By A.A. Crayley

So, the characters in Vertigo are insane and foolish, love is dishonest, everyone is deceitful and each decision in the film leads the characters down, down a slippery slope to mortal sin…. Is this really all there is to Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo? Admittedly while watching the film, I often felt like I was about to have a bout of vertigo. My head was spinning with the weightiness of it all. How could everything be so dismal? Surely the film offered some hope, some elements of good human behaviour?

I needed a cup of tea and a nice lie down to help me refocus. As I recovered, it occurred to me that perhaps Vertigo was asking us to do more than feel contempt for the characters and the actions we see. To feel more than mere condemnation for people who try, fail, flounder about and live messy lives because they are human.

When I reflected on the characters, I experienced pity and sadness for them, no matter how reprehensible their actions. Midge: who deserved so much more than the paltry substitute for love she received from Scottie. Judy, who despite her pleas in the final scene, died horribly and barely had the chance to feel remorse for her actions. Scottie: blinded by a mirage, hamstrung by guilt and incapable of returning love to either Midge or Judy. If love is a choice, then Scottie was not in a fit state of mind to make the right one. Through its characters, the film offers us a glimpse into many dimensions of human tragedy and missed opportunities.

The seeds of love are scattered throughout the film, but we rarely get to appreciate them. The flower of love is conspicuous by its absence. There should have been love and trust between the shipping company magnate and his wife; instead, we encounter malice and murder. The poor wife barely makes an appearance in the film (aside from when she is thrown from the tower by her husband). There was the potential for love between Midge and Scottie, but that seedling was choked by blindness and neglect. Scottie’s obsessive ‘love’ for Madeleine was the seed of love fallen on rocky ground. Love could germinate quickly in the gravel of adultery and obsession but it could never amount to much. And finally, there was the redemptive possibility of love between Scottie and Judy, when all could have been washed clean, the chance to plant love in a rich and deep soil where its roots could flourish. Yet that seed of love was gobbled up by deceit and the desire for revenge. Genuine love struggles to be present in the film, but it is there nonetheless, hidden below the surface.

The characters in Vertigo take on a new significance in light of the pre-film cartoon, Reason versus Emotion*. In the cartoon we’re given a pictorial insight into the mental struggle within each of us to balance emotional excess with calming reason. In the same way that reason and emotion are represented as individual comical figures vying for dominance, the characters in Vertigo can represent our struggles between the poles of love and fear, freedom and obsession, and our common human failings. If we are truly honest with ourselves, could any of us say we have never been deceitful to others or ourselves, have never lied to protect a secret, or used others (even unintentionally)? Can we honestly say we have never hurt another person or regretted an action or word we’ve said?

Ultimately, the characters in Vertigo show us that we can’t stand far above others in condemnation, unless we wish to condemn ourselves. We are implicated in the drama through our own human failings. This leaves us with the option of mercy, the willingness to show forgiveness and clemency to others whether or not it is requested. If Scottie hadn’t dragged Judy to the top of the tower in a fit of revenge, she may have had the opportunity to atone for her wrongs. Vertigo shows us that we must avoid rising too far above others and condemning them, lest we succumb to the vertigo of our own righteous superiority.  The final words of the film are “God have mercy”. May we share the precious gift of God’s mercy with everyone.

*The 1943 Disney cartoon Reason and Emotion was screened before Vertigo as a companion piece to the film for the Recordatio Cinema Club.