Jonah Bossewitch

VIS 342

Prof. P. A. Sytney

The psychiatric establishment has identified a phobic disorder that is associated with the sensation of whirling, disorientation, and a lose of equilibrium and balance. They have determined that it is perfectly healthy to experience these symptoms when spinning around in place, but it has been established that anybody who exhibits them simply from the displacement of their bodies from the ground is mentally ill. Hitchcock brilliantly exploits the intersection of these two states of consciousness through his cinematic exploration of the themes of linearity (height) and cyclicality (spin). The scene that weaves these ideas together is one which towers over the movie and is decidedly climactic despite its chronological occurrence in the middle of the film. The scene, of course, is the chase up the church bell tower (the first ascent) which combines crucial ideas preceding and following it, their juxtaposition creating a pivotal moment in the development of the underlying philosophy of Vertigo.

In creating a psychological thriller, Hitchcock pushes the limits of the shot-countershot, expanding its meaning from simply a view from the perspective of what the character sees, to a recreation of the what character experiences, namely, what he feels. Hitchcock does not stop with a representation of Scotty's experience of vertigo, as we are shown in the opening scene, but develops a film which sends the audience reeling both visually and structurally. The opening scene sets up the opposition against the later contortions which Hitchcock presents us with. It begins with a shot vertical ladder, atop the roof of a rectilinear building. This shot presents us with linearity in its purest form, and it is this linearity that Scotty fears the most as he escapes in the devastating cycle of eternal return. Hitchcock represents Scotty's fear with a zoom lens, which lunges in and out of the view to the ground for an interesting, but undisquieting effect.

Scotty is unsettled by a linear or causal perspective and this fact is mirrored in his compulsive makeover of Judy, and more generally in his poor deductive skills. He refuses to let go of the past, and does not seem to apprehend the direction of time's arrow which enforces the universal rule that consequences follow directly from actions. He is completely at ease with the dizzying circular motion that would upset the mind (and stomach) of the average man, and Hitchcock captures this side of Scotty when he slowly pans 360° through the history of his relationship with Madeline while he embraces Judy. This comfort with the circular nature of reality is graphically represented by the Sequoia section, whose rings of concentric circles correspond to years, instead of the standard western representation of history as a time line. Scotty is at ease with what causes discomfort in most of us (spinning your wheels in metaphorical circles) and yet he fears what many of us can cope with regularly—the abyss of causality and the relentless progression of time. This inversion presents Hitchcock with the challenge of causing us to confront Scotty's fears through the direct experience that the movie evokes.

In many senses, Vertigo is not about a character who experiences vertigo, but is a film which promises to recreate the experience of vertigo for every participant who engages it. The stunning combination of the orthogonal motifs of linearity and circularity is exemplified in the scene where Scotty chases Madeline up the church tower. The scene takes place in an old Spanish church, whose arched windows and domed tower contrast sharply with the Cartesian architecture of the apartment complexes in the opening scene. Madeline rushing into the church through the large rectangular door, with Scotty in hot pursuit. A quick countershot of a sacramental round cistern, and then Scotty sees the diagonal set of steps in the stairwell of the tower. He races after Madeline, as the countershot traces her trajectory up and around at a terrific angle out the top left hand corner of the frame. We watch Scotty from the ground level, starting in the lower right hand corner, traversing the top of the screen to disappear above us on the left. At this point in the chase sequence we expect a cut to Madeline, but instead we are surprised with a view looking down on Scotty, still winding his way up the staircase. Scotty's' gaze becomes fixated on the distance between the rickety landing and the floor, and it is as if Scotty is suddenly the one being pursued up the steps by his fear, as we momentarily forget about his pursuit of Madeline. The second countershot of Scotty's double take hits the viewer with the full force of the vertigo that Hitchcock has established, as adulterous obsessions, mystical reincarnated possessions, and suicidal lovers are thrown into a blender and pureed. We return to the chase, but instead of a countershot, Hitchcock switches to a birds eye view, as Scotty emerges from the lower left corner of the screen in hot pursuit of Madeline, who is circling counter clockwise above him up the final set of steps which lead to the roof.

