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The Vertigo final scene sums up all the qualities that made Alfred Hitchcock such an important filmmaker. Often regarded as his best work and considered by many to be the greatest film of all time, it's safe to say every modern thriller has a little bit of Vertigo in its synthesis. That's because the 1958 movie followed many conventions of the traditional film noir, while improving on the genre for the perfect balance between a harrowing mystery and a beautiful love story. Clashing the two elements through a succession of twists, Vertigo leads to a shocking, unrelenting ending typical of Hitchcock's work.

The movie follows Scottie (James Stewart), a detective who forced himself to retire due to his acrophobia that is, a great fear of heights, which is constantly symbolized in Vertigo through the use of spirals. He reluctantly accepts a mission from a dear friend that turns out to...

The trouble with being the best movie of all time is that Vertigo is now an easy target for criticism. But this strange, frustrating story of a haunted pervert will always evade definition

Hypnotised and hypnotic, mad and maddening, surely no commercial studio film (admittedly, a commercial and critical flop on its release) has ever offered and withheld such intricacy of intent and interpretation as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Pored over, parsed for clues, yanked to and fro by academics and psychoanalysts, its spirals of meaning permeate the development of film theory like the ringbound spine of a syllabus folder.

Last week, with the weight of Magna Carta, the BFI proclaimed Hitchcock's 46th feature the greatest film ever made, displacing Citizen Kane's 50-year reign at the top. Claiming the summit can of course only be a bad thing for Vertigo, marking the moment it stops being a singular work of unsettling depth and power,...

Voting is currently underway on the Sight & Sound poll for the greatest film ever made, which takes place every ten years, and is generally seen as one of the most definitive of such polls. And one film that's near-certain to place in the top ten, given that it's been there in every poll since 1982 (and placed second in 2002) is Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." The film was relatively poorly received on release, and indeed, remained unseen for twenty years, one of the five films to which Hitchcock bought back the rights to leave to his daughter (the so-called Five Lost Hitchcocks, which also include "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "Rear Window," "Rope" and "The Trouble With Harry"). But since its re-release in 1984, the film has grown into the great director's most acclaimed masterpiece, and is now one of the most examined, deconstructed and written about films in the history of the medium.

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In 1958 Paramount released Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock’s disturbing tale of death and obsession, love and loneliness. Receiving only average reviews on its release, Vertigo is now hailed as a cinematic masterpiece. Hitchcock’s direction, Bernard Hermann’s score and Robert Burks’ cinematography are particularly praised. Less often celebrated, argues art critic Iris Veysey, is Edith Head’s costume design.

Head’s work, particularly in dressing Kim Novak, helped to ground characters and signpost the narrative in a complex and convoluted plot. Dressing Novak in the dual role of Madeleine/Judy, Head’s designs successfully define two distinct characters, one polished and sophisticated, the other brassy and cheap.

Madeleine is introduced as a wealthy shipping heiress and wife of Gavin Elster. Accordingly, her clothes have the sheen of luxury. From a...

Solving the Mystery: The Pursuit of Truth Through Darkness

Because Hitchcock is an auteur, he treats each scene and character with craft and ensures that everything projected onto the screen is purposeful to the plot and experience shared by viewers. This discussion will focus on the sequence when Scotty Ferguson begins his serious pursuit of Madeleine Elster starting from outside the flower shop and concluding with the museum scene. This sequence paints the growing magnitude of the mystery and Scotty’s complicated psyche involved in uncovering the truth of Madeleine. Throughout this sequence, a number of filmmaking decisions and techniques make an ordinary mystery gradually become grander. As well, Hitchcock’s reliance on subjectivity compels the viewer to get caught up in Scotty’s relentless pursuit of the truth.

The visual contrast in each scene between lightness and darkness works to enhance the notion that while the pursuit of truth is necessary to self-fulfillment,...

For the finale of May Flowers I thought we should gaze at Alfred Hitchcock's immortal Vertigo(1958). Aside from Vertigo descendants like Robert Altman's Three Women or David Lynch's Mulholland Drive what film is more appropriate for this time of year when we're ruled by twin sign Gemini? Hitchcock films generally deserve complete dissertations but we don't have Scottie Ferguson's (Jimmy Stewart) stamina when it comes to fetishizing doppelgangers. So in the space of this blogpost we merely glance at his introductions to Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak).

Ferguson has been hired to follow Madeleine and as he first spots her in the deep rose red restaurant, Hitchock slow zooms out from Scottie (far right) at the bar and pans left, following his gaze, into the dining area filled with flowers and well heeled customers and even a painting of a floral arrangement framed by floral arrangements before it finally stops at Madeleine (tiny,...