IMAP

BOOKS

• ARBOR, ANN ‘HITCHCOCK AS ACTIVIST POLITICS AND THE WAR FILMS’ UMI RESEARCH PRESS (PAGE.88)
• AUILER, DAN, ‘VERTIGO’: THE MAKING OF A HITCHCOCK CLASSIC, , 1998, PAGE 2
• BORDWELL & THOMPSON ‘FILM ART: AN INTRODUCTION’ (SIXTH EDITION) (PAGE 234-235)
• BORDWELL & THOMPSON (2001) ‘FILM ART: AN INTRODUCTION’ (SIXTH EDITION) MCGRAW-HILL PAGE.406-408
• KROHN, BILL. HITCHCOCK AT WORK. LONDON: PHAIDON PRESS, 2000.
• MCGILLIAN,PATRICK. ALFRED HITCHCOCK. A LIFE IN DARKNESS AND LIGHT
• SYNYAND,NEILL (1986) ‘THE FILMS OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK’ BARNES & NOBLE. PP.131
• TRUFFAUT, FRANCOIS(1967) ‘HITCHCOCK’ SIMON & SCHUSTER
• WALKER, MICHAEL. HITCHCOCK’S MOTIFS. AMSTERDAM: AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2005.
• YACOWAR, MAURICE. HITCHCOCK’S BRITISH FILMS. NEW YORK: ARCHON BOOKS, 1977. [CHAPTERS ON EACH FILM FROM THE PLEASURE GARDEN THROUGH JAMAICA INN]

DOCUMENTARIES – VCR

• REPUTATIONS: HITCH: ALFRED THE AUTEUR’, DIRECTED BY TIM KIRBY, BBC 2 (31/5/99)
• REPUTATIONS: HITCH: ALFRED THE GREAT: PART 1′, DIRECTED BY TIM KIRBY, BBC 2 (30/5/99)

WEBSITES

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnpZN2HQ3OQ [accessed 30th October 2009]
• http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/stairs/stairs-2.html (Accessed 10th November 2009)
• (http://www.sparknotes.com/film/vertigo/themes.html – accessed 2nd November 2009)
• (http://www.mysterynet.com/hitchcock/bio/ -accessed 4th November 2009)
• (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare/vertigo.htm  - ‘Director’s Chair’ on Alfred Hitchcock – accessed 4th November 2009)
• ( http://hitchcock.tv/bio/bio.html -accessed 4th November 2009)
• http://operaencatala.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/herrmann-piano.jpg – IMAGE OF BERNARD (Accessed 7th November 2009
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosis (Accessed 7th November 2009
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system (Accessed 8th November 2009
• http://everything2.com/title/Hollywood+Studio+System (Accessed 8th November 2009
• Image – http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/hollywood_studio_system.jpg
• (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_theory accessed 8th November 2009)
• http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1280/hitchcock_film_analysis_vertigo_psycho.html?cat=40 – accessed 7th November 2009)
• http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/stairs/vertigo-tower-down.jpg -IMAGE (Accessed 9th November 2009
• (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y48R6-iIYHs] – Accessed 9th November 2009)
• http://www.answers.com/topic/vertigo (Accessed 8th November 2009
• http://www.neurologychannel.com/vertigo/symptoms.shtml (Accessed 8th November 2009
• http://www.sparknotes.com/film/vertigo/context.html (Accessed 6th November 2009
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/parentalguide (Accessed 3rd November 2009
• http://www.stevenderosa.com/writingwithhitchcock/fromthearchives.html (Accessed 3rd November 2009
• http://www.twolia.com/blogs/heres-looking-like-you-
• kid/files/2009/09/vertigo_poster.jpg (Accessed 3rd November 2009
• http://www.voxfilm.com/film_school/mise-en-scene.htm (Accessed 8th November 2009
• http://www.videomaker.com/article/8208/ (Accessed 8th November 2009
• http://www.borgus.com/think/hitch.htm]  Accessed 10th November 2009
• 
• (link: http://www.who2.com/hitchcocksblondes.html accessed 10th November)
• (http://classicfilms.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_best_of_hitchcocks_blondes – accessed 10th november 2009)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB9okaBu7po – MY INTERVIEW

Question 1. What is the motifs and symbols expressed in vertigo?

