Vertigo (1958)

I've never encountered anyone who called themselves an "aesthete" whom I thought I could be friends with.  Admittedly, I've met very few people like that.  I bring this up because I recall one of them criticizing Vertigo as only holding value for people who are into Lacanian psychoanalysis or meditations on memory like that in Chris Marker's Sans Soleil.  To be fair, there is a long history of people analyzing Vertigo and many of Hitchcock's other films in this way, and Freud is directly invoked in Marnie.  And since Hitchcock is a quintessential auteur, efforts to analyze his films, especially Vertigo, often involve efforts to analyze his psychology.

As a follower of Kristin Thompson, I tend to wonder if the Lacanian approach to film criticism isn't a little Procrustean.  In any case, I think the reason a lot of critics love Vertigo isn't really because of their Lacanian reads.  Consider this scene:

This image is from a single long take in which Scottie and Judy take a wordless stroll.  This scene is brief and mundane, and does not advance the narrative at all.  But it doesn't seem out of place.  Is it really any wonder why this would be in a movie?  You can imagine being a filmmaker, seeing a place like that, and thinking you'd like to include it in a film somehow.  

Vertigo is in large part a travelogue of San Francisco.  We visit the redwood forest, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Legion of Honor.  Judy comments on what a lovely building the Legion of Honor is.  Not to mention the flower shop whose image has become an icon of this film.  Vertigo is in large part a travelogue of San Francisco, especially in this second movement but also elsewhere. 

When they stop at the redwood forest, Judy approaches a display featuring a cross-section of a tree.  The tree rings are marked with years and significant events that happened on those years.  1066 A.D., Battle of Hastings.  1215, Magna Carta signed.  1492, Columbus discovers America.  Mostly not things that happened on the continent where the redwoods actually grew--it's worth noting the most important scenes take place at a Spanish mission. 

In more ways than one, the film shows us the selection of beautiful things and their assembly into something compelling.  The film constructs the image of a city piece by piece, in the same way Scottie infamously attempts to construct the image of a woman.  

The film is far from naturalistic.  It features deep reds and greens that pop from the screen: near the Golden Gate Bridge, in the redwood forest, in the crimson-walled restaurant where Scottie first sees Judy, in the open fields surrounding San Juan Bautista, and in Judy's room at the Empire Hotel, where a green neon sign lights the room from just outside the window.  

The central drama depends on Scottie's dissatisfaction with his selection of images, with the fact that every selection is also an omission.  If I prefer Rear Window and North by Northwest to Vertigo, it's because they're more playful and ironic about this imperfection.  Rear Window shows us the silly or sleazy things underlying cultivated surfaces; North by Northwest is an extended competition of improvisation and manipulation.  Those two films are characterized by a pervasive amorality.  Vertigo is more judgmental.  

Maybe some people do like Vertigo because they enjoy applying Lacanian ideas to it.  It could just be about it looks and moves, too.  It may be more judgmental than Rear Window or North by Northwest, but it's also prettier.