The Vertigo Effect In The Film Vertigo

The cinematography is one of the things that stands out most in the movie Vertigo. Not only is the vertigo effect (dolly zoom) fun and intriguing, but even from the beginning of the film, the shots really stand out and are very different from anything we’ve seen in Hitchcock’s earlier films. I liked watching the way the film transitioned from sepia to red and the various zooms to different parts of Madeleine’s face, then to the rotating symbols. All of this seemed very symbolic to me. The sepia seemed to imply dreaming, the red implied murder, the different zooms on Madeleine’s face suggested obsession, and the rotating symbols were, of course, Scottie’s vertigo. The red also reminded me very much of Gavin’s office which we see later in the …show more content…
The moment’s where she seemed to disappear, how the lady at the hotel seemed to not see her, and how he later seems to be haunted by her.

It was also interesting how after Madeleine’s death, Scottie starts to have dreams similar to hers. Today we would likely say Scottie was suffering from severe PTSD after her death, and he was likely struggling with a lesser form after the first death in the movie. Maggie’s comment that another severe trauma might cure his fear of heights is an interesting notion, and serves to foreshadow later events.

There was one final angle I thought of while reading the “Last Laugh” article. As they point out, we never do find out how Scottie got saved from the fall. This led me to wonder, what if he didn’t get saved. What if Scottie is either dead or in a coma because he fell from the ledge, and now he is trapped in some kind of purgatory, in which he must atone for his sins (the fallen, policeman, and the escaped criminal . The whole affair with Madeleine, solving the crime, and conquering his acoraphobia could all just be part of his process of moving through purgatory. Just another thought I found