Don’t Look Down, by Tyler Smith

VERTIGO (1958)
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Written by: Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak

There are precious few films that I have a hard time getting an analytical handle on, but still love all the same. The fact is, there are just some movies out there that defy you to interpret them. Once you think you’ve got them all figured out, you see something different that completely obliterates your previous thought. As strange as it may sound, talking about these films is like trying to grab the wind. The harder you try to harness it, the more frustrated you’ll become. It’s bigger than you; you’ll never be able to hold onto it. Instead, it’s better to simply let yourself feel it and experience it, making peace with the fact that it will never belong to you.

All that is very abstract, I know, but such is the nature of Vertigo. Hitchcock’s brilliant film, for me, ranks right up there with such movies as Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane, Magnolia, and Videodrome. We the viewers will never be able to completely understand these works, and how can we? It’s a good bet that the directors themselves didn’t quite know what they were doing. But they had to do it all the same. There was a story inside them that had to be told; the “why” is a mystery to everyone involved.

There is something especially strange about the idea of Alfred Hitchcock making a movie so psychologically complicated as Vertigo. Hitchcock may have been a director who liked to explore the dark complexities of the human mind, but his films could often feel very cold and clinical. He was a director whose work I love and respect, but you always knew what you were going to get. He could thrill you and shock you, but he very rarely challenged you. Psycho may have killed the main character in the first forty minutes, but it also gave a clean and simple explanation of Norman Bates’ psychosis at the end of the film. Vertigo doesn’t give us that. Hitchcock was a filmmaker who was drawn toward the theme of human obsession. This was the first- and possibly only- time that Hitchcock embraced the confusion, moral ambiguity, and messiness associated with obsession.

In the film, James Stewart (an actor whose squeaky clean image Hitchcock did his best to destroy in his movies) plays a former police detective whose fear of heights causes the death of another officer. At least, that’s what he thinks. As such, Stewart is predisposed to feelings of immense guilt from the beginning of this film. And this guilt is compacted when he falls in love with the wife of an old friend. She soon dies, as well, and Stewart falls into despair.

He soon finds an opportunity to alleviate his guilt in the form of a young woman who eerily resembles the dead wife. Grief and guilt are strong motivators. They can make a person desperate to go back in time; to imagine a world where certain bad things never happened, then make that world a reality. Stewart befriends this young woman, systematically turning her into his dead love. His obsession borders on abuse, and we the audience are deeply disturbed and confused.

Why is he doing this? Where is this leading? The answer presents itself soon enough, and it is an answer we don’t like. Obsession seldom ends well, and Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” is no exception. There are no easy answers as to why a person can latch on to a certain notion or feeling and never let go. One can simply look at that person with scorn and pity as their insane story plays itself out. Hitchcock, a man who didn’t like his movies to be too messy, was nonetheless smart enough to realize that to make a neat-and-tidy film about guilt and obsession would be to do a disservice to the subject. There are aspects of life that are scary and confusing and mournful; to adequately make a film about them means being open to psychological chaos.

Vertigo is a film that is hard to summarize. Just when you think you’ve got it, its masterful storyteller comes along and throws you a curve ball. However, at no point does it feel like Hitchcock is screwing with you just to screw with you. This is an elusive subject, and should be regarded as such.

When I was young, I shied away from movies that I didn’t fully understand. Now, as I’ve gotten older, I embrace them. I may not completely comprehend them, but who says I have to? There are no easy answers in life, so why should there be in film?