Week 4 Vertigo

At about 13 minutes-13:40 into the film we see a couple of shots with the camera tracking both Scott and Gavin. This is no ordinary movement because if we pay attention to the background during each of their movements we can see that the items behind Scott's back are out of focus while the items on Gavin's side of the wall are not. At first glance we can interpret that the director chose to do this to make the characters seem more important in the film, but why only one? And later in their conversation when they separate in the room at 14 minutes, Scott’s backgrounds are out of focus more often than Gavin. However this is not consistent, even within the scene. At times the items behind Scott are perfectly in focus and at times they are not. This sounds a bit cheesy (I realize) but I want to say that this effect, including its inconsistency, is done to cause dizziness in the viewers when we are desperately searching for a clue of Scott’s state of mind. We want to know if he is stable or not, in the beginning. We don’t know how much that incident of vertigo “threw him off”. The director takes advantage of our vulnerable and naïve position to confuse us a little bit and enabling us to doubt the protagonist of the film, early on.