Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)

• One of the most intensely debated films in the history of cinema.

• Most of these debates deal with psychoanalytical issues, strongly influenced by Freud and Lacan, as well as by Marx and particularly feminist thought.

Your views on the film?

Scottie

• Opening scene• We encounter Scotties’ impotence (and our

own)• Drowning scene• A psychoanalytical reading of the film will pick

up on the ‘rescue fantasy’ as a theme

Applying Mulvey

• Interprets Scotties’ pursuit of Madeline as an erotic obsession based on castration anxiety.

• States:• Scotties’s voyeurism is blatant: he falls in love with a woman he follows and

spies on without speaking to. • Its sadistic side is equally blatant…Once he actually confronts her, his erotic

drive is to break her down and force her to tell by persistent cross-questioning.

• Then, in the second part of the film, he re-enacts his obsessive involvement…he reconstructs Judy as Madeline, forces her to conform in every detail to the actual physical appearance of his fetish…in the repetition he does break her down and succeeds in exposing her guilt.

• His curiosity wins though and she is punished.

Mulvey cont…

• As harsh with Judy as she is with Scottie:• “Her exhibitionism, her masochism, make her

an ideal passive counterpart to Scottie’s active sadistic voyeurism.”

Madeline

• Woman as helpless object of desire• Opening to film – fetishistic • Scottie is able to gradually win Madeline’s love,

in spite of her resistance and hesitation.• However, the woman who was his object of

compassion and passion, turns out to be the creation of another man.

• The result is Scottie’s sadistic and vengeful domination (last bell tower scene)

Alternate views: Wood (1977)

• Character of Midge “devoid of mystery or reserve’.

• She contrasts Madeline (more erotic through mysteriousness, vulnerability and grace)

• Wood points out that in the second half our POV is split between Scottie and Judy.

• Madeline dies (both times) at the moments when she threatens to become a real person.

Judy

• Fetishistic attempts to mold her into Madeline.

• She succumbs and agrees to fully recreate her.• Judy disappears under the shadow of his

object to win his love• Transformation scene:• Breathtaking moment of romantic fantasy

fulfillment.

Alternate views: Wexman (1986)

• She criticises Mulvey’s ideas.• Sees them as representing an ‘idealist position

which…can obscure the working of more culturally specific codes within the cinematic text.’

• She also discussed the commercialised eroticism of the American film industry, and the way its demand led to controlling Kim Novak’s image and to harassing the actress during production.

Midge

• Maternal qualities• Soothing tone of voice• Male imitation• Presents herself as Scottie’s buddy• Spectator figure• Female spectator identify with?

Challenging Mulvey: Keane (1986)

• Contests the idea of the camera aligning itself with the male POV.

• Mulvey views voyeurism as purely active and sadistic.

• Keane suggests (with the help of Freud’s work on Scopophilia) that Scottie also suffers in his voyeuristic position and is in a way a passive character.

• Scottie also loses his beloved by looking at her.

Palombo (1987)

• Scottie’s fainting in Midge’s apartment is revealed as his ‘raging fear of his dependence on Midge and her mothering…’

Rothman (1987)

• ‘Scottie knows Judy can become Madeline, that is what is most beautiful in her can only be realised if she has the courage to accept the potential Madeline in her.’

Modleski (1988)• Discusses the film’s supposed male viewpoint• Suggests that due to Hitchcock’s fascination with femininity

which throws masculine identity into question and crisis’• Scottie’s desire to merge with a woman who is some sense

doesn’t exist…points to self annihilation.• In his nightmare, Scottie lives out Madeline’s hallucination and

he dies her death.• His attempts to cure her have failed and he is plunged into a

feminine world of psychic disintegration, madness and death.• Scottie oscillates between a hypnotic and masochistic

fascination with the woman’s desire and a sadistic attempt to gain control over her.

Conclusion

• Contradicting viewpoints.• Mulvey’s militant feminism.• More subtle standpoint of Modleski and Keane.• Male as dominating and controlling?• Or weak and impotent?• Female placed in impossible position?• Passive and easily moulded? Helpless object?• Spectators viewpoint?