While the zoom lens effect is disorienting on its own, only when it is combined with the rotation of the camera (or an equivalent effect accomplished by zooming in and out of an M.C. Escher-like set) is the audience truly nauseated. Hitchcock fuses the powerful paradigms of the straight and the circular into the single metaphor of the spiral, which embodies both. It is the spiraling of the shot parallelling the plot which elicits and sustains this reaction in the audience, and neither the death defying heights nor the dervishing spins can produce this effect alone. We are give a clue to the importance of the spiral to the films plot in the opening credits of the film which show a series of spirographs, which look a little like fingerprints, the prototypical clue. Even the musical score during the chase sequence captures this idea as the main riff repeatedly climbs the scale, demonstrating the isomorphic, but non identical repetition embodied in the infinite spiral. When traveling along the path of a spiral, a full rotation returns the traveler to the same angular displacement but a different radial one. This model encompasses both the idea of eternal return, as well as the notion that we can change things, and that nothing is necessarily doomed to repeat itself, although certain patterns and templates inevitably will.

By embracing the form of the spiral, Hitchcock is simultaneously mocking and rejecting any extreme dogma which sets itself up in opposition to other well established dogmas. Instead he searches for a synthesis which often requires disruptive and unsettling revaluations which the viewer is not prepared for. The overarching conflict between the metaphysical doctrines of the east versus the west is in many ways a cover story for the more pressing contemporary issues that Hitchcock addresses. Throughout the movie we are forced to ask the questions "Who is actually mentally ill?", "Who is the good guy in the movie?", and "Should behavior be acceptable simply because it is normal?" The challenge posed to the viewer is to grapple with these issues by inching your way along the film's spiral (the real/reel) without letting yourself spiral out of control the way that the characters in Vertigo do.

For example, in examining the question of Scotty's sanity, we must bear in mind the fact that two (three including Madeline who most believe died from her fall) people in the film actually do plunge to deaths from great heights. In this respect, a healthy respect for heights and gravity is a highly rational position, just as it is completely reasonable to fear snakes and flying. Perhaps if Judy or the Police officer had acquired such a resect for heights they would still be alive right now. Of course, at the other extreme, anybody who is afraid of standing on the top of a stepstool has a serious problem, and we are repeatedly shown Scotty's neuroses manifest in numerous ways. The final triumphant shot of Scotty cured of his Vertigo, standing on the ledge of the bell tower, is especially ominous, since in the Hitchcockian world Scotty has not truly been cured of anything, he has simply advanced to the next cycle of the spiral. We are left hanging as to the resolution of this drama, as to some of its details, and there is a definite vague sense that Judy was destined to fall off that tower, and Scotty could have done nothing to prevent it. And yet, he was the one who dragged her up there, so we must wonder who is pulling his strings (Hitchcock we know) and by the analogy of the direct experiential countershot, we must also wonder who is pulling our own.

When viewed from afar, the film Vertigo is seen to be a fractal like vortex, whose whirlwind plot-twists and conflicting emotions are mirrored in the composition and setup of the individual shots. This nauseating amusement park sensation is recreated most powerfully in the first chase scene up the bell tower, as we are visually spun and flung from our seats at the focal point of the movie. This makes the content of film leap out of the screen into hyperfocus, just as the ground does for Scotty, and sucks the viewer into Hitchcock's universe, where he is the one calling all the shots. If being trapped in such a world is not enough to make you nauseous and unbalanced then you're life must be so unstable that Hitchcock should be making films about you instead of you watching his. For the rest of us, Vertigo is not only a trip, but a treat. In Vertigo, Hitchcock does for stairwells what he did for showers in Psycho—completely changing the way that people look at them by introducing a tinge trepidation into the mind of the viewer that lasts even after the lights go on.