Question 2. Who is Alfred Hitchcock?

Question 3. How is the soundtrack a major part of the scene?

Question 4. What was the Hollywood studio system like?

Question 5. What style of films does he do in general and does Vertigo differ from it?

From these initial ideas I would be able to develop my research further. This helped me open up an argument through looking at several research methods to see whether it was correct information that was being stated. Not all the time was I able to cross-reference as I found it difficult to find the source of information.

The blog titles are stated below with a brief description of what will encounter in each post.

• Motifs and Spiral Staircases - Does the spiral staircase really add to the sense of having Vertigo
• Who is Alfred Hitchcock? – Information on the director and his life story before and during filming Vertigo
• Musical Score - Did the music in the clip add help to the production?
• Hollywood studio system - During the 1950′s how was the social and historical context of Hollywood?
• Is he a true Auteur? - His films are repetitive what does this mean? Explain what the word Auteur means in the film word
• Dolly Zoom – What is it and what impact does it have on the audience?
• The word Vertigo? A description of the word Vertigo and what it could possibly mean for the character John.
• German Expressionism - How does this explain Hitchcock’s life in Germany
• Was Vertigo Successful? - Figures of how much it made and possible reviews
• Matte Shot - Explain the purpose for it in Vertigo and how dangerous the actors lives would be without it
• Point of View Shots - The vulnerability of us as an audience watching Johns condition of Vertigo by being in his point of view
• Master in suspense - Interview with my friend on his view of Hitchcock being known as the master of suspense and my personal response.
• Blondes in Hitchcock’s films - Kim Novak and the sense of femininity

If I based this as an essay, I would start of with a brief introduction of what I would be talking about.

INTRODUCTION – This will allow the audience to understand about who Hitchcock is and his labels of what he is known as (master of suspense, a real auteur). I would also talk about how the clip is beneficial to be and my general outlook of what I first thought of the clip.

PARAGRAPH 1 – I will talk about Hitchcock’s motifs and techniques used to build suspense. The techniques include dolly zoom, point of view shots and matte shots.

PARAGRAPH 2 – I will talk about the use of music as a use for suspense to occur. This is due to my main aim of the blog being based on suspense which I believe music does. This includes musical score from Bernard Herrmann. This adds pace and mood to the tower scene clip in Vertigo.

PARAGRAPH 3 – Social Context through the use of German Expressionism  and the use of Blondes in this films to add a sense of femininity into the film.

CONCLUSION - The fact that he is a true auteur, a real master in suspense and a major inspiration to other directors in the industry.

Through this I was able to have an understanding of techniques and motives which were clearly illustrated in Vertigo. There was a sense of psychological aspect through a males perspective. This is because I believe he was sexist as he used women to inflict pain into as Madeline does to John.

Through researching it made me see a completely different angle of the scene and the film as a whole. This is through the scene being intense and ended with the character Madeline dying. This scene took me on a journey which I did not believe my mind could take within just a short clip.

I have a large sum off information based on Alfred Hitchcock and the possible reasons of making Vertigo through exploring themes which as sex, love, death etc. I saw repeated themes being shown through his work Vertigo and The 39 steps. This is what makes him a true auteur which was part of my challenge to undertake through my research findings.

I also wanted to understand how Hitchcock developed his style from. The documentaries, book readings and internet browsing made be understand his work was through the German expressionism with ideas such as ‘swirl shapes’. This is where his idea was shadowed on characters such as John Ferguson.

To conclude on my gatherings and my blog, I personally feel that Vertigo is one of Hitchcock’s best fo films ever. I wanted to see whether Hitchcock is the worlds best director through his use of  techniques such as the dolly zoom and the matte view to add the effect of Johns condition of Vertigo and I personally feel that this one aspect which shows he is the best director ever. He has inspired many prestigious directors. Another argument which I encountered was the fact that Hitchcock is the worlds best master in suspense. This argument was concluded through Hitchcock using Bernard Herrmann’s musical score which added suspense to the Vertigo clip making it intense and shocking as a viewer. This is what makes Hitchcock the master in suspense to date with is the ultimate research finding which I wanted to tackle and believe that through my blog I have encountered this.

