Week 4: Vertigo

I wanted to start off by saying that this was my favorite Hitchcock film, and the beginning scene of this movie was the most interesting to me by far of all the Hitchcock films we have watched so far. The movie begins with a chase scene with Scottie and his partner in a very dark scene during the night time as they chase a culprit on the rooftops of the city. At (Timestamp: 3:10-3:45) Hitchcock uses contrast to create suspense in the chase scene by using extremely dark contrast allowing the viewers to almost only see a dark outline of the characters and the environment. At (Timestamp: 3:50) Hitchcock uses a bit lighter contrast as Scottie is hanging from the roof to show the city in the background. This allowed the audience to see how high the characters actually were adding suspense because you know they are at deadly heights.

At (Timestamp 41:40) as Scottie follows Madeleine, Hitchcock uses an Extreme Long Shot to show Madeleine in comparison to the large bridge. Once again Hitchcock uses a bridge in a very important scene in the movie. At (Timestamp 42:18) Hitchcock uses an Extreme Close Up of Madeleine’s hands as she tears apart her bouquet of flowers slowly almost as she is suicidal and anticipating a jump to the waters from the platform. This added a lot of suspense to the film as the camera switches from looking at Madeleine to Scottie as he watches her from afar. At (timestamp 42:45) Hitchcock uses a Following Shot on Scottie and Madeleine as he carries her lifeless body out of the waters. After he takes her to safety, a Close Up shot is used that almost depicts Madeleine and Scottie as having a very intimate relationship.

One of the most powerful scenes to me from the film was when Scottie was chasing Madeleine up the bell tower before she plunges to her death, or so we think. At (Timestamp 1:15:55) Hitchcock uses Angle of Framing to show Madeleine running up the stairs of the bell tower from the point of view of Scottie. This added a lot of depth to the scene allowing the audience to see exactly how high the bell tower was. This also added suspense to the scene because the audience knows that Scottie is afraid of heights and that he will not be able to follow her to the top. Also at (Timestamp 1:23:45) Scottie begins to dream of all the events and has somewhat of a psychedelic experience. Hitchcock uses powerful chases in color and contrast as well as flashing images to create a very disorienting and almost confusing scene. This scene was important to me because you get to see the cognitive problems that Scottie is dealing with from all these deaths and events.