Vertigo - "Come And Knock On Our Door"

Vertigo (1958)


K: The idea of vertigo is only mentioned once at the beginning in Scottie's (James Stewart) explanation but the movie's not about him overcoming vertigo, it's a mystery. So, what do you think about the title?

H: Vertigo is the signature of trauma in Scottie's life. It's tied up with the worst thing that happened to him and caused him to quit his job on the force.

K: The husband's story of Madeleine is in and out of reality, much like experiencing the symptoms of vertigo. When we finally see Madeleine as Judy she's being forced into a vertigo created by Scottie, losing her identity, re-falling in love, trying to get him to fall in love with her. Also notice the swirl in Madeleine's hair and the small curls around Judy's face - they point to this vertigo.

How much do we buy into the history of Madeleine's family? The more I thought about it, why didn't I think there was a logical explanation? Why did I let the story take me into this haunted storyline? Is it because Scottie appears to be logical and he falls for it, so we fall for it too?

H: You're on to something. In our discussion of the movie Clue we found that in that mystery we attached ourselves to the most rational person in the movie, in that case Tim Curry's character, even if that character turned out to be guilty or in the case of Scottie wrong or misguided. The movie spends much of its time following Scottie following Madeleine in a sort of swirl around the places attached by the husband to the legend of Madeleine's family history. It's understandable that we fall for it, because Madeleine does such a good job following the husband's directions. She makes the story come true for a while.

How do you suppose the husband came up with such an elaborate story? Was he strolling through the San Francisco museum of art when he came across that painting and decided that's how he'd fool Scottie and kill his wife? The husband is a very good storyteller and killer.

K: The husband doesn't need to convince Scottie of anything. The less the husband tells him, the more Scottie is intrigued. He takes it as a simple "follow the wife" job. He gets the story from the bookshop owner and then the husband confirms it, so it's not as though the husband told him that stuff. He just allowed Scottie's detective nature to come through and dig up with the details. The real question is did the husband plan on Scottie falling in love with the wife?

H: He did count on that, because Scottie's interest in the case would have waned and he would have asked more questions of the husband, possibly finding out his motives, if he weren't distracted and trying to keep his love for who he thought was the husband's wife a secret. If she weren't so appealing, Scottie would have reported more to the husband and figured out more sooner in the process.

So we have the first painting of the supposed Spanish relative of Madeleine, Carlotta. The second painting in the film is of Midge as Carlotta. This painting is almost pornographic in how shocking it is. Her head looks scary on that body with those glasses. So, Midge is trying to inject herself into the mystery, which she thinks is what makes Madeleine appealing to Scottie.

K: The idea of Midge injecting herself is sad because Scottie only goes to her when he needs her. The next time we see her, she's the only one there helping him when he's recovering. Also, the fact that she has a bra prominently displayed in her appartment is a funny symbol of her support. Not only is it a bra, it's a new type of bra designed by an architect.

H: A new kind of bra that doesn't have straps and is more supportive than other bras. In her description of the bra, Midge is saying that she could provide Scottie with support but be out of the way, almost unnoticeable. She ends up being tragically supportive in just this way. When she's playing music for Scottie during his recovery, she remarks that he probably doesn't even know she's there.

K: The music scared me. Music works much the same way in Psycho (1960). It's unnerving, it makes you nervous for the people in the scene. It makes it possible for the scary black blob at the end to be anything. And then the movie's done and the scary music continues which is how the music works at the beginning, accompanied by the pink eye. It's an orchestra recital you don't want to go to. It lacks the knife-wielding maniac behind the shower curtain, but now I'm afraid of heights (thanks a lot, Hitchy).

H: I actually am afraid afraid of heights, but Scottie's fear of heights doesn't translate into fear of heights for the audience. It's almost as if vertigo can be a symptom attached to any fear, like fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of nuns, etc. Vertigo is really being disoriented by fear.

The nun at the end, as you say, is imbued with all of the tension and mystery that is built up through the various devices of the movie - music, plot, character, photography, animation. It could be anything or anyone for only a few seconds of terror, enough time to frighten Judy out the window, before all of those scary possibilities converge and it's just a nun asking a harmless question. The fact that it was a nun struck me because Madeleine's story about her childhood had nuns in it. When she was supposedly possessed by Carlotta, she said that the nuns that ran the mission used to punish her. The end seemed to confirm some basic, foggy truth in the made up story the husband and Madeleine tried to convince Scottie of. By bringing Judy (who was Madeleine) back to the scene of the crime (the mission), he made sure that the story the husband was contriving came true. His rationalism causes her death, because he has to confirm her identity.

K: He's a detective at heart. He needs to know the truth and so much so that he can overcome his vertigo to get to the bottom of it. His obsession with Madeleine didn't help. He shouldn't have quit the force.

H: Midge's seemingly innocuous question at the beginning as to what Scottie would do with his time now that he wasn't a detective is important. She recognizes Scottie's nature, that he won't rest on his laurels for long and this ends up getting him in trouble. His rationalism without proper outlets like police work, is dangerous, even deadly.

What do you think about Scottie trying to make Judy look exactly like Madeleine (down to the gray suit)? It's pretty disturbing and reads like a sickness.

K: When Scottie gets out of the hospital, it's hard to know what he'll be like. You lose trust in him or at the very least worry about him or wonder about him. What happens now?
Once he finds Judy, instead of wandering or solving a mystery, he has this project of transforming her. As an audience you don't know what the result of the transformation will be for them both. When he gets Judy to look exactly the way he wants, will this make him normal again? That's what he says to Judy, even that he'll love her, and we hope that's true.

H: But it doesn't end up being true. Scottie forces Judy through the experience that he himself finds traumatizing as he leads her back up the tower to her death. Madeleine is gone for him, even though Judy is Madeleine and looks just like she did when she was Madeleine. Madeleine was really just a composite sketch of the bookshop keeper's story and Scottie's desire for mystery in a woman, rather than practicality or artistic skill (sorry, Midge). And Madeleine died when Scottie realized that Judy was Madeleine and Madeleine was no one. Needless to say, he probably could have loved Judy had she remained on earth a bit longer.

K: So is this just an episode of Three's Company where had someone just told the truth at the beginning, there could have been a happy ending?

H: It's very Shakespearian in the sense that the tragedy at the end is really caused by a misalignment in understanding, more than anything deliberate. It's like Romeo appearing dead and then Juliet poisoning herself and then Romeo's not dead after all.

K: Plus there's no Mr. Roper.