What was your reaction to viewing “Vertigo”? Explain why you have the
reaction and, using Roger Ebert’s review as a guide, comment on something he
has said in your reaction.
Please bring your comment on paper to class next week.
Please bring your comment on paper to class next week.
Wow! I’m with Galina in that initial reaction to the film. I saw “Vertigo” years ago on the big screen but, now, knowing far more about Alfred Hitchcock’s technical mastery, the film’s virtues are much clearer to me today. After a very “talky” first scene with the husband, Hitchcock has Scottie silently follow Madeleine for what I have read is a full fifteen minutes of screen time without dialogue. If anything gives me the sense of a master at work, it is that I never once was bored or felt that absence of speech. Although Ebert says that Kim Novak was “criticized at the time for playing the character too stiffly,” I found her mesmerizing throughout. It helps that Hitchcock had the camera on her close up so frequently and that her green eyes (and wonderful eyebrows!) were prominent. There were so many masterful shots that I have no idea where to start. What I did notice was, although I might say to myself, “Wow, what a great tracking shot or pan,” it was only in passing. Mostly, I noticed how the shot made me feel or how it added to the admittedly creepy overall feel. It’s understandable how it barely made back its cost back in 1958; the film was way way ahead of its time! Truly I agree with Roger Ebert’s choice in making this one of his top ten films of all time.
ReplyDeleteFrom beginning to the end, “Vertigo” was full of interest and attention. I mostly, like the beginning scene of the movie as Ebert mentioned, “An opening shot shows him teetering on a ladder, looking down at a street below.” And I agree with his ideas, “He was a great visual stylist.” I became fan of Hitchcock’s movies, and familiar with his movies. I felt some repetition of acting procedure in his movies, especially on the main characters, and “North by Northwest” movie is closest movie to that. The main actress acted the same and pretending to be another person.
ReplyDeleteI am truly amazed by the movie “Vertigo.” I am sure, I will be able to recall the movie any time in the future. Among others Hitchcock’s masterpieces we’ve seen this year, I prefer the “Vertigo.” First of all, the visual part and what we can call now – special effects – are, as Brad mentioned in his reaction, way ahead of time. It’s hard to believe your eyes, that the movie with such a quality could be produced in 1958th. Even when I was a child, we didn’t have a color TV set. At the same time Mr. Hitchcock as a puppeteer and a great psychologist played with the characters on the big screen. Roger Ebert said, “Alfred Hitchcock took universal emotions, like fear, guilt and lust, placed them in ordinary characters, and developed them in images more than in words.” And it’s true: I can recall mostly images, not the dialogues. Especially the scene with “foggy” Kim Novak. Sure enough, it’s better for a viewer to live life of an “innocent man” on a screen, than “superficial superman.” And thank you so much, Mr. Ebert, I didn’t notice that “Scottie drives down San Francisco’s hills, but never up.”
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