The word Vertigo

The word Vertigo was rendered in Henry Bumstead’s expressionistic set for the bell tower. This bell tower was seventy feet high and suppose to allow John ‘Jimmy’ Steward to feel a sense of vertigo.

Roddy McDowall a transcript quoted that ‘Bumstead designed more than 50 individual sets for “Vertigo”, including the interior of the mission bell tower. Hitchcock himself was once a set designer. His original pencil sketch for the San Francisco Club was first transformed into a painting, and into Bumstead’s richly textured set. The much-imitated “Vertigo” effect was achieved by a combination of zooming forward and tracking backward simultaneously. After much trial and error, filming on a full-size set proved impossible, so they used a large-scale model of a staircase. Turned on its side, it was filmed by special effects cameraman John Fulton to make the audience feel as dizzy as Jimmy Stewart’.

This is also why the tower scene is of interest as the condition of vertigo occurs with the main actor John at the tower upon the stairs. This dizzy feeling is also achieved with a P.O.V shot.

I researched to find out the definition of this is this is what I discovered.

• Vertigo is the sensation that you or the environment around you is moving or spinning. It is commonly caused by a problem with the balance mechanisms within the inner ear

• If you have vertigo, you may experience the sensation of movement even when you are standing completely still. It is also confused by others that Vertigo can occur only from being scared of height when this is not always the case.

• Feeling that one is spinning or that one’s surroundings are spinning around one, causing confusion and difficulty keeping one’s balance, sometimes accompanied by nausea and vomiting. Vertigo is normal after actual spinning, since inner-ear fluid continues to move once the body has stopped, producing a mismatch between visual and internal sensations. Lack of a stable visual reference point also contributes to this effect. Other causes include concussion and abnormalities of the inner ear (e.g., labyrinthitis; see otitis), of the nerves that carry signals from it, or of the brain centers that receive them (e.g., stroke). Vertigo is often confused with a feeling of faintness (see syncope), since both are called dizziness. See also motion sickness, proprioception, spatial disorientation.
• Vertigo, or dizziness, refers to the sensation of spinning (subjective vertigo) or the perception that surrounding objects are moving or spinning (objective vertigo). Some patients describe a feeling of being pulled toward the floor or toward one side of the room. Moving the head, changing position, and turning while lying down often worsen vertigo. (http://www.answers.com/topic/vertigo Accessed 8th November 2009) (http://www.neurologychannel.com/vertigo/symptoms.shtml (Accessed 8th November 2009)

Question 11.  The shot in the scene are from John’s point-of-view, giving the scene a voyeuristic feel, what was the purpose of this?

Advertisement