Week 4: Vertigo

Within the first minute of the movie Vertigo we see Hitchcock focus in on the eyes of a face on screen. According to me, Hitchcock with this scene singles out the importance of the eyes in this movie.  This movie follows former police officer Scotty who after a tragic accident is suffering from a fear of heights. He is approached by his friend, Gavin, who wants him watch over his wife, Madeline’s whereabouts as he believes her to be possessed. Surveillance becomes an important motif in this story as Scotty who begins to follow a girl who he believes to be Madeline.  Scotty as we later find out had been tailing the wrong girl all along. The girl he had been following was a look alike of Madeline named Judy who was being paid by Gavin to impersonate Madeline to be possessed. In this way Hitchcock shows how eyesight can be deceiving and a weakness. This goes back to the first scene as the eyes on the screen go red. Red as we know is a color that symbolizes danger, murder and deception. Scotty never actually see’s Madeline after she falls. Gavin who used Scotty’s fear of heights to stage the murder of his wife deceives Scotty due to his weakness, Scotty’s fear of heights can again be attributed to his eyesight as when he looks at falls from great heights we can see his fear setting in. In this way the eye, a detective’s greatest tool as an observer becomes Scotty’s greatest weakness as he is deceived by his friend into believing that he has been following Madeline when he was following Judy also because looking at falls from heights facilitates Scotty's fear.

 .