As I joined into the course Contemporary Media Practice three weeks late, I found it a huge challenge to produce the blog. However I believe that I was up to the challenge as I am usually a last-minute person anyways when it comes to producing essays or PowerPoint presentations.

I decided to base my research upon Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in the ‘Tower scene’ in particular for my blog. This is because I personally believe that he is a very clever director when it comes to producing films especially through the use of suspense making him the ‘the master of suspense’ through the way he constructs his films. I have personally studied Hitchcock through his film ‘The 39 steps’ and ‘Psycho’ and I believe they were successful films. Vertigo is a film which I have not personally watched before but have heard off and decided to base m research upon this.

Through my research I have used a collective off websites and Books. I personally prefer books because of the reliability of it. I did however take out about 15 books based on Alfred Hitchcock such as

• ‘Hitchcock on Hitchcock’ Edited by Sidney Gottlieb (1995)
• ‘It’s only a movie Alfred Hitchcock’ A personal Biography Charlotte Chandler (2005) Published by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd.
• ‘Spellbound by beauty – Alfred Hitchcock and his leading ladies’ Donald Spoto (2008) Published by Arrow

These books however were irrelevant and I did not find any suitable information which was needed for my research.

Through my research on the Internet I have tried to cross-reference the information due to the fact that books are reliable. I also saw two documentaries that were interesting but did not base my ideas as thoroughly as I wanted it to. The VCR documentaries on Hitchcock are called ‘Reputations: Hitch: Alfred the Great: Part 1′, Directed by Tim Kirby, BBC 2 (30/5/99) & ‘Reputations: Hitch: Alfred The Auteur’, Directed by Tim Kirby, BBC 2 (31/5/99).

Through my research, I have discovered and achieved covering certain techniques which Hitchcock used which I never knew existed in my life such as the dolly zoom which I now notice is many films which is a major impact to a scene. I also discovered that the dolly zoom is also part of the character John Ferguson’s condition of having Vertigo (dizziness). I also discovered techniques such as the vertigo view and the matte view, which is a realistic view of something in a scene occurring, which will not risk the actors in the film.

I have achieved a series of blogs where I have drawn up new questions that have led into a new topic into discovering more on Alfred Hitchcock and the film Vertigo. I also managed to discover the fact that Hitchcock is a true auteur through his repetitive streak in his films and his cultural history surrounding him when he was in Germany through the German Expressionism.

If I had more time, I would have been able to use primary research through the use of interviews and focus groups to get a greater understanding of Hitchcock and society’s views whether he is a true master of suspense. I did however use my friend Jerome Noel who attends drama school and gave me an insight of his opinion of Alfred Hitchcock being the master of suspense. I would have also gone to my old drama teacher (Barbara Cunningham, William Morris Sixth Form, Hammersmith) as she was a real fan and inspired by Hitchcock’s techniques. I would have asked her for her own intake on why Hitchcock is a major name in the film world to directors, teachers and generally the public. This way of research would have allowed me to get peoples personal response to Hitchcock. If I also had more time I would have answered by Question 13 which was What other films and for what directors has Herrmann written scores for apart from Alfred Hitchcock? I personally found it difficult to research upon this.

The best way for myself to study to find research was to work later in the light i.e. 3am rather than working in the daytime i.e. 3pm. This is because I feel that my brain works better in the night and I can find a larger scale of research material which will be beneficial to me at this time. I personally worked better at home rather than the library or the lecture calls. This is because I believe that my own bedroom is why my mind works wonders into thinking and working hard.

I do not personally believe I cross-reference as much as I would have liked or as much as was needed but when I did have a point I did try and look at more than one research source.

In conclusion, it was a big challenge to produce this amount of work in approx. 10 days, however I am very happy at the fact that have created a blog which I personally believe is off an average standard due to the time I have had to produce it. I also believe I have reference which are straight to the point on what I want to research upon. I did enjoy the studying of Alfred Hitchcock. I had endless nights of sleeps into making the interesting facts I encountered into linking it all to the tower scene in Vertigo and I am proud of the final outcome.

