Vertigo Themes

There are two major themes that dominate the score of this film, a melodic solo saxophone, and dissonant trumpets over rhythmic drums. The sighing of the solo saxophone evokes the lonely melancholy of an individual alienated from the bigger environment he dwelled in. With the smooth, jazzy tones from the eight-bar sax, it also complements the night glamour of the New York City’s urban terrain. When we see Travis on his yellow cab passing through the various neighborhood of this fascinating city, the mellow echo of the saxophone just devours all the restless we have, and let us fall into the Travis’s world of loneliness. The second theme corresponds to the psychotic tendencies of Travis, with the unresolved, dissonant chord played by trumpets and drums. At various scenes in the movie, the uncanny sound strikes the audience along with the weirdness of Travis, and in …show more content…
The unresolved chords of the blaring trumpets reflect echo Travis’s complex emotion to the city, the discord he has to the society, and propel him to seek for action. This unresolved trait of this theme is quite characteristic of the score of several Hitchcock movies, which composed by Hermann as well. Like the unmelodious theme in Vertigo, a psychological thriller film in 1958. The comparable feature between the score of these two films is how the sound reveals the obsession of the main character, and it's about circling back to the same moment, again and again. The former police detective John Ferguson (starring James Stewart) and Travis Bickle both have a complex deep in their minds. It is like a knot that tied in their heart that they keep going back to it again and again, like Madeleine (starring Kim Novak) John is looking for and the normality Travis is seeking for. And Bernard Hermann successfully revealed this complex of these two characters through the incredibly captivating music score in