Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Vertigo” was released in 1959. This movie falls under a Psychological thriller movie genre. Alfred Hitchcock produced and directed the movie. He based his story line on a 1954 novel by the name “D’entre les morts”, meaning “From Among the Dead” by Boileau Narcejac. Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor wrote the screenplay of the movie. In this paper, evaluation of the film was conducted about the theme of cyclicality: the returning past was given an in depth analysis.

“Vertigo”(1958), is one of the best films by Alfred Hitchcock. This film begin with the main character Scottie who just retired from his job as a San Francisco detective. He is motivated to retire after the death of one of his work mates who he fails to save

First, the story is about Scottie who has a strong obsession towards the past. In the first part of the movie, Scottie falls in love, but the object to whom he directs his affection is “dead”. All through the second part of the movie, he thus tries to reform Judy as his “dead” lover. His attempt is to bring back the beautiful past. In the scene where Judy come to the hotel with her hair looking like Madeleine’s, Scottie’s point of view is clearly outlined as he stares at the corridor indicating his excitement. The scene hence expresses his desire of returning the past by making us sympathize with his feelings. This is also an evident by the fact that he is only satisfied when Judy looks like Madeleine. When Judy comes and he realize the hair doesn’t look like Madeleine’s, he is disappointed. He is fully disconnected with the present and lost in the illusions of “Madeleine” who according to him had already died. Second, Madeleine creates an imaginary obsession towards her late great grandmother. This makes us think about the effect the past can possess on a person. In Scottie’s perspective, we are questioning ourselves on how our present life is based on the memories of our past. Moreover, the story further reflect the life of Gavin’s wife who is an important character and we see her only once in the movie. According to the local historian, Gavin’s wife’s great grandmother Carlotta Valdes was a woman thrown away by his husband. This indicates the repetition of the past by Gavin’s wife going through the same situation. This connection brings us to another nostalgic element of the movie. Where San Francisco was a city symbolizing freedom and men in old days would throw their wives away. Gavin returns the past as a man of power and does the same to his wife. Finally, Scottie’s acrophobia from the conversation with Midge seems to be from the past. This was before his fellow