Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958)

Pack 1

Auteur –Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) born in

Leyton, E. London, the son of a grocer

Raised as a Catholic – evident through the

themes and motifs of his work

Early career as an inter-title designer for silent films and worked in the German film industry before WW2

Moved to USA in 1938 before outbreak of WW2

A highly prolific director, he made 27 films in the UK from 1922-

1939, Rebecca was his first Hollywood film followed by 23 others before he made Vertigo in 1958. After Vertigo he made 7 films, Family Plot being his last in 1976

Re-appraised by French film critics/film-makers, such as François Truffaut, in 1960s and used as a test case for early auteur theory

British film academic Robin Wood’s 1965 study raised his status.

What Makes Hitch an Auteur?

A signature style, recognisable across his oeuvre Genre – suspense thriller, psychological thriller Themes – mistaken identity, injustice,

psychology of obsession/desire/crime Style – ‘pure cinema’ Innovation – camera technique, superimposition,

mattes, back projection Regular collaborators – Herrmann, Bass, Head,

Grant, Stewart, Bergman Hitchcock as auteur – a detailed discussion:http://gillonj.tripod.com/alfredhitchcock/

Hitchcock Interviews

A great self-publicist and cinéphile, he was an advocate of what he described as ‘pure cinema’ and loved discussing the art and craft of film-making

Interview for BBC TV Monitor

Part 1 – 1964http://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Monitor_(BBC,_05/Jul/1964)

AuteurKey collaborative personnel

Saul Bass – Poster/Title Sequence

Bernard Herrmann – Music

Edith Head – Costume

Robert Burks - Cinematography

George Tomasini - Editing

Special Effects

Production Design

Producer

Actors – Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, James Stewart

Check on IMDB – what other films did they work on? With Hitch? With others?

Titles - Saul Bass

For Hitchcock, Bass provided memorable title sequences, inventing a new type of kinetic typography, for North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), working with John Whitney, and Psycho (1960) (it was he who storyboarded the infamous shower sequence). This kind of innovative, revolutionary work made Bass a revered graphic designer. Before Bass’s work in the 1950s, titles were generally static, separate from the film, commonly projected onto cinema curtains, which were raised before scene 1.

Designed original Vertigo poster (referenced in TV’s Mad Men)

Article on Bass’s poster: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/26/poster.vertigo

Created Vertigo title sequence

Article on Bass and title sequences: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/23/bass-opening-credits?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Music Bernard Herrmann

1911-1975, wrote 9 scores for Hitchcock from 1955-64 In a 2004 special issue by Sight & Sound devoted to Film

Music, Martin Scorsese described the qualities of Herrmann's famous and notable score, for Vertigo:

“Hitchcock's film is about obsession, which means that it's about circling back to the same moment, again and again ... And the music is also built around spirals and circles, fulfilment and despair. Herrmann really understood what Hitchcock was going for — he wanted to penetrate to the heart of obsession.”

Also wrote scores for Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) andTaxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976).

Bernard HerrmannLinks

IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002136/

Bernard Herrmann – The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/mar/10/2

Society for the Appreciation of the Music of Bernard Herrmann: http://www.bernardherrmann.org/

The Guardian review of The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011, Fr), whose score borrowed heavily from Herrmann’s Vertigo score:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jan/01/the-artist-review-philip-french?INTCMP=SRCH

Director of The Artist, Michael Hazanavicius, defends his use of Herrmann’s music from Kim Novak’s criticism:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16482624

Costume Design –Edith Head

Edith Head was a high profile costume designer for

Hollywood, working for many years with Paramount, then Universal.

Her expressive but low-key style is also evident in Double Indemnity (Wilder,

1944, USA), where Phyllis uses clothes to ensnare and manipulate Walter Neff.

Head’s designs for ‘Madeleine’ (classic and modest - black, white, grey, with touches of red and green) and Judy (trendy and figure-revealing - green, mauve, brown) perfectly express their personalities, through choice of colour and style.

Apparently Edna Mode in The Incredibles was based on her ‘look’.

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0372128/ Essay on costume and character in Vertigohttp://clothesonfilm.com/costume-identity-in-hitchcocks-vertigo/25039/

Cinematography - Robert Burks

Was Director of Photography on 12 of Hitchcock’s films from Strangers on a Train (1951) and became a close personal friend

His work is characterised by innovative and imaginative special effects and bold use of colour cinematography, as well as new techniques with telephoto and wide angle lenses

http://labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/camera_movement.html- excellent analysis of use of camera in Vertigo

http://www.cinematographers.nl/GreatDoPh/burks.htm -encyclopaedia entry.

Technicolor

Technicolor – a colour process widely used in Hollywood, known for its saturated colours and art directors worked with Technicolor’s consultant’s (most notably the inventor’s wife, Natalie Kalmus) to design sets and costumes where particular colours would be prominent and expressive, especially blues, greens, reds oranges, yellow and purple.