The major part of the film which I think is important the infamous ‘Hitchcock Blonde’. This was generally beautiful and often cunning.

“Kim Novak’s appearance in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) was “less a performance than a helpless confession of herself,” according to David Thomson in his Biographical Dictionary of Film. Vertigo was #61 on the AFI’s top 100 list; the film features Jimmy Stewart’s John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson, a detective obsessed with Novak’s mysterious femme fatale.As noted in a 1996 review by James Berardinelli, “Hitchcock scholars are in general agreement that John is a subconscious representation of the director — a man constantly striving for his own image of perfect female beauty.(link: http://www.who2.com/hitchcocksblondes.html accessed 10th November)

I think that this quote good as I personally believe that there are links between Alfred Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart’s character John Ferguson. In the ‘Tower scene’, John finds himself in a position he can’t control, as he tries to save Madeline, but his vertigo prevents him.

This major passage below is a big chunk founded on a website however I believe it is a important fact that should be included in my discovery.

Looking at Alfred Hitchcock’s career, it is quite obvious that he was one gentleman who definitely preferred blondes. These beautiful women feature so prominently in his films that they have even earned their own affectionate title – the Hitchcock blonde.

Blonde, Bold, and Brilliant

No blonde jokes can be based off of these women, though. Hitchcock’s icy, sexy heroines boast beauty, brains, and bravery. They aren’t afraid to mix it up with the men when times get rough and the bullets start flying. Often, they’re the ones risking their lives to save the men. And through it all, they manage to stay perfectly coiffed and radiant. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Leading Ladies with Luscious Locks

Here are the five best and most memorable golden goddesses of Hitchcock’s silver screen:

1. Ingrid Bergman: While not as platinum as the others, Bergman still qualifies as a Hitchcock blonde. The Swedish bombshell is the most talented of the group and one of Hitchcock’s most frequent collaborators, starring in three films during the 1940s. He was devastated when she moved Italy to marry Roberto Rossellini.

Must-see blonde role: Alicia Huberman, secret agent, in Notorious (1946). She’s opposite Cary Grant, and both achieve career milestones. It’s one of Hitchcock’s best films.

2. Tippi Hedren: This blonde had the most contentious off-screen relationship with Hitchcock. Her characters also (coincidentally?) took the most abuse of the Hitchcock blondes (barraged by birds in The Birdsand psychologically-imbalanced, to put it delicately, in 1964′s ). Still, Hedren proved her worth as an actress, and her blonde characters are some of the strongest because they have the most to overcome.

Must-see blonde role: Melanie Daniels, who almost single-handedly fends off the apocalypse, in The Birds(1963).

3. Grace Kelly: The fairest and the loveliest of all his blondes, Kelly was the epitome of elegance, and the most beloved by audiences and the director. She starred in three Hitchcock films within two years during the 1950s. Kelly is another actress he lost to Europe when she became Princess Grace of Monaco.

Must-see blonde role: Without question, Lisa Carol Fremont in Rear Window(1954). She’s a fearless sleuth in fabulous designer dresses.

4. Madeleine Carroll: One of his lesser-known and most underrated blondes, Carroll worked with Hitchcock in the 1930s while he was still in England. She had infinite class, wit, and charm.

Must-see blonde role: Plucky Pamela in The 39 Steps(1935), Hitchcock’s best British film after The Lady Vanishes(1938). The 39 Stepsalso contains probably the only meet-cute in cinematic history to involve a big, juicy kiss…and handcuffs soon to follow.

So Many Blondes, Just One Spot Left…

5. Eva Marie Saint: It’s a tough call, but Saint makes the list for her unique blend of innocence, talent, and no-nonsense attitude. Unlike the other four actresses, she only has one Hitchcock film to her credit, but it’s a great one, and she’s excellent in it.

Must-see blonde role: The one and only North by Northwest(1959), in which she plays sassy Eve Kendall, a woman who holds her own and looks great even while running across Mount Rushmore.

