Vertigo (1958): “Traumatized detective stalks a woman to death”
While the central conceit of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is seemingly a man’s conspiracy to murder his wife, the film focuses on the relationship Scottie (James Stewart) develops with a woman he initially believes to be his friend’s wife, Madeleine, but is actually a woman named Judy (Kim Novak).
Having retired after a psychologically traumatizing rooftop incident, Scottie is hired by his friend who believes his wife Madeleine has been possessed by the malevolent spirit of her suicidal Great Grandmother. Madeleine displays suicidal urges, playing on Scottie’s pathological need to rescue those in need, and Scottie falls in love – eventually being incapacitated by witnessing her supposed death. So far, so Hitchcock – but the twist that follows creates a fresh opportunity for interpretation.
Having experienced this further psychological trauma, Scottie stumbles upon a woman that reminds him of the dead Madeleine. He draws her into a relationship and effectively stalks her – insisting she alter her appearance to closer resemble Madeleine. As she does so, he realizes that Madeleine and Judy are one and the same, and forces her up the same bell tower that he thought he had seen Madeleine fall from. There, while begging for mercy, she stumbles and falls to her death.
The key here is the confession from Judy that she was paid to impersonate Madeleine. If the movie is viewed as the spiral into madness of a traumatized man, it could be argued that Judy’s confession is simply an attempt to appease him by complying with his psychosis – something that eventually backfires in deadly fashion. This is the genius of Hitchcock.
