelentingly bleak it is, how there's no real protagonist or antagonist, the degree to which it just seems relentlessly morbid and nihilistic.

final shot should have consigned the scream to oblivion

Not enough love here for Bernard Herrmann's score which is insanely good.

magnifique

Where is this lack of love that you remark upon?

Love for the clothes: http://clothesonfilm.com/costume-identity-in-hitchcocks-vertigo/25039/

Fri, Sep-21; see also Sep-25
6:00pm @ Gene Siskel Film Center
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, 129m)
NOTE: "Vertigo will be screened in a rare original IB Technicolor release print. If you have only seen one of the recent restorations, or seen the film on DVD or other video, you haven't really seen it. The sound in the most recent restoration was badly redone, and this is a film that especially depends on the 'look' of IB Technicolor. "
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, August 2, 2012 10:29 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Got to see this print with a sell-out crowd tonight. The "You haven't really seen it." thing is seriously indiesnob hyperbolic. Yes, much of the time it looks fantastic (if frustratingly a bit soft and/or fuzzy at times), and to hear the proper soundtrack in Glorious MONO--as god intended!--is worth the price of admission and then some. If anything, the way to sell such a screening is "Probably the last time you'll see it on actual film", which is sad for different reasons.

Afterwards, as the audience was exiting, I found myself next to a group of 20-somethings who must have been viewing for the first time. They were lamenting the lack of Midge in the last section. I told them about the alternate "extended" or "censorship" ending, which they all felt would have been superior to the "real" ending.

Fuckin' Kids!

just rewatched on the big screen last week with someone who'd never seen it. every bit as gloriously fucked up as I remembered.

xpost (to ... me?) I know the Music Box here is booking it for their 70mm Fest. So what's the story there? Was it filmed in 70mm? Was the sound originally mono, even in 70mm?

Anyway, it's a great movie, and I've loved Hitchcock since I was a little kid, but this one even more than most of his films really underscores his disinterest in endings. It's like ... run, run, run, suspense, and ... over the edge, the end. So many of his great films end that way, like NXNW. Rear Window is probably my fave, too, not least because of the few extra tidying-up character beats they toss in rather than a hard cut at the climax to "The End."

Ah, I see. Filmed in VistaVision, but the 1996 restoration transferred it all to 70mm, with new foley effects and other stuff. Long story from Wiki:

In 1996, the film was given a lengthy and controversial restoration by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz and re-released to theaters. The new print featured restored color and newly created audio, utilizing modern sound effects mixed in DTS digital surround sound. In October 1996, the restored Vertigo premiered at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, with Kim Novak and Patricia Hitchcock in person. At this screening, the film was exhibited for the first time in DTS and 70mm, a format with a similar frame size to the VistaVision system in which it was originally shot. When restoring the sound, Harris and Katz wanted to stay as close as possible to the original, and had access to the original music recordings that had been stored in the vaults at Paramount. However, as the project demanded a new 6-channel DTS stereo soundtrack, it was necessary to re-record some sound effects using the foley process. The soundtrack was remixed at the Alfred Hitchcock Theatre at Universal Studios. Aware that the film had a considerable following, the restoration team knew that they were under particular pressure to restore the film as accurately as possible. To achieve this, they used Hitchcock's original dubbing notes for guidance of how the director wanted the film to sound in 1958. Harris and Katz sometimes added extra sound effects to camouflage defects in the old soundtrack ("hisses, pops, and bangs"); in particular they added extra seagull cries and a foghorn to the scene at Cypress Point. The new mix has also been accused of putting too much emphasis on the score at the expense of the sound effects. The 2005 Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection DVD contains the original mono track as an option. Significant color correction was necessary because of the fading of original negatives. In some cases a new negative was created from the silver separation masters, but in many instances this was impossible because of differential separation shrinkage, and because the 1958 separations were poorly made. Separations used three individual films: one for each of the primary colors. In the case of Vertigo, these had shrunk in different and erratic proportions, making re-alignment impossible. As such, significant amounts of computer assisted coloration were necessary. Although the results are not noticeable on viewing the film, some elements were as many as eight generations away from the original negative, in particular the entire "Judy's Apartment" sequence, which is perhaps the most pivotal sequence in the entire film. When such large portions of re-creation become necessary, then the danger of artistic license by the restorers becomes an issue, and the restorers received some criticism for their re-creation of colors that allegedly did not honor the director's and cinematographer's intentions. The restoration team argued that they did research on the colors used in the original locations, cars, wardrobe, and skin tones. One breakthrough moment came when the Ford Motor Company supplied a well-preserved green paint sample for a car used in the film. As the use of the color green in the film has artistic importance, matching a shade of green was a stroke of luck for restoration and provided a reference shade.

