Chapter 3

Vertigo and Rear Window

Hitchcock once said “I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.” Rear Window (1954)

and Vertigo (1958) accomplishes this in exhilaration. One of the most distinctive features of

Hitchcock movies is his ability to frame shots and narrate the story rather than giving

explanatory dialogues. “In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they

are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.' When we tell a story in cinema we should

resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the

cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between. (Hitchcock and

Truffaut) Hitchcock referred actors as cattles, he says “When they had a matinee, they’d leave

the set, I felt, much too early for the matinee, and I suspected they were allowing themselves

plenty of time for a very leisurely lunch, I have no use for that kind of actor.”

Ex police officer Scottie(James Stewart) is out of service due to acrophobia1, his

acquaintance Gavin Elster(Tom Helmore) hires him to follow his wife Madeleine(Kim Novak)

whom he thinks is being possessed by someone. Drama unfolds when lonely Scottie falls deeply

in love with this woman. Vertigo begins with close up shots of a woman's face and features. An

extreme closeup shot of lips, nose and then eyes. Then it uses graphics, spirals and loops as a

visual metaphor for Scottie’s acrophobia and obsession. Spirals are induced in Carlotta’s

painting and in Madeleine’s hairstyle to show her obsession.

1 Acrophobia is a mental health condition in which the individual experiences an intense fear of heights.
It’s a type of anxiety disorder. A person with acrophobia experiences intense fear and anxiety when they
think of tall heights or are positioned at a significant height. (clevelandclinic)
 Rear Window is set in the busy city of New York and depends on pure visuals to narrate

the story. Our protagonist is L.B Jefferies (James Stewart) who is recovering from a fracture. In

his leisure time he stalks his neighbors. It is based on the short story “It had to be murder”2 by

Cornell Woolrich. The camera is set in one place, in Jeff’s apartment and we get glimpses of

other apartments from his view. We watch the movie through the eyes of the protagonist. Each

window depicts different identities. It is a mystery thriller, like Jeff we viewers also make

assumptions about the neighbours. A newlywed couple, a dancer, a middle aged woman, a

struggling woman, a middle aged man and his sick wife. Camera moves like the viewer's eyes

and our curiosity is heightened through the movements. The movie begins by the window blinds

rising giving us a theatre feel before a drama begins. This is much like Jeff watching over his

neighbours as a form of entertainment. The opening shot establishes who our protagonist is, his

profession and his character through the settings of photographs and equipment kept in his room.

The movie depicts ordinary American lives set in the 1950's. We can see people waking up,

shaving and getting ready in the morning through a long establishing shot in bright lighting.

Natural sound is used in Rear Window other than the opening and closing theme. The

music from the room of the unnamed composer plays a major role in the film. It is the only main

background score in the film. His composition progresses parallel to the relationship between

Jeff and Lisa. There’s a scene in the movie where the musician gets irritated with the

incompleteness of his music and acts crazy at the same time Jeff and Lisa’s relationship is on the

verge of collapsing. Hitchcock collaborated with Bernard Herrmann again in Vertigo. The music

2 It Had to Be Murder is a suspenseful tale about Hal Jeffries, a temporarily disabled man, who becomes
obsessed with watching the lives of his urban neighbors. Seated in a chair by his rear window, Jeffries
believes he has witnessed murder. (Woolrich)
is composed of strings and harps and sounds like a spiral. The opening score when Scottie is

hanging on the roof and the scene in which Scottie follows Madeleine to the Church tower is

indelible.

Jeff is a well traveled photojournalist, he loves adventure. We draw his nature from the

very first reason why he has a broken leg. He stood in the middle of a racetrack to get a dramatic

photograph."Jeff places his own life and that of others in peril precisely because he has been an

observer and not a participant in life - in a way, then, this photographer is the ultimate moviegoer

as well as the moviemaker." (Thinkswap) He fears marriage, having someone in his life telling

him what to do. He has a complicated relationship with Lisa (Grace Kelly). She is blonde,

beautiful, clever, elegant and stylish. He wants to get rid of her as he thinks she is too perfect for

him. His fear further grows seeing the relationship between Mr.Thorwald and his wife. Each

window depicts different aspects of relationships and Jeff’s and Lisa’s relationship blossoms

towards the end.

Both the movies shed light on gender norms and roles. Men are conditioned to protect

women. Scottie fears that harm may come for her from someone dead. In Rear Window, when

Lisa is with a murderer Jeff isn’t able to protect her he twists and turns restlessly in his chair.

