BFI - Critics Greatest Films of All Time 2012 essay For some, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) has always been one of those ‘bedside’ films (as François Truffaut put it, before such a thing could be taken literally) – which means that we store it so well in our minds, and in our hearts, that we can think about it and ‘watch’ it again whenever the mood takes us. We do this to delve a little bit deeper into the film’s inexhaustible and fascinating enigmas, to relive our first impressions and to compare Hitchcock’s film to the rest of filmmaking – if only to reassure ourselves of its status as an unsurpassed peak, making films that hold more prestige for critics and historians seem lesser works by comparison. And yet the truth is that its status as a great work has only been admitted comparatively recently. None of Hitchcock’s films, for instance, featured in Sight & Sound’s first top ten in 1952, and Vertigo didn’t feature in the 1962 critics’ poll, compiled four years after the film’s release. In fact Vertigo didn’t appear in the poll until 1982, when it came seventh. By 1992 it was up to fourth (and sixth in the newly instigated directors’ poll); then in 2002 it came second (remaining sixth for the directors). Why did it take so long? Unlike, say, Bicycle Thieves, which was more or less instantly acclaimed as a masterpiece (coming top in the 1952 poll, only four years after its release), films such as Vertigo and John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) initially met with a mixed reception from critics – and with indifference from the public. Which means that, beyond the mere passing of time and the perseverance of their defenders, these works must have something very special about them to have been able to finally impose themselves as great works. But why, in the case of Vertigo, do we come back again and again, even though the art of cinema and the film’s original audience have changed? The generation that first revered the film has got older and gained experience, but we have also lost illusions and enthusiasm. Why, after watching Vertigo more than, say, 30 times, are we confident that there are things to discover in it – that some aspects remain ambiguous and uncertain, unfathomably complex, even if we scrutinise every look, every cut, every movement of the camera? Why do we never get tired of Hitchcock telling us the story of Scottie Ferguson’s obsession with three people in one – Madeleine Elster, Carlotta Valdes and Judy Barton – even though we know it by heart?
Narrative discoveries It is generally accepted that Hitchcock was one of the great film narrators. He has long been considered a skilful artisan at the service of his audience, willing to flatter us, and eager to make the biggest profit with his products – a direct concern for him, because he participated in the financing of his films, which meant that his future creative freedom depended on good commercial results. Hitchcock always wanted to keep his hands free so he could make something greater than he’d made before. The tendency among earlier critics was to try to reduce him to the role of ‘master of suspense’, perhaps because his success sparked off a multitude of inferior imitators. Hitchcock’s narrative discoveries, the structural audacity with which he surprised us – the death of the love interest 70 minutes into Vertigo, or of protagonist Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) 40 minutes into Psycho – all those innovations were considered mistakes by critics then. These were possibilities no other producer would have tolerated; even with Hitchcock’s creative autonomy, few would have dared to attempt them. Of course Hitchcock understood the importance of dramatic narrative and character conventions. He knew how to play with them and pretend he was complying with them – as when retired policeman Scottie (James Stewart) initiates his investigation of Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) at the behest of her husband Gavin (Tom Helmore) – so that the spectator, trusting in orthodoxy, would anticipate the position where the director wanted them to be, allowing him to create and dilate that mixture of tension and uncertainty that is ‘suspense’. Come the time, he also knew how to brutally undermine those conventional expectations (making us realise, for instance, that Scottie has been suckered into the Elster case because of his fatal flaw, the vertigo he has experienced ever since he was left dangling from the edge of a roof during a chase in the film’s opening sequence), leaving the spectator disoriented – and therefore ready to be taken wherever he wanted us to go. Hitchcock knew that an excess of confusion can distance, that too many explanations can tire and make us lose the thread, that a prolonged vagueness can jeopardise the credibility of a story. Yet he also knew that if one wants to put