How has your study of Laura Mulvey enhanced your understanding of Vertigo?

Studying Laura Mulvey's "male gaze" theory has helped broaden my understanding of Vertigo two-fold, helping me truly understand what the film is about - obsession and the control of women by men, a major tenant of Mulvey's theory.

In this opening sequence we are presented parts of a woman, suggested to be the film's heroine Madeleine, and never the whole person. This is all presented in extreme close-up, producing a sense of entrapment for this woman, something which still rings true throughout Vertigo, something which would produce a much different tone if shot in a wide-angle or medium close-up. By introducing the character through her body parts, such as her cheek, lips, eyes and nose, Hitchcock is fetishising and objectifying Madeleine, making her into an object with several different controllable parts for which the director can manipulate and the spectator can gaze at. In this sense, Vertigo's opening sequence is both voyeuristic and scopophilic for the spectator to receive sexual pleasure from gazing at an attractive woman without her knowledge or permission.

The first time we see Madeleine is the first time main character Scottie sees her as well, at Ernie's restaurant, but she does not see us or Scottie. Madeleine literally has her back to the camera and Scottie, as the camera tracks away from Scottie and slowly towards her table. This woman has no knowledge that she is being gazed at by Scottie, and we receive his point-of-view in this shot, a male POV potentially sexualising Madeleine in her V-shaped, backless dress and denying us the subject's perspective on these events. That we are denied a female POV is to say that Madeleine is the subject and Scottie is the object, as well as the observer and the manipulator. As she enters frame and we see her face for the first time, it is her portrait from the side and again from Scottie's POV. The music reaches a romantic fever pitch as she steps into view, and she seems to glow against the restaurant's red backdrop. It is an emphasis on her silhouette, again, that emphasises her two-dimensional representation in this scene. That we are given a shape rather than a speaking character is telling, as she blends into the scenery and becomes an extra aesthetic rather than a three-dimensional character. Madeleine is idealised here, through music, lighting, cinematography, by Scottie, Hitchcock and the spectator. She fulfils her role in this scene as an erotic object for the audience and the characters within the story. Madeleine is an all-sensory, surreal experience when she is on-screen, whereas the character Midge is safe, ordinary and denied such an idealisation.

Mulvey's "male gaze" theory applies so closely to Vertigo and its themes of obsession and control, and is certainly a key part of understanding the film on a subtextual level.