So, having proclaimed the title of my little rant to be, I would first like to point out how f****** creepy Jimmy Stewart can be. By the end of the movie we know what his intentions were/are, but we still feel that almost violent nostalgia as we progress through the second half of the movie. Jimmy Stewart, too me, is such a staple of the family movie genre that this movie was borderline horrific to watch.
In Vertigo we get this same kind of irrational draw to the image of the ideal woman as in Preminger's Laura. In both we have this painting that kind of haunts the Mis en scene in both films.
While the one in Laura is an absolutely gorgeous depiction, that I might someday hunt down without explaining to my future wife why, that causes the main character to fall in love with her. In Vertigo there is this creepy 100 year old painting of a dead woman that Scottie's character becomes obsessed with. It also becomes a bit of fun for a friend. Instead of being a picture of Madeline we have a picture of Carlotta, which kind of plays to the deceit that Scottie is a victim to. We think it is Carlotta in Madeline's head, which Scottie believes he's fallen in love with. But in actuality it is Judy who is pretending to be Madeline which Scottie falls in love with. In either case it is Madeline that Scottie falls in love with, but the deception of who the lie that is Madeline, is symbolized through Madeline's absence in the portrait.
Oh, haha, I almost completely forgot this weird love triangle, consisting of two actual people, movie masquerades as a detective film for the first half of the film. Scottie is contracted as a private investigator to follow Madeline, which kind of foreshadows the rest of the film because a P.I.'s job is to be obsessed.
The plot leads us to believe that there is a suicidal spirit controlling Madeline. This drives the first half of the plot.
As we get into the second half of the movie we see a woman who looks remarkably similar to Madeline, except she has bad makeup, bad hair, and this mid-west drawl to her voice.Turns out she (Judy) was pretending to be Madeline so that Elster could kill his wife (Madeline) and have Scottie as a witness to her lunacy. Scottie tries with an almost fierce sense of utter delusion to recreate Madeline from Judy. The love is actually between the two the whole time, which is were we get into symmetry. In class we talked about how the movie was forced symmetrically. Scottie is tryin to recreate his exact visions of her which we get in sort of a loop. We start back at the beginning of Scottie's experience with Madeline and how how he is going out to recreate that, to recreate his image of beauty. This again goes back to Laura and how the main character becomes obsessed with an image of a woman instead of the woman herself.
We also discussed in class, the point of view of the movie. Besides for the one scene where Judy has a flashback to reveal what really happened, which feels really forced in my opinion, the entire movie is from Scottie's POV. This gets us into the Freudian discussion brought up by the reading. Since the POV is the main character's, sometimes literally. We identify with him, no matter which gender (ego libido) and we see Madeline as the sexual attraction the whole movie. What is crazy is that everyone who watches this movie experiences this. So when we get this scene of a Madeline slightly recreated we all cringe because she is not what Hitchcock has built up beauty to be like.
Sadly, I've never seen Jimmy Stewart in anything else (not even It's A Wonderful Life), so I can't even fathom how creepy he must seem to someone who has seen him in such different roles. I still found him horrific by the end of the movie. In the beginning he did seem like this normal, friendly, endearing man (I think it had something to do with his weird almost whistle/lisp while speaking). To use an actor who was normally type-cast in family-oriented movies as this violently obsessive character was interesting, and added a layer to the creep factor.
ReplyDeleteI too thought Judy's flashback, and that whole part in general, both forced and rushed. It left me going, "Huh...?" and I had to piece together what had happened as the movie went on.
Definitely agree with how creepy Jimmy Stewart was, I like him so much and his character is not a Jimmy Stewart I want to love and remember. I really laughed to myself when I saw the portrait with Midge's face painted on it because of how ridiculous it looked. I was sooo uncomfortable during the Judy makeover, it was almost sickening.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that Jimmy Stewart was seriously creepy in this film , just by the way he becomes obsessed with the image of one woman, any tries to project it upon another. I myself thought it was comparable to a weird fetish someone would have. "I cant love you unless you look like someone else"...awkward.
ReplyDeleteI also liked that you talked about the love triangle that is happening, even though it is with in two people, rather than three, its just different personalities in a way. Anyway a little confusing, but still entertaining.
Really good post here. I think that you make a lot of really good points. Just to get this out of the way, I’ve also never seen Jimmy Stewart in anything else so I’ve thought he was creepy since I saw this film in high school. It’s amazing what a great filmmaker can do to the image of an actor.
ReplyDeleteI also really like your point about the film’s p.o.v. It really does seem out of place and confusing especially since we have spent the entire film with Scotty. Although it seems a little bit rushed and forced, I think that it’s definitely a necessary scene.
What I really like about this entry, besides the interesting conversation you guys are having (yay, you guys!), is the images you include, and work from. You have the sketch of a really interesting essay here. I'd really like to see it filled in more. I'm still tossing around why Midge's portrait game is so disturbing and startling, and you almost go there, but then move onto a larger, and equally interesting point, about Scotty's obsessive pursuit of a dualized image, and from there draw an equally interesting connection to the in its way equally weird painting in Laura. Fill this stuff in, it's really interesting! Also, pull the reading in, because I think that Mulvey's theories speak to this.
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