The Vertigo Movie Is A Hitchcock Classic Added: 09/28/2007

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The Vertigo movie is an Alfred Hitchcock classic that was made in 1958 and starred James Stewart and Kim Novak. It held a pretty high budget in its day of over $2 million and contained some of the most dizzying camera work in all of Hollywood history. Of course no Hitchcock movie is complete without a quick appearance from the director himself and in the Vertigo movie Hitchcock does indeed do his patented walk on to the set and appears briefly in the movie. Every detail in the Vertigo movie was taken into account right down to the effect the costuming worn by Kim Novak’s character Madeleine would have on the look of the story and how a striking blonde woman in a dull gray suit with a black scarf would look all throughout the movie. These attentions to detail are a trademark of Hitchcock’s not only in the Vertigo movie but in all of his movies along with his trademark use of James Stewart as his leading man. Stewart was one of the favorite leading men for Hitchcock as he also appeared in the Hitchcock movie Rear Window in 1954. Hitchcock made a lot of careers with his movies and he was often referred to as the Master Of Suspense and he was voted as the number 2 greatest director ever by British magazine Empire. His legacy lives on in his films and he will always be remembered for the way he took seemingly simple plot lines and made them into some of the scariest movies you have ever seen.

In the Vertigo movie James Stewart plays a police detective named John Ferguson who suffers from a condition called acrophobia which is more commonly referred to as a fear of heights. When he gets in high places he begins to experience what is called vertigo where he begins to get dizzy and lose his balance. In the Vertigo movie Ferguson is hired by the husband of Madeleine Elster to follow her because he fears that she is going insane as she may believe that she is possessed possibly by a dead ancestor of hers from many generations back. Ferguson has a hard time believing the story but since the husband is an old friend of his he agrees to take the job. What Ferguson did not account for is that Madeleine Elster liked to wander off to high places and all throughout the Vertigo movie we are given glimpses into what it is like to have acrophobia and vertigo as Ferguson repeatedly finds himself growing more and more concerned for Madeleine as she ventures to higher and higher places. Soon his concern gives way to obsession and he is torn between continuing to follow Madeleine into situations where his acrophobia kicks in or just explain the whole situation to her husband.

The Vertigo movie is a masterful trip through the mind of a man that is pulled in so many directions that he sometimes does not know what to think. On the one hand he has a job to do and is contracted by a close friend because that close friend is concerned for his wife’s well being. On the other hand she keeps wandering into situations that he cannot easily follow her into and it makes his job extremely difficult if not physically painful. Add to that the angle that has Ferguson becoming obsessed with Madeleine and you have that mix of simple plot lines into one fascinating story that Alfred Hitchcock has become so legendary for in the memories of movie goers everywhere.

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