Vertigo

NOTE: This post is a review of a Hitchcock film that was seen projected on 35mm at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, TN, as part of their Alfred Hitchcock: Master of Suspense Series. These movies were not watched on DVD, but in a theater, projected on film.

Vertigo is a mind jangling story of the supernatural. Or, perhaps, it's simply a story of the tricks a man's mind can play on him. Or, maybe, both? Jimmy Stewart teams up with Hitch one more time to play a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife around to see if she's going insane, or if the ghostly presence of a long dead relative has come back to possess her.

Vertigo is notable for a lot of things, namely some of the GORGEOUS shots of San Francisco, the color pallet used, the infamous stair case shot (accomplished by the camera operator pulling the camera up, while the zoom lens was simultaneously zoomed out), and, of course, Kim Novak as the drop dead gorgeous object of Stewart's affection. The film never misses a beat. Whereas I've felt like some of Hitch's films are oddly paced, Vertigo does not fit in that category. By this time, he has gotten past what I would call his "front load" phase, and now gotten into more balanced pictures. Vertigo is definitely on the must see list.