Madeleine not only intends to dupe Scottie that her mind is вЂњtaken possessionвЂќ by her supposed great-grandmother, Carlotta Valdes, who went вЂњmadвЂќ and died вЂњby her own handвЂќ in 1857. The N onpar eil Duplicitous Femme Fatal e The Madeleine that Scottie sees at ErnieвЂ™s, and then trails around San Francisco, isnвЂ™t GavinвЂ™s wife she is his lover and accomplice in the murder plot. When Scottie declines, Gavin says he and Madeleine will be at ErnieвЂ™s restaurant that night, and there Scottie вЂњcan see her.вЂќ Once he does, he is hooked, falling into GavinвЂ™s trap. Gavin asks Scottie to follow Madeleine in her вЂњwanderingsвЂќ around the city. The cause, he suggests, is that a dead person вЂњtakes possessionвЂќ of her.

Gavin tells Scottie that he is worried about Madeleine because she blanks out and goes places and does things, then afterwards she canвЂ™t remember where she went or what she did. Unknown to the audience for most of the film, Gavin has groomed his gorgeous mistress to be a stand-in for his actual wife, Madeleine, in order to carry out an elaborate murder scheme that will make it appear his wife has committed suicide. Soon afterwards he is contacted by a former college classmate, Gavin Elster. Since Scottie isnвЂ™t fit to continue working in the streets, and he doesnвЂ™t want to sit behind a desk, he quits the police force. What is key to this scene, although it is not depicted, and the audience only indirectly learns it later, is that the newspapers report what happened. The officer loses his footing on the tiles and plunges over Scottie to his death. When the policeman tries to save him by extending a hand and telling him to grab it, Scottie is incapable of letting go of the gutter. This psychological experience unnerves him. Each time he looks down into an alley several stories below, what he sees seemingly stretches and recedes farther away. After jumping to a building with a slanted roof and ceramic tiles, Scottie slips and slides down until he is hanging precariously from a gutter. Vertigo dramatically opens with a man being chased across rooftops in San Francisco by a cop and Scottie Ferguson, a police detective. Nevertheless, the following description isnвЂ™t brief because I want to explain how, in the first half, a woman (Madeleine) is one of film noirвЂ™s most deceiving femme fatales, whereas, in the second half, this same woman (Judy) is one of film noirвЂ™s women in distress suffering the most intense psychological plight. The complicated plot of Vertigo can only be sketched here. In 2002, the polling placed Vertigo second behind Citizen Kane. However, LвЂ™Avventura and The Magnificent Ambersons dropped out of the top ten, and VertigoВ rose to #4. In the 1992 poll Citizen Kane remained #1. In 1972, Citizen Kane retained the top spot, as it also did in 1982, when there was a tie for #7: LвЂ™Avventura (#5 in 1972), The Magnificent Ambersons (#8 in 1972) and a new entry, Vertigo. In 1962, Citizen Kane, from outside of the previous top 10, jumped to #1.

In the first poll, neither the later longstanding #1, Citizen Kane, nor the much later upstart, Vertigo, were included. The results of the Sight and Sound poll for the all-time best films have been released every ten years since 1952. In 2012, Vertigo was ranked the greatest film of all time by Sight and Sound, a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute. Released: Paramount Pictures, May 9, 1958. Cast: James Stewart (John вЂњScottieвЂќ Ferguson), Kim Novak (Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton), Barbara Bel Geddes (Midge Wood), Tom Helmore (Gavin Elster), Henry Jones (Coroner), Joanne Genthon (Carlotta Valdes). Art Directors: Henry Bumstead and Hal Pereira. Taylor, based on the novel, DвЂ™Entre Les Morts, by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, with contributing writer Maxwell Anderson (uncredited). Vertigo: An Exemplar of Both the Femme Fatale and the Woman in DistressДirector: Alfred Hitchcock. This post is my way of celebrating the 60 th.

Vertigo film