Women are made to be submissive and always in need of help by a man and man's ego is hurt

when he isn't the one rescuing her. They have contrasting personalities. She has high class tastes

and preferences, he wants to get rid of her as he thinks she is too perfect for him. He is frustrated

with her and it is evident in his behaviour towards her. In the first combination scene between

Lisa and Jeff, she wears a black and white frock along with expensive jewelry, bracelets and
pearls. They discuss marriage, Lisa is positioned above Jeff's eyelevel to show their differences

and her upper class freedom. A window frame cuts them in between, they are mentally as well as

physically distanced too. The window behind them offers a view towards their two distinct

worlds. In Jeff’s frame we can see a branch of a tree which represents nature and his ordinary

grounded life. While through Lisa’s window we can see Ms. Torso(Georgine Darcy) and the

city. The city represents her lifestyle and fashion, Ms.Torso is seen as an object of desire by Jeff

and according to him Lisa might also belong to the same category as he doesn't see anything else

in them. When she says “I wish I were creative” Jeff replies “you are, you’re great at creating

difficult situations.” She then moves towards Jeff with a pan movement of the camera cornering

him and casting a shadow on his face, she is above Jeff's eye contact again indicating his

powerlessness and her upper class status. Jeff's dislike for Lisa is evident when he says “things of

life not just as a new dress and lobster dinner”. In the end he is only able to solve the murder due

to Lisa’s bravery.

Jeff has his own way of stereotyping women. While describing his female neighbors he

labels them as Ms.Lonelyhearts. He considers them as his objects of desire. He describes his

male neighbours by their profession. Ms.Torso isn't left as only an object of desire for the

viewers eyes, we realise that there is more of her as her lover returns from the Army.

Ms.Lonelyhearts even though depressed and lonely she doesn't give up on her identity.

In the end the gender roles are reversed as Jeff’s both legs are fractured, a pan shot

reveals Lisa lying next to him wearing casual pants and shirt along with shoes. This proclaims

the key of control in Lisa’s hands. She is reading a book about the Himalayas which she later
tosses for a fashion magazine. She is living in Jeff's world yet she is a woman with perspectives

and objectives that she compromises but doesn't sacrifice.

Vertigo is a sensation of feeling off balance. If you have these dizzy spells, you might

feel like you are spinning or that the world around you is spinning. (Metzger) The title justifies

Scottie's condition as he is hanging between his conscious and subconscious mind forgetting

reality and twirling in fantasy. In Rear window, the window is our path to the murder as it is only

through the window Jeff is spying on others. It is possible to have multiple interpretations for

both movies by each viewer. The theme of voyeurism and obsession propels and lingers in the

minds of the viewers, though recurrent it feels fresh to watch more.Hitchcock explores the guilty

pleasure of human minds, it always interest humans to put their head into the lives of

others.Voyeurism is a recurrent theme in Hitchcock movies.

In Rear Window the foreshadowing element is crisped through dialogues, Stella says “ I

got a nose for trouble. I can smell it ten miles away...I can smell trouble right here in this

apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin' out the window. See things you

shouldn't see. Trouble”. This gives us a hint into the things going to unfold in the story. The

mysterious face in the opening credits foreshadows the theme of obsession and the key role of a

woman as an object in the movie Vertigo. “It is how you do it, and not your content that makes

you an artist. A story is simply a motif, just as a painter might paint a bowl of fruit just to give

him something to be painting”.(Hitchcock)

He hired photographers to photograph the neighbourhood to have the perfect optical inspiration.

Jeff uses binoculars to look into other apartments, then he uses telephoto lens to spy on the

murder and then towards the end when Mr.Thorwald reaches his apartment he uses flash, like

throwing light on the happenings. There is a connection between the knowledge acquired and the

device used. The plot reverses when Mr. Thorwald comes to Jeff’s apartment as it was Jeff who

was gazing at Mr. Thorwald initially.

The Macguffin in Rear Window is the murder commited by Mr.Thorwald and it is what

continues the plot, like Jeff we are also curious to know what happened. In Vertigo, it can be the

red necklace worn by Madeleine, which is the link that connects her and Judy. Scottie then

discovers that Madeleine and Judy are the same when she wears the necklace again by chance.

Vertigo is a pure art of subtle poetry, imagery, and the exquisite use of colour.