I remember the controversy surrounding the sound effects, but I guess I didn't remember the details that it was a devil's bargain supposedly necessary to restore the rest of the film, or at least bring the presentation up to snuff.

after "Mozart isn't going to help," Midge don't matter.

But what do you expect of a generation raised on Masterpiece Television?

It's like ... run, run, run, suspense, and ... over the edge, the end.

you only have to change your direction, said the cat

this one even more than most of his films really underscores his disinterest in endings

you didn't understand the film, btw

it's PERFECT.

fuck the suspense plot, it's about a guy destroying himself.

this movie gave me nightmares as a kid. didn't rewatch again until about 2-3 years ago, was reminded why it's probably my favorite Hitchcock.

even the muted moments have great beats, even if there aren't as many of them.

i need this on blu-ray

xpost I don't mean the ending as written, the plot. It ends "perfectly." I just mean rhythmically, I find it a little abrupt.

It'd be like if "Psycho" (which has its own problem ending) ended with the reveal of Norman in a wig and mother in the chair, then just splashed "The End" across the screen. Like here, if the end of the movie was right at the 1:30 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHYmNrAFlI

It would work perfectly fine, but would feel just as abrupt.

Hmm, this was interesting:

http://www.alfredhitchcockgeek.com/2007/06/end-according-to-hitchcock.html

Of course, all of Hitch’s films end with a dénouement. But if you blink, you’ll miss it. What’s missing is the feeling of decompression or the restoration of equilibrium that accompanies a lengthier conclusion. Hitchcock consistently cheats us out of that feeling.

pulling Marion's car out of swamp = restoration = return of the repressed

Vertigo ending just looks into the abyss (and perhaps leaps into it)

i didn't know about the alternate Vertigo ending. reading about it, it almost sounds like Hitchcock sort of snarkily made a weak "happy ending".

yeah he didn't give a shit, i imagine him saying under his breath "fuck the Italians"

The link upthread is dead...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJBSSkn0Ldw

if you watch that ending more than once it's in danger of becoming the actual ending in yr head so NO THANKS

Vertigo on blu-ray is what I bought a blu-ray player for lo! these many years. Such a beauty ( the film, not the machine). Hell, think I'll watch this tonight.

They were lamenting the lack of Midge in the last section.

i had noticed this on early viewings. in my opinion: midge is a wholesome love interest, somewhat maternal to johnny, that he rejects, which is why she isn't in much of the second half.

The bell tower scenes....man

I'd love more restaurants to look as plush as Ernie's.

i'm glad that ending isn't in the actual film but i dunno, i'm sort of glad it exists

saw a 70MM print of this last night on a double bill with De Palma's "Body Double" for my birthday and sure enough

the line where theater audiences tend to produce a sickened laugh is "Judy, it can't matter to you."

this happened

Vertigo is one of the few films that does actually get better with every viewing.

had no idea about the alternate ending posted upthread, that's nuts. Excluding Midge from the back half makes it much more removed from reality.

i think "judy, it can't matter to you" prob struck audiences as messed up even at the time

Didn't Cary Grant say something about Judy in one of his films as well?

"Vertigo" is one of my all-time favorites. Thread reminds me that I have to ask for this back from someone who borrowed it years ago and moved provinces. :-/

i wish i liked this movie more. i keep waiting for an epiphany while i'm watching it. nope.

― the late great, Monday, May 13, 2013 12:49 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

saw Vertigo for the first time last night and this is exactly how i feel. time to read some wonky academic essays about it.

do you believe that someone out of the past -- someone dead -- can enter, and take possession, of a living being?

this movie creeps into your soul more than it wows you on first viewing.

agreed, then one day you wake up and

http://images.popmatters.com/features_art/e/ending-vertigo-1.jpg

i think ryan's probably right but i also think a first viewing in the right frame of mind should be more than sufficiently soul-wrenching

^^^ lol DN

1st viewing clicked for me this movie is a mind blowing proto-Mulholland Drive visual tone poem/psycho drama.

https://media.giphy.com/media/RurmdGzFD628E/giphy.gif
https://media.giphy.com/media/WlN3Oz873pKdq/giphy.gif
https://media.giphy.com/media/bryCtjGB4Vt72/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/129ghIFY6s1HEI/giphy.gif

whats not to like about this? at the very least it is stylistic as heck

does flappy bird have any correct opinions

i have been to a bunch, incl the cemetery

https://sf.curbed.com/maps/a-carefully-plotted-totally-stalky-map-of-hitchcocks-vertigo

https://i.imgur.com/kB3vkq6.png

he's a fucking vampire!