And…Cut!

Hitchcock has notoriously been quoted as saying, “Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.” This macho posturing doesn’t coincide with the blonde characters and actresses he favored. Alfred Hitchcock was a feminist at heart. His films are the glossy blonde evidence.

(http://classicfilms.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_best_of_hitchcocks_blondes)

I believe that this rounds up my argument to wonder how Hitchcock wanted Kim Novak to be perceived in the film and all blondes in his films as a matter of fact.

Through me talking about the dolly zoom and the point of view shot which is used to build suspense and tension to the scene, I wanted to understand and actually see whether Alfred Hitchcock should be named ‘the master of suspence’. Through reading the book Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut I found a quote of interest to me.

“We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably becuase they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longong to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There’s a bomb under you and it’s about to explode!”

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second case we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion in that whenever possible the public must be informed. (Francois Truffaut (1967) ‘Hitchcock’  Simon & Schuster page.52)

I personally found it hard to find detailed and relevant information on why Hitchcock could be known as the master of suspense on the internet but I watched the famous shower scene in Psycho where the audience see a figure approaching the shower before the actress Lila in the shower does. The audience feels vulnerable or that character and understands before she does that if she does not stop the shower then something could happen. Below is the famous shower scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlC3j9Ha5TI – accessed 10th november 2009

The suspense is drawn through the shadow of the man approaching shower. To get a personal understand into whether society classes Alfred Hitchcock as ‘the master of suspense’. The idea of suspense is related in the‘Tower scene’ in Vertigo through John’s point-of-view and we guessing that Madeline is going to try and kill herself.

I interviewed my friend Jerome Noel who attends drama school and gave me an insight of his opinion of Alfred Hitchcock being the master of suspense which the 2 minute interview is shown below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB9okaBu7po – accessed and produced 10th November 2009

I personally believe that the point of view shot in vertigo was possibly used for us to have an understanding of John Ferguson’s condition. By the camera shot of a point of view, we are able to feel a sense of vulnerability for the character. We are also able to feel connected to John and encounter his emotions of having Vertigo. In the tower scene I encountered at least 10 -12 ten point-of-view shots being used which I found very interesting.

At the climax in the bell tower, we see Scottie from Judy’s point of view: “You shouldn’t keep souvenirs of a killing. . . . You shouldn’t have been that sentimental. . . . I loved you so, Madeleine.‘ Information and Image – http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/stills-vertigo/pointofview.html – accessed 10th November 2009′

I decided to focus my attention through the use of books and see if there was any relevant information on point of view shots and to see if the information I already encountered was correct and I came across a book named Film Art: An introduction which had an interesting quote founded on page 358.

“The most straightforward way in which the film’s narration controls out knowledge is through the numerous optical point-of-view (POV) shots Hitchcock employs. This device yields a degree of subjective depth: We see what a character sees more or less as she or he sees it. More importantly here, the optical POV shot restricts us only to what the character learns at that moment.” (Bordwell & Thompson, 2001 ‘Film Art: An Introduction’, Sixth edition, McGraw-Hill pp.358)

Hitchcock wanted the audience to discover events unfolding at the same time the protagonist did, this was also very effective way of building up suspense.

‘You can edit back and forth between the character and the subject as many times as you want to build tension. The audience won’t get bored.  This is the most powerful form of cinema, even more important than acting.  To take it even further have the actor walk toward the subject.  Switch to a tracking shot to show his changing perspective as he walks. The audience will believe they are sharing something personal with the character.  This is what Hitchcock calls “pure cinema.” (Truffaut)”

(Info and photograph – http://www.borgus.com/think/hitch.htm] Accessed 10th November 2009)

This point of view (P.O.V.) technique is used many times in the ‘Tower scene’ of Vertigo and creates  an effective compilation  that actually builds up the tension within that scene.

Apart from the point of view shots and dolly zoom techniques, I wanted to find out if there was many other elements of the tower sequence in ‘Vertigo’ that used special effect. When i first researched the main effect that was shown was the ‘vertigo shot’. I looked at other source to find out another term for this names the matte shot which is explained below.