Very important in the 1950s as a weapon in the battle of falling box-office attendance during the increasing popularity of TV (which was only in black and white until 1970s)

History and technical info for Technicolor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor

Vista Vision

Alfred Hitchcock used VistaVision for many of his films in the 1950s. However, by the late 1950s with the introduction of finer-grained colour stocks and the disadvantage of shooting twice as much negative stock, VistaVision became obsolete. Less expensive anamorphic systems such as Panavision and the more expensive 70 mm format became standard during the later 1950s and 1960s.

Its use in Vertigo is seen especially in the wide angle establishing shots of real locations (in San Francisco city and outside, eg Golden Gate bridge) and sound stage/set interiors (eg Midge’s apartment, Elster’s office, Ernie’s).

As the brand name suggests, it offers a wide vista of a scene and it is used to spectacular effect in Vertigo to create a striking sense of time and place, making the film almost have a travel advertisement appeal in some places and magnifying the sense of epic melodrama

History and technical info on VistaVision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistaVision#Films_shot_in_VistaVision

Editing - George Tomasini

Edited 9 of Hitchcock’s biggest films from Rear Windowin 1954.

Editing techniques used in Vertigo, particularly shot-reverse-shot, create the spectator’s close identification with Scottie, especially during the early ‘following’ sequences when there is no sound, therefore the sequencing of shots creates the narrative

Editing is also used to create suspense and excitement in the ‘action’ sequences, notably the two ‘bell tower’ scenes.

Art Direction – Hal Pereira and Henry Bumstead

Hal Pereira was in charge of Art Direction at Paramount and had done some excellent work on Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944), where sets and locations created a claustrophobic mood and tone and indicated character.

Hitchcock told Henry Bumstead that he conceived Vertigo as almost a motionless series of tableaux vivants, which needed particularly evocative set design. He suggested Bumstead try "to use a lot of mirrors", emphasising the dual role of Kim Novak and the moral ambivalence of James Stewart's character. In the end, both the interiors and exteriors - the empty picture gallery, the Spanish mission church tower - tend towards a Magrittesque surrealism. Vertigo gained Bumstead an Oscar nomination (The Guardian – obituary)

The sets for the main characters are all incredibly realistic and detailed, evoking a strong sense of time, place and especially each character’s personality and values. Consider how the sets associated with Elster (falsely) connote status, and authority, exhorting Scottie (and us) to believe him.

Institution –Hollywood Production

Director – Alfred Hitchcock (his 51st film)

Production cos – Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions and Paramount Pictures

Associate Producer – Herbert Coleman

Budget - $247,900

128 minutes (a 132min cut

was also made)

Nominated for Oscars for

Best Sound and Art Direction

Now owned by Universal

Distribution – Paramount Pictures

Release date – 9 May 1958

(in USA, 1959 in UK)

Original poster – Saul Bass

Original trailer

The restored version was

re-released in cinemas in 1996.

Restoration of the film

In 1989, Vertigo was recognized as a "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" film by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in the first year of the registry's voting.1996 – the film was controversially restored by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz.

It featured restored colour and an entirely newly recorded foley sound (so it was compatible with Dolby stereo)

It was in 70mm (closest to the original VistaVision) The original negative was degraded and shrunk in

several places and so a significant amount of artistic license was used to restore several scenes

The 50th anniversary DVD contains a lengthy documentary on the restoration.

Story - Origin

An adaptation of the 1954 French novel by Pierre Boileau and ‘Thomas Narcejac’ D’Entre les Morts (The Living and the Dead/From Amongst the Dead)

Hitchcock missed out on buying the rights to one of their previous novels, which was later filmed as Les Diaboliques, and he ordered a synopsis of the novel before it had even been translated into English.

Other film adaptations of Boileau and Narcejac’s novels

Les Diaboliques

(The Demons – by Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955, France)

Other film adaptations of Boileau and Narcejac’s novels

Les Yeux sans Visage

(Eyes without a Face)

by Georges Franju, 1960, France

Screenplay

The screenplay is an adaptation of the French novel The Living and the Dead (D'entre les morts) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock had previously tried to buy the rights to the same authors' previous novel, Celle qui n'était plus, but he failed, and it was made instead by Henri-Georges Clouzot as Les Diaboliques. Although François Truffaut once suggested that D'Entre les morts was specifically written for Hitchcock by Boileau and Narcejac, Narcejac subsequently denied that this was their intention. However, Hitchcock's interest in their work meant that Paramount Pictures commissioned a synopsis of D'Entre les Morts in 1954, before it had even been translated into English.

