Vertigo (1958)

A question has been raised by some critics about how Scottie was rescued from the top of the building; was the entire movie his imagination, hanging in suspense?

Vertigo (1958), often considered Alfred Hitchcock’s best work, is based on the French novel From Among the Dead by Boileau and Narcejac (the authors of Les Diaboliques (1955)). Hitchcock takes the novel's general framework and throws out the rest. He looks at how a man tries to create his dream woman. The movie’s immediate response is that the dream woman remains a fantasy and never materializes. The tragedy of Vertigo is that Scottie (James Stewart) cannot see Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) as his woman and becomes obsessed with the illusory image of a woman created by someone else. By overlooking the ethical obligations of his profession, a detective, he falls in love with the subject of his assignment, which leads to the destruction of the woman, himself, and Midge. The tension created by juxtaposing the real world (Midge) and the fantasy realm (Madeleine—Kim Novak) drives the narrative. Two consecutive scenes of Midge’s and Gavin Elster’s (Tom Helmore) offices represent the conflicting worlds. Scottie’s nostalgic inclinations for the disappearing past, shipbuilding, starkly contrast with the modern brassiere sketched by an airplane designer based on a cantilever bridge. His discomfort with the modern world is emphasized when he uses his cane to point out the brassiere. Yet, the triumph of fantasy, the moment Judy appears, as Madeleine, out of the bathroom, although overwhelming, is short-lived; it lasts until Scottie realizes the incriminating necklace he saw in the portrait. At first, when she wears it, Scottie does not notice the necklace; it is the image—reflection of it in the mirror that draws his attention. 

Hitchcock reminds us that both Gavin Elster and Scottie tried to recreate the same person, Judy. However, Elster’s objective was to deceive Scottie, but Scottie, unconsciously, attempted to do the same thing. Midge’s last line, as she talks to Scottie’s psychiatrist, is probably the darkest moment of the movie, broken after telling Scottie that you do not even know I am here, she visits the doctor asking about his condition, bypassing the medical jargon of the doctor lost in understanding Scottie’s problem, she states "I can give you one thing: he was in love with her.” Then she adds, "And I give you another complication: he still is. I don't think Mozart is going to help at all."

Bernard Hermann composed the movie’s celebrated score with inspiration from the opera Tristan and Isolde by Wagner, reflecting on the story of an impossible love on earth, embracing mystical death, love-death, to resurrect their love in eternity. We hear the theme in the title sequence and throughout the movie, demonstrating the desire we observe in Scottie and Madeleine for Death, which becomes the only vehicle to make their love eternal.