Cinematographer Robert Burk is known for his collaborations with Hitchcock. “ Burk’s

cinematography is most notable for its wide stylistic range, with his skills as a technician

informing his photographic versatility in black and white, color, and 3-D”. (Pizzello) Scottie

wants Judy to look like Madeleine. In the scene where Scottie makes Judy dress up as

Madeleine, the room is lit in green colour. The colour green represents the development phase of

Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine. Judy appears to be gothic in a mystical horror atmosphere.

The restored image of Madeleine is ghostly, camera zooms into Scottie’s face revealing his

satisfaction seeing Judy. He is in a trance, in that moment he is in the fine line between his

reality and fantasy combining. There is no dialogue between them, Bernard Herrmann's
background score pierces our ears slowly along with the pan movement of the camera transforms

us into some other world. Scottie has a nightmare in between, he is confused but his abnormal

mind doesn't give up on his fantasy. It is undoubtedly one of the best scenes created by

Hitchcock. Scottie sees Madeleine for the first time in the restaurant and is shown through an

establishing shot finally getting closer towards her, along with the soothing music. She wears a

green dress, her side angle is shown placed within a frame across a red background visualing a

painting, this sparks the fantasy element for the first time. She is like a painting, not real. She

walks along with Gavin towards the right, through a mirror shot we can see them twice, this

depicts their lies and Madeleine’s dual identity. The entire scene is like a dream.When Gavin

narrates Madeleine's strange behaviour during their meeting, his office is full of paintings. The

vertigo effect passed on to cinema by Hitchcock visualizes acrophobia.

The vertigo effect, a dolly zoom or Vertigo shot is an in-camera effect that appears to

undermine normal visual perception. The effect is achieved by zooming a zoom lens to

adjust the angle of view while the camera dollies toward or away from the subject in such

a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the

camera angle is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice versa. Thus,

during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable

feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject. (“Dolly

zoom”)
 “Vertigo stands alone as a Hitchcock film, as a Hollywood film. In fact, it just stands

alone -- period. For such a personal work with such a uniquely disturbing vision of the world to

come out of the studio system when it did was not just unusual -- it was nearly unthinkable”.

(Scorsese) The characters are flawed and can't blame anything else other than their fate. Even

though Judy loves him he is caught up in his fantasy world with the women in his head. It is a

scrutiny of misogynistic male gaze and desire. Judy’s tragedy is distressing when she asks

Scottie “If I do what you tell me, will you love me?” Midge is real, talented and she loves

Scottie. She is the one who takes him to the library to research about Carlotta. She is a

misfortuned character, she paints herself as Carlotta which then hurts Scottie. After his

breakdown she is his caretaker and plays him Mozart's symphony for his healing, but she is left

with her feelings as he is unresponsive and does not reciprocate her feelings. We do not know

their ending. Film Analyst Danny Peary quotes, “Hitchcock's belief is that given a choice in

women, weak men will choose the helpless over the independent, the mysterious over the honest,

the sexy over the plain, the icy over the accessible, and the fantasy women over the real ones”.

(Heilman)

Vertigo is one of the most complex of Hitchcock films. It's about lost love and mistaken

identity that may not be mistaken,it really is about how our emotions take over from our intellect

and give us what we need to survive a tragedy, also it's one of the greatest mystery stories ever

filmed. (Roger Ebert)

Dolly zoom. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom. Accessed 17 March 2022

Hitchcock, Alfred, and François Truffaut.Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/quotes/1207522-in-

many-of-the-films-now-being-made-there-is. Accessed 18 March 2022.

Hitchcock, Alfred. “Rear Window Themes.” GradeSaver, 2 October 2021,

www.gradesaver.com/rear-window/study-guide/themes. Accessed 19 March 2022.

Metzger, Geri K. “Vertigo: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment.” WebMD, 12 December 2020,

www.webmd.com/brain/vertigo-symptoms-causes-treatment. Accessed 17 March 2022.

Pizzello, Stephen. “Robert Burks.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burks.

Accessed 19 March 2022.

Roger Ebert (14/Dec/1969) - The Alfred Hitchcock Wiki.” The Hitchcock Zone,

the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_and_Roger_Ebert_(14/Dec/1969). Accessed

16 March 2022.

Scorsese, Martin. “Why Vertigo is truly great | Martin Scorsese.” The Guardian, 5 March 1999,

www.theguardian.com/film/1999/mar/05/martinscorsese. Accessed 16 March 2022.

Thinkswap, “Rear Window Key themes Analysis with Relevant Quotes to Support to the

Contention | English - Year 12 VCE.” www.thinkswap.com/au/vce/english/year-12/rear-

window-key-themes-analysis-relevant-quotes-support-contention. Accessed 19 March

2022.