Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock's Most Hypnotic Thriller!
One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest cinematic achievements, Vertigo, celebrates its 50th anniversary with an all-new 2-disc Special Edition DVD! Set in San Francisco, Vertigo creates a dizzying web of mistaken identity, passion and murder after an acrophobic detective (James Stewart) rescues a mysterious blonde (Kim Novak) from the bay.
Recognized for excellence in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, this dreamlike thriller from the Master of Suspense is as entertaining today as it was 50 years ago. Featuring revealing bonus features and a digitally remastered picture, Vertigo is a "great motion picture that demands multiple viewings" (Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide).
Member Reviews
Excellent Hitchcock. - estefan
Surpassing North by Northwest as my favourite Hitchcock, Vertigo is a fascinating mystery that is also a mind study in the main character. James Stewart has a difficult role to play here and he absolutely nails it with what might just be his best performance. He starts off like a normal, likeable man, but as he gets consumed by obsession further and further, he gets scarier and scarier. He does an excellent job with slowly pulling into the madness and by the end, he's not likeable anymore. It's particularly interesting how Hitchcock flips the switch on the usual detective story convention by eventually making the femme fatale more sympathetic than the supposed hero. Adding to Hitchcock's complex direction is the fantastic cinematography, which has one carefully chosen and stunning shot after another, mixed together with Bernard Herrman's unforgettable score. Simply great cinema.A Masterpiece, - theJuliosof
There's a film critic, David Thompson, who claims that Hitchcock's movies are "shallow." Although unfair, irrelevant, and short-sighted, it's an argument one could make about the Master's oeuvre-with the exception of "Vertigo," a film that exceeds the control of its director, a movie that bears the stamp of the auteur yet must be judged a deeply resonant, collaborative triumph by three of the screen's indisputable geniuses: Hitch, Bernard Herrmann, and James Stewart.
On my third screening of this film, the story of obsession became my own, producing a reeling sensation that has yet to lift. Compared to "Vertigo," the other films of the so-called Hitchcock great trilogy--"Rear Window" and "Psycho"--indeed do seem shallow. Prior to this viewing I had listened to Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" with its thrilling "liebestod"-the moment when the consummation of passion must also be its end because it is a love of love rather than of a person. Then I began to reflect back on similar stories-Morte Darthur, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Wuthering Heights, The English Patient. "Vertigo" belongs to the same narrative pattern, perhaps realizing it more compellingly than any other representation.
In the moment when Scottie forces Judy to become Madeleine, Herrmann's score recalls Wagner's liebestod, crescendoing to an unforgettable emotional peak, at once riveting and disturbing. In the same moment that Madeleine has been exhumed from the dead by the obsessive man-child, we see that Judy's desperate attempt to draw Scottie's attention to the "real" Judy is doomed and that Scottie's fixation is beyond cure. The lost child that won't release Madeleine/Carlotta, the compulsive boy who can not be "taught" to love by either Judy or Midge, the frustrated and pathetic "mother" Midge--all remain forever disfigured by the fantasy constructed by Stewart's obsessive, stubbornly regressive, character.
In the film's last scene, ScotGenius - FilmJunkie
Years ago I watched this movie and I never understood what the fuss was about. I don't think I was able, at that age, to see all the subtleties and nuances of this complex and lovely film.
It follows a former police detective (Jimmy Stewart) hired ...(read more)by a friend to track the man's wife (Kim Novak). This leads into a hypnotic and delusional story about a woman in a painting and a thirst for suicide.
Stewart was never so broken or passionate on screen as he is here. The appeal he radiates naturally is put to the test as he romances his friend's strange wife and yet we cannot feel anything but sympathy for him because no matter what else he is, he is always our Jimmy Stewart.
Novak gives the performance of her career. The contrast between the two women she portrays is exquisite, but the ultimate test of her work is whether or not we understand her character's motives and in the end I believe we can. Thus her work is a triumph of the Hitchcock blonde.
Hitchcock was a master of twists and turns, but here is also masters the sickness and paranoia that comes from being in love. It is an impressive achievement that stands as one of his best films.
Member Reviews
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Excellent Hitchcock. - estefan
Surpassing North by Northwest as my favourite Hitchcock, Vertigo is a fascinating mystery that is also a mind study in the main character. James Stewart has a difficult role to play here and he absolutely nails it with what might just be his best performance. ...A Masterpiece, - theJuliosof
There's a film critic, David Thompson, who claims that Hitchcock's movies are "shallow." Although unfair, irrelevant, and short-sighted, it's an argument one could make about the Master's oeuvre-with the exception of "Vertigo," a film that exceeds the control ...Genius - FilmJunkie
Years ago I watched this movie and I never understood what the fuss was about. I don't think I was able, at that age, to see all the subtleties and nuances of this complex and lovely film.
It follows a former police detective (Jimmy Stewart) hired ...(read ...