1001 Movies Club - Vertigo (1958)

#347. Vertigo (1958)

Why It's In The Book: "Though director Alfred Hitchcock was then at the height of his critical success and commercial fame, Vertigo was not a well-liked film at the time of its release. Most criticism focused on the intricate and unlikely plot dependent on a fiendishly implausible murder scheme on the part of a thinly characterized villain… Closer to the mark, there was a genuine feeling of discomfort at the nasty little relationship between Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak around which the film turns. But during a lengthy period in which Vertigo was unavailable for copyright reasons, the film was critically reassessed. Now it is held to be one of the master's greatest works… Here, you get the Hitchcock who was a master of atmosphere as well as suspense, and a genuine evocation of the unearthly… Few mainstream Hollywood movies dare to be as unsettling as Vertigo… as emotionally devastating as the shower scene in Psycho… Like several other Hitchcock greats (Rear Window, North By Northwest, Psycho), Vertigo has been endlessly imitated, homaged, and reworked. Movies like Brian DePalma’s Obsession are feature-length footnotes to the original. Technical tricks – the simultaneous zoom-in and track-back used to convey Stewart’s vertigo – have been added to the repertoire (Stephen Spielberg used it in Jaws). Clips from the film have even been used to add mood to other movies (such as Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys). In all, Vertigo is a gorgeous, disturbing, icily romantic film, with steel gray Technicolor images, evocative moments of close-up surrealism, and an insistent, probing Bernard Herrmann score." -1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Member Ratings

Jaime Grijalba - 10/10
"Jimmy Stewart is my favorite actor."
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Michaël Parent - 10/10
"The definition of vertigo is a sensation of dizziness or abnormal motion resulting from a disorder of the sense of balance. In Alfred Hitchcock's picture, Vertigo is translated as John "Scottie" Ferguson's (James Stewart) fear of heights."
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Sunny D - 9.5/10
"I think it’s the final bell tower scene of the movie that really puts Vertigo over the top, in the way that everything comes together as Stewart, and Novak too, portray these complicated multi-layered characters in such a heightened state."
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Jay Cluitt - 9/10
"Seeing James Stewart's disembodied head advancing from a brightly coloured solid background reminds me of Porky Pig at the end of a cartoon."
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Klaus Ming - 9/10
"a brilliant story of suspense and murder"
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Adolytsi - 8/10
"The film gets somewhat predictable once the initial mystery has worn off, and Jimmy Stewart delivers just about the same performance in every Hitchcock film he appears in, but this is still a top-notch film even with its flaws."
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Movie Guy Steve - 8/10
"It will ruffle a few feathers when I suggest that of Hitchcock's great films, Vertigo is probably the least."
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Nicolas Krizan - 8/10
"Far-fetched, odd, disturbing – pure Hitchcock at the height of his powers!"
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Siochembio - 8/10
"The color work, as brilliant as it is, is a mere underpinning to the phenomenally ugly psychological maelstrom that is the two main characters, and herein lies the window to Hitchcock's soul."
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Squish - 7/10
"I found the script uninspired and all too expository, "Hey we were engaged once, you remember that?" Who the hell asks that question if not for an audience? Jimmy might as well just have stood up, walked stage front-left while a spotlight fell on him as he spoke directly to the camera, Jesus."
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Overall Rating: 8.6/10