"Scottie, do you believe that someone out of the past - someone dead - can enter and take possession of a living being?"
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"Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece". "The best mystery movie of all time". "The most enchanting depiction of human emotion ever made". "One of the most important movies of the last 100 years." These are only a few of the many praises that have been sung about Vertigo, the 1958 romantic thriller that immediately split audiences and critiques in two, and continues to do so even 55 years later. Taking on these kinds of movies, the ones that everyone seems to love and admire, the so called "all time greats", is a humongous challenge for me as a blogger, because of how "set in stone" the world's opinion on these movies have become. As far as I know, disagreeing with the "fact" that Citizen Kane and Casablanca are two of the best movies ever made, would be just as insulting to most hardcore movie buffs as taking a dump on their porch would be. Seeing as this is my blog though; the place where I can write about everything and anything I want to, I'm just gonna go ahead and spill my beans. I don't like this movie. There it is.
Now that that's out of the way, let's go ahead and get this review started. Vertigo takes place in San Francisco in the middle of the 1950's, where John 'Scottie' Ferguson, played by James Stewart, is forced into early retirement from his job as a police detective, because of his immense fear of heights following a tragic event. Having been unemployed for just a few days, an old college friend reaches out to him, and asks Scottie to stalk his wife, played by Kim Novak, around the streets of San Francisco for a while, in an attempt to find out why she's been acting "weird". Scottie reluctantly agrees to help out his old friend, and as his mission gets going, he discovers that there's a lot more to this woman than he initially though. As the movie goes on, Alfred Hitchcock's incredible understanding of human emotions and behavior quickly becomes apparent, and Vertigo virtually transforms into a study of devotion, deceit, manipulation and loneliness.
In terms of technical precision, care, experience and devotion, few directors are as skilled, talented and innovative as Alfred Hitchcock was; that's pretty much a solid fact. Because of this, Vertigo is very impressive in terms of camera work and craft, but apart from that, I honestly don't find anything about this movie that exiting. I guess the performances of the main characters were alright, and the point of view shots of Scottie experiencing his fear of heights probably were impressive and innovation for the movie's time, but other than that? I'm not so sure. To answer the questions that most hardcore fans of Vertigo will be eager to ask me after this statement of mine, I've decided to do this next part of the review in a 'question and answer' sort of way. Here we go!:
Q: "But Andrew, what about the nerve wracking suspense and the nail biting tension that follows this movie throughout?"
A: Frankly, I've experienced more excitement in movie trailers and video game advertisements. Vertigo might have been groundbreakingly suspenseful and exciting when it came out 55 years ago, but compared to todays standards, it falls flat in every way possible, at least in my opinion. Take away the musical score, and you have one hour of someone driving around in a car looking weirdly confused, and another hour of someone trying to make an awkward and unbelievable relationship work out. I personally found Vertigo to be boring almost all the way through, which deeply saddens be, because of all the great things I'd heard about it prior to actually seeing it. The ending also felt really weird, abrupt and indecisive to me, and I wasn't surprised to found out that there were several different ideas thrown around regarding how the final moments were supposed to go down.
Q: "What about the main mystery and the twists and turns that Hitchcock creates? Weren't you surprised and impressed by these?"
A: Well, I'd like to be able to say that I was. Movies that force its audience to think about what's going and put pieces together in order to experience some great revelation are infinitely exciting to me, but this movie's twists and mysteries didn't even have the power to make me raise my eyebrows. Vertigo's main mystery is explained in full detail just one hour into the movie, which was way too early for me to care enough about it, and it turned out to be no way near as jaw dropping as I'd expected. The whole thing honestly seemed very weird to me, and I couldn't help not caring about the underwhelming twists and mysteries.
Q: "It's because your too young and too inexperienced that you're saying these things. You just don't understand how great this movie is, do you?"
A: That's the way opinions work. Disagreeing with a popular one brings people in trouble all the time, but I'd like to think that I've stated my case as clearly and respectfully as possible in this review. I do get why a lot of people love the living shit out of Hitchcock's Vertigo, because as I mentioned, this movie was innovative and ahead of it's time back in 1955. Being an 18-year-old kid who lives in a time where suspenseful and mystifying movies like The Unusual Suspects, Fargo and Memento exist though, I simply don't find Vertigo exiting and nerve wracking enough. I won't apologize for my opinions, because that's what they are; opinions, and accusing me of "not knowing what true movie magic is" or "not understanding what's great about this classic movie" just because I come from a period of time where things are different from what they used to be, honestly seems a little immature to me.
In the end, I want to make one thing very clear: I do understand why this movie is considered a classic, and why a lot of people will defend it to their dying breath. I personally just didn't find it as entertaining as I'd hoped I would, and that's not just because I'm too young and too stupid to "get it", go ahead and read my review of On the Waterfront, an even older "all time great" that I've reviewed in the past, if you don't trust me. Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece underwhelmed me severely, and I'm truly sad that it didn't turn out to be the mind blowing and jaw dropping experience I'd hoped for. Instead of overwhelmed, surprised and taken aback, Vertigo left me bored, saddened and facepalming. (2/6)
Vertigo IMDb page here
Vertigo tailer here
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