Although I’ve seen it many times over the years, it was only today I finally got around to writing something about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 wonder, Vertigo. I posted my “review” (if you can call it that) here: Vertigo (1958). As I say in the piece, Vertigo, “… stands up as an enthralling movie, a magnificent confluence of directing, story, theme and performance.”
I understand that some people find watching older movies difficult (this one is over 50 years old). The quality of them isn’t always the best and often the style and look are hard to adjust to because current films are technically so much better, as far as image goes, and the style is often so different, usually so much more fast paced.
It helps, I suppose, to have grown up with some of these older movies. I think that makes them more accessible — because they are familiar, at least stylistically. But I feel a bit sorry for anyone who finds them hard to engage with.
In the case of Vertigo, as I watched it through it’s second half, as Scotty tries to remake Judy into his fantasy of Madeleine, his obsession, I was actually angry with him. I wanted to slap him on the head and say, “You moron! Don’t you see what you’re doing?”
You can only feel that way if you are fully, meaning emotionally, engaged with a movie. There is no greater litmus test for how effective and successful a movie is than an unthinking emotional response to it. Made in 1958, Vertigo stills snags me.
That is what a good movie should do. Everytime.
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