(or a projector. or a director)

(repeat of the art museum tableau in which she stares at a two-dimensional version of herself designed by a man while he stands behind her, first as curious audience then as evil auteur)

Rewatched yesterday in DCP theater showing, followed by this:

https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-week-green-fog/

There's a very funny meta Michael Douglas ass joke.

a friend the other day: "what's that movie-- the one about the blonde?"

(if we'd already been talking about hitchcofk

--i would have had to have been like lol be more specific, but we weren't, so I was like, ...vertigo?)

Judy's not a blonde

death, tho

First released sixty years ago today

xxp first draft Ramones tune

Lol

More vital and fascinating than any other Hitchcock maybe because it's the one where he seems least in control of the ideas.

― ryan, Wednesday, August 1, 2012 9:22 PM (five years ago)

So otm. I'd say the same about Shadow of a Doubt.

I can get with that. My other fave Hitchcock, Rear Window, is the mirror image, where he's most in control of the ideas.

I'm not sure he's not utterly in control here, just because to Truffaut he led with "He wants to go to bed with a girl who's dead."

I'd say he's more of a loss in Marnie, which many of you like.

of = at

nobody's in charge of the ideas in Suspicion

yet Cary Grant can be in charge of my ideas

Cary Grant can charge for his ideas

this thread always reminds me that an ex-friend who fucked off to toronto still has this DVD

gotta rectify that

fling him off bell tower imo

tell him "it can't matter to ya"

it's too late

I haven't re-read my posts from January 2017 when I first saw Vertigo, but I have done a total 180 on it, it's brilliant and hypnotic and seems to exist outside of time, in a way unlike any other film I've ever seen. Second only to Shadow of a Doubt for my favorite Hitchcock. I was nonplussed when I saw it for the first time, and last night was only the second time I'd seen it. but it'd stuck in my mind for a year and a half. I also think some of the key themes are more resonant with me now.

Wazzabout this intriguing giallo take on Vertigo currently showing on MUBI, One One on Top of the Other?

Ah Alfred you gave me a good laugh

Cheers my
Friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tesqTwX7cpc

just watching youtube and revisited this scene and it is so Twin Peaks! especially at .5 speed (try it!). this scene is the transformation of Kim Novak's character into someone with a new identity.

visually it kind of feels like a formal precursor to the Black Lodge, with green curtains instead of red. Jimmy Stewart trapped framed in that menacing backdrop, the music building to a dramatic crescendo, the minor key melancholy eeriness of it all. def see this movie if you are a fan of Twin Peaks/Mulholland Drive.

this is a good list of influences
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/twin-peaks-david-lynch-influences

"Green Fog" is showing at the local cinema this weekend. (Guy Maddin's Vertigo remake made with misc. clips from various SF-based films.) Might check it out, esp. since it's playing with the Hitchcock version as a double-bill.

It's fun, and at only 65 minutes should make a good second half of a double feature

(even better as a first, but not for Vertigo virgins)

yes, it's good

i think Lynch even intro'd Vertigo at the IFC Center once

Scotty is one sick fuck

turns out Maddin put The Green Fog up for free on Vimeo six months ago

Wow

yeah! so good

omg thanks sic

Awesome! Good work sic

was I too high when I re-watched this for the first time in 10+ years last night or 1) does the lighting in the scene at the Argosy book shop actually gradually dim throughout the scene and 2) are they driving on the "wrong" side of the road both times they drive to the bell tower?

1. Yes https://alfredhitchblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/vertigo-deconstruction-of-a-scene-argosy-book-shop/

Saw 1958's Bell, Book, and Candle listed on TCM over the weekend, didnt get a chance to watch it but looking to catch it this week. Posting here bc wiki sez: "It stars Kim Novak as a witch who casts a spell on her neighbor, played by James Stewart"... wtf! Surprised I never heard of this, anyone seen it? Is it the rom-com companion to Vertigo that it sounds like?

Yes, it's charming (no pun intended) and it features a cat named Pyewacket, you can't go wrong

I only saw this for the first time last night (the list of films I haven't seen would make people on ILF blush and turn away, I suspect). Damn but I can't stop thinking about it. I'm unsure about Novak - there's a blankness there but it feels deliberate and stylised: she's a vessel or a plaything that various men manipulate and distort. The analogue for Hitchcock is pretty clear.