A matte shot is a process shot in which two photographic images (usually background and foreground) are combined into a single image using an optical printer. Matte shots can be used to add elements to a realistic scene or to create fantasy spaces. In these four examples from Vertigo (1958), director Alfred Hitchcock uses all possible combinations. In the first image, the white belfry is a model added on the foreground of a shot of the roof; in the second image, the sky in the background is clearly a painting, with the purpose of making us believe the scene takes place on a bell tower’s top floor, rather than on the studio’s ground. (http://www.voxfilm.com/film_school/mise-en-scene.htm Accessed 8th November 2009) (http://www.videomaker.com/article/8208/ Accessed 8th November 2009)

The other two shots belong to the fantasy sequence of Scottie’s dream. In the first one his face is superimposed over a campy “unconscious” image; the last one reverses the process, having a mixture of “real” and matted elements in the background (the roof and the belfry) with the added silhouette in the foreground.

Matte shooting is one of the most common techniques used in studio filmmaking. This is because it wouls be expensive, impossible or too dangerous to try to shot in the real space. Sometimes, as when animation and real figures interact, that space may not even exist. In recent years, however, special effects and computer generated images have taken over the function of matte shots.

This answers question 9

The film company which Vertigo was filmed for was Paramount. They wanted Alfred Hitchcock to do a big international thriller which would have been adapted from the novel Flamingo Feather by Laurens Van der Post, to be shot on location in South Africa.”

The film was a big risk which Alfred Hitchcock took. This was due to the fact that it contained mild violence, alcohol problems and frightening/intense scenes which the genreral public was not use to in the 1950′s and it was something new that was being shown in films although it happened in society. It did however make $150,000 + 10% of the profits +film negative ownership.

Vertigo was a very different slice of cake from the previous films Alfred Hitchcock made with James Stewart and Paramount Pictures. The difference was in the film’s tone, and its lack of a “Hollywood” ending. In the 1950s, audiences had come to expect a high level of excitement, wit, and sophistication from a Hitchcock movie. Rear Window, To Catch a Thief and The Man Who Knew Too Much, all scripted by John Michael Hayes (who also wrote the director’s The Trouble with Harry), had conditioned audiences to light comic thrillers, each presented in widescreen and Technicolor (the latter three in VistaVision, Paramount’s widescreen process which produced a larger and sharper negative by running the 35mm film horizontally through the camera rather than vertically). The director’s first production after his four-film collaboration with Hayes was The Wrong Man, made for Warner Brothers in black and white, with a dark and gloomy script based on actual events. The picture failed at the box-office.

When Hitchcock returned to Paramount to make Vertigo, advance publicity boasted a return to Technicolor and VistaVision, and a tried-and-true Hitchcock star, James Stewart. How could they go wrong? What Hitchcock and the studio had not reckoned, was that his lighter features and enormously popular television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, left audiences unprepared for the emotional realism and deeply personal statement Hitchcock made in Vertigo.

The combined talents which came together on Vertigo include stellar performances from the film’s stars James Stewart and Kim Novak, a sensitive and moving score by Bernard Herrmann, and the subtle lighting and exquisite camera movement of Hitchcock’s cinematographer, Robert Burks. Also noteworthy are Edith Head’s costumes, Henry Bumstead’s production design, George Tomasini’s magnificent editing, and one of the most honest, revealing and mature scripts Hitchcock ever worked with, written by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor.

Today, Vertigo makes its perennial appearance on various top ten lists; was among the first twenty-five films chosen for the National Film Registry in America in 1989; and has had its second major reissue since the director’s death in 1980 – not bad for a picture that was largely dismissed nearly forty years ago. That, of course, is a testament of Alfred Hitchcock’s genius as an artist, entertainer and pop-culture icon.

Vertigo‘s reputation has improved with age. The ad promoting the restoration and new 70mm presentation is the original Saul Bass design which Hitchcock approved. The physical restoration of the VistaVision negative, and the restoration of the film’s prominence in cinema history would appear, at last, to have been complete.

Question 14. What is the use of Blondes in Hitchcocks films?