Hitchcock originally hired playwright Maxwell Anderson to write a screenplay, but rejected his work, which was entitled Darkling, I Listen (a quotation from Keats's Ode to a Nightingale). A second version, written by Alec Coppel, again dissatisfied the director. The final script was written by Samuel A. Taylor — who was recommended to Hitchcock due to his knowledge of San Francisco from notes by Hitchcock. Among Taylor's creations was the character of Midge. Taylor attempted to take sole credit for the screenplay, but Coppel protested to the Screen Writers Guild, which determined that both writers were entitled to a credit

Genre

Hard to define precisely by genre as the filmVertigo has elements of:– Horror – preoccupation with death, fear/phobia, ‘ghosts’,

graveyard/tombstones, dark forests etc– Romantic melodrama (‘melos’ meaning ‘music’ in Greek) – a

romance with dramatic music, Romantic landscapes and seascape, elements of the above two genres suggest it’s a Gothic melodrama

– Tragedy – the fall of a hero with a ‘fatal flaw’– Film noir – femme fatale and victim-hero, crime– Psychological thriller – detective story, study of psychology– Epic – a love story that emanates from the past and present– Outside any genre – Hitchcock’s ‘art-house movie’ – ambitious

and unconventional narrative structure and surreal sequences

Gothic/The Romantic

At A2 level – references to other texts, even if not acknowledged by the film-makers, shows a wider and more academic frame of reference and can be used in answers to get additional marks, especially at higher levels

‘The Gothic’ and ‘The Romantic’ are two closely related literary/artistic concepts that are at play in an analysis of Vertigo – dealing with extremes of emotion, powerful forces of life, death and nature, the sublime (awe-inspiring beauty and awe of nature, God etc)

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) – a German Romantic artist – look and see which scenes in the film might be inspired by these concepts…

Classical references and Fine art

The Rokeby Venus by Spanish (hint, hint) artist, Velasquez (1651) is in the National Gallery London and there are possible influences here in the design of the sequence in Ernie’s – namely the vivid crimson velvet flock wallpaper, signifying passion and tactile sensations appropriate to the first sight of ‘Madeleine’.

Likewise, the model is of the Goddess of Love, Venus, and ‘Madeleine’ has a similar hairstyle to her and is swathed in a vibrant green satin wrap, in a similar way to the satin draped under the model to accentuate her curves for the spectator.

The history of art is also arguably about a predominantly ‘male gaze’ in which male artists are commissioned by male patrons to create beautiful representations of women, for male pleasure, and so the link to Vertigo should be clear here.

NB: Here ‘Classical’ means referring to Ancient Greek and Roman civilisation, from where most of our ideas about Literature, Art and Philosophy originated)

Classical references and Fine art

‘Madeleine’ is constructed as

a classical beauty – statuesque,

idealised, unattainable, refined

features and anatomically

perfect body, according to Classical

criteria, eg Venus de Milo (Aphrodite)

sculpted between 130 to 100 BC.

Head’s costume designs show her

physique but not in an overtly

sexual way (unlike Judy’s clothes).

Literary Antecedents

Likewise, there are echoes in Vertigo of older Classical stories, from Orpheus who made a pact with the Gods of the Underworld to bring his loved one, Eurydice, back from the dead. He succeeded, only for her to die a second time, never to return.

Also G. B. Shaw’s play Pygmalion (1912) is a possible reference, where a young Cockney woman, Eliza Doolittle, is made over (in speech, looks and behaviour) by a mentor, a linguistics professor, into ‘the perfect woman’, unattainable and a heartbreaker.

Pygmalion was adapted into a hit Broadway musical in 1956, as My Fair Lady , with a Hollywood film version made in 1964, starring Audrey Hepburn).

Setting – San Francisco, USA

Mostly filmed in the San Francisco Bay area, the use of iconic locations creates a realistic setting, and, as befitting a big budget Hollywood film, it ‘sells’ another great US city to the world.

However, the use of originally C19th (eg McKitteridge hotel) and Spanish/Mexican locations/buildings lends the film an exotic/foreign atmosphere (also Gothic references in architecture and landscapes), as if Scottie is literally and emotionally in ‘another country’ and out of his comfort zone and creates the interface between the past and the present that dominates the film.

Info on the real film locations used in the film:

http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/v/vertigo_1.html

Critical Reception – 1950s

Original Manchester Guardian (UK) review from 1958 http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/aug/09/archive-hitchcock-s-new-essay-1958?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Original Sight & Sound (UK) review 1959 http://classicfilmshow.com/2008/05/01/original-review-vertigo-in-sight-and-sound-spring-1959/

Original Variety (US) review from 1958 http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117796098/

More recent reviews

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-vertigo-1958 http://observer.com/1999/04/hitch-and-me-a-case-of-vertigo/Andrew Sarris 1999

https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/mar/05/martinscorseseMartin Scorsese 1999

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/aug/10/my-favourite-hitchcock-vertigo Rhik Samadder 2012

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/aug/01/vertigo-hitchcock-bfi-greatest-film Mark Brown 2012

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/aug/05/sight-sound-best-film-poll-2012 Philip French 2012