So many great scenes but the scene with the sequoias is running round and round my head. And the line that jumped at me was (if films are Rorschach then...): "Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere."

I keep thinking about this today. It's impossible coming to such a revered film (a film that comes at you out of a bathroom, cloaked in neon mist) - such that I already want to watch it again, now that I've got the first watch out of the way. The thing that keeps coming to me is James Stewart's eyes - how much acting he does with them. There is a moment in Ernie's, the first time he sees Judyline, when a look almost passes between them, that is all eyes: after the fact it's clear that he'd fallen for her, and she was trying to tell him (tell might be too strong a verb - suggest, insinuate).

As a couple of people have said, I want to eat in Ernies. All that red though - like a restaurant in the Tanz dance academy.

Good posts, Chinaski!

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/robert-downey-jr-vertigo-remake-paramount-1235563018/

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/272/014/e6a.jpg

No. Just no.

imagine if it's terrible and people watch it as a joke and it becomes more well known than the original with a generation of people.

Rewatched for the first time in a long while, because my wife and kids had never seen it. My wife liked it but was skeptical of its claims to all-time greatness — "Not even the best Hitchcock," she said. The kids were mostly kind of baffled, my oldest objecting particularly to the fact that by the end there are no sympathetic characters in sight. His most telling comment was, "I don't know, it made me uncomfortable." I said, don't you think it was supposed to? He said, "Maybe, but I didn't like feeling that."

I do think it's great, and also uncomfortable. Mostly it's a really strange film. It never loses its eeriness, even once you get the reveal of Judy's complicity. It's like the film has conjured ghosts and loses control of them, it stays haunted. Also this was the first time I'd watched it since Twin Peaks: The Return, and it reminded me how much Vertigo is embedded in the Twin Peaks DNA.

Cool. Feel free to watch THE GREEN FOG when you get a chance.

turns out Maddin put The Green Fog up for free on Vimeo🕸 six months ago

I always wonder if Vertigo, (or the book it was adapted from, which I haven't read) was drawing in some way on this Capek short story.

https://openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu/premedical-society/2020/10/29/karel-capek-vertigo/

Huh! Good little story, and definitely seems like it could be related.

It'll never be my favorite Hitchcock.

Same; it'll always be my second- or third-favorite

I have too many I need to revisit to have a solid ranking. Vertigo's in the top tier. And I think it's distinct — obviously it shares a lot of obsessions with other Hitchcocks, but its vibe is specific and odd.

What are the chances that "Mad Men"'s Matthew Weiner had this film in mind when he created his own character named Midge, who was herself an illustrator/painter?

Very good. I'd never even considered that.

Oh, good call on Midge in Mad Men. I mean, the Mad Men opening montage of the silhouette guy falling is a direct Vertigo reference, right?

I think Vertigo is a great art installation and a middling movie. Your oldest kid is right!

It's an interesting question whether it's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. Hitchcock wanted his audiences to feel scared, sure, but he was also firmly on the entertainment side, I think if you had suggested to him he was trying to challenge his audience he'd have reacted with disgust. He's def using Jimmy Stewart for shock value in the way everyone's described, but does he want the audience to be freaked out by him? Or to relate to him, while still feeling weirded out by the turns the film takes?

Well, it explains why the film was a box office disappointment.

Yes, and Hitch saw it as a failure because of that. So I don't think his intention was to alienate people.

Most directors make a film which departs quite a bit from what they have been doing.

Saw "Make way for Tomorrow" (McCarey) yesterday and you can see the comedic touch that he displayed in "Duck Soup" which ultimately served other, more tragic, ends and ended up bombing at the box office.

I think this is where auteur theory can really fail as often directors aren't in control, is how I break it down

Oh they often aren't but I think Hitchcock absolutely was throughout the 50's.

Amusing to imagine Hitchcock crafting *that* ending and thinking he had a box office success on his hands.

Yeah I mean, it's hard to say his intention wasn't to alienate people when he a.) abruptly shifts the POV from Scottie to Judy in the last section, and b.) makes Scottie more and more unlikable and crazy right up to the end. Basically daring audiences to follow along. Which was part of his bag of tricks anyway, confounding expectations — but maybe in Vertigo he went farther than the audiences were willing to.

Yeah what I doubt a bit is that Hitchcock viewed the "unlikable and crazy" behaviour of Stewart's character through the same lens we do now; I think he probably thought this dare was less of an ask than we think.

Anyway apparently his own reasoning for why it failed commercially was that Stewart was too old, which, that's a factor but hardly in anyone's top5 haha.