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Vertigo begins what many assert is Hitchcock’s finest series of films. Followed by North by Northwest in 1959 and Psycho in 1960, Vertigo represents one of Hitchcock’s most complex films, both narratively and thematically. Starring James Stewart as Scottie, a policeman overcome with guilt over the death of a colleague and plagued by a crippling fear of heights, Vertigo explores mistaken identities, murder, obsession, love, and guilt within a classically Hitchcockian tale of suspense.
Assigned to follow an acquaintance’s wife, played by Kim Novak, Scottie falls in love with her. When the suicidal woman climbs a bell tower, Scottie’s fear of heights prevents him from going after her, and he is forced to watch as she apparently plummets to her death. Some months later, he sees a woman, again played by Kim Novak, who resembles the dead woman. They begin dating, and a truly disturbing side of Scottie begins to surface as he attempts to make this woman over as his dead love, insisting that she dye her hair and wear similar clothes. The viewer soon learns, however, that this is indeed the same woman, and that she had been used as an accessory to murder. The man who initially hired Scottie had actually murdered his wife, and then had covered up the crime by hiring a woman (Kim Novak) to play his wife. Once Scottie discovers this, he drives the woman back to the bell tower in a fit of rage and indignation. Able to conquer his fear of heights, he climbs the bell tower with her. However, when the scene in the tower closely approximates the conditions surrounding the murder of the real wife, the character played by Kim Novak is so shocked and overcome by guilt that she falls off the edge.
An extremely dark, psychologically morose tale, Vertigo did not immediately achieve the popularity of some of Hitchcock’s films. A conflicted, disturbed, sometimes cruel Jimmy Stewart was simultaneously shocking and evocative, for his character drew the audience into considering the effects of trauma, lovesickness, and obsession on a formerly “normal” person. In the years since its release, Vertigo has been praised and studied, and it is considered by many to be Hitchcock’s finest, most complex work.
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