Vertigo: Reflections & Religion

I admit to not being familiar with thrillers.  I’ve never been drawn to the idea of spending time or money to watch something scary or that makes me feel tense and uncomfortable.  Life has had its own uneasy moment for most of us without, in my opinion, seeking out more.  Of course, this means that I had never seen any entire Hitchcock movie except for The Birds, which, like Vertigo, was required viewing in a literature course I took last year.  At least, having watched Vertigo, I am not left with the mental images of attacking birds imprinted on my mind, images that are disturbing to me even now over a year later.  Not totally clueless as to Hitchcock’s work, I admit that I have also seen parts of Psycho – and turned it off before I found myself unable to shower ever again. Vertigo is not a scary movie.  It may be considered a psychological thriller that plays with the mind’s perception a bit, but there’s nothing terrifying here.  Hitchcock presents a story that on the surface is marginally interesting, certainly too long, but apparently been proclaimed a great film.  I’ve yet to figure that one out but, as I said, I’m a novice, right? But even a novice can notice things.

Vertigo is a movie about reflections, images that are representations, not realities. James Stewart plays John, as he is called by old friends and who is also called Scotty by acquaintances.  Kim Novak plays Madeline and also Judy who, to reflect back, also plays Madeline.  Each fall in love with the other, or at least with one of the other’s personas.  In other words, they fall in love with a reflection. Judy, as Madeline, calls James Stewart’s character John, pushing a familiarity to ‘old friend’ status that she needs to complete her mission.  Judy, on the other hand, calls him Scotty, perhaps in an effort to separate herself from her representation of Madeline. 

This pattern of reflected imagery is repeated by Hitchcock in other places in the film, underscoring the duplicity that is essential to the plot.  Most obvious is the spiral graphics of the film’s opening which reflect John’s vertigo, his spiraling down into acceptance of what he initially felt was unreal and impossible.  Other reflections occur as Hitchcock directs the camera shots to travel from the seated Madeline to the painting of Carlotta, Midge’s portrait of Carlotta using her own face, and Midge again reflected in the window glass right after showing John her rendition of Carlotta.  It is also easy to see the reflection of Madeline in Judy or, for that matter, of Judy in Madeline.  Physically they are identical, of course.   Hitchcock carries this reflection through in other plot –supporting mages as well such as staging Madeline in the hotel window and then again Judy in the window.  Seating Madeline before the fire after John rescues her from the bay and then John seating Judy in the same position would be another example.

Let me explain a bit about the plot which has its own distorted mirror images.  John is a retired detective.  He is a realist, a man who has solved crimes, who lives in the real world.  John is the man who agrees to follow Madeline, the wife of his old college friend, to help determine the cause of her recent odd behavior.  The Madeline that he follows is not the real Madeline, but has been hired by the old college friend to act as if she is Madeline, setting up John to be the witness to the real Madeline’s murder by her husband. Judy is the woman who is hired to play at being Madeline.  Confused yet?  Perhaps that’s the vertigo kicking in as it all makes me a bit dizzy.

Assuming that you've seen the movie, I’ll skip the plot twists.  An important point to make is that John loses his mind after Madeline’s death, regains it a bit, and then sees Judy who is so like Madeline.  His love for Madeline is so extreme that he is nearly abusive in persuading Judy to change her manner of dress and even her hair color to recreate Madeline.  He doesn't realize initially that she actually is one and the same, as he believes Madeline to be dead.  Judy, also out of love for Scotty, is willing to become someone else in order to have his love. 

Which leads me to my last observation of how Hitchcock weaves images into the story.  Throughout the movie, there are recurring scenes at churches.  The mission church from which Carlotta supposedly originated, the church and churchyard that Madeline visited, and finally the return to the mission setting at the climax of the movie all speak to the moral undertones of Vertigo which Hitchcock used to create depth to the story. As John is willing to suspend his disbelief and join in the implausible story of a dead Carlotta affecting the actions of a living woman, falling so in love with this pathetically deranged – and married - person, he has made a moral choice that has consequences.  Judy, too, is guilty of first participating in a scheme to enable a man to murder his wife, and then in loving a man to the point where she allows him to so control her as to willingly change her appearance, bowing to his obsession and become the image that he loves.  Hitchcock embeds the religious settings in his story to underscore the moral, and the consequences of stepping beyond moral boundaries. 

Both John and Judy sell their souls for love.  In the final, abrupt twist, as John confronts Judy with his knowledge of the truth, it is a religious sister that appears suddenly, so startling Judy as to cause her to fall to her death.  It is the unexpected shot of the nun’s appearance that is the most dramatic, almost too unpredictable, turn in the story that ends the movie with the implied message “the wages of sin are death.”

            While still unsure of the claim made to this being one of the greatest films ever, I certainly do applaud Hitchcock for directing a confusing, scrambled story line in such a way as to create drama, to use reflections to mimic the story line, and to subtle inference to the consequences of the choices the characters made.   Well done.