SSC Film Studies

Vertigo, opening scene analysis

Firstly we get a shot of Kim Novak, as the character Madeline. We see her lips twitch nervously, this introduces anxiety and close examination of the characters physical attributes as integral themes. we later find this out as all of Madeline's physical attributes are focused on and changed. 

we next get an extreme close up of the characters  eyes, we see that the character is clearly on edge due to the fact that she never makes eye contact with the camera  for long, she is not comfortable with the viewers close scrutiny. This shot introduces some more key conventions of the thriller genre. 

There is then quickly a shift in mood, this is created through the red tint, the graphics and the musical score. the music is much more intense when the camera is on Madeline. The extreme close up of the eye reinforces the idea of watching/ Gazing and introduces the theme of identity. the colour red adds to the theme of identity, as this colour has very negative representations which could be associated with the main character of Scotty, and the feelings he feels towards her are often connoted with the colour red; the main emotion is Lust, and the fact that she is clad in red foreshadows the danger that she shall bring to herself and scotty.

The theme of unstable identity and the internal working of the mind are shown through a mix of live action colour change and a vertigo graphic. The spiral was a visual metaphor for the complex layers of a persons identity, for Madeline's hair, for dizziness and for falling. the fact that the camera is always moving forward connotes that we are falling, the addition of the spirals represents obsession, and the fact that we are continually falling in to the spirals shows that we are on a downward spiral, and foreshadows Scotty's life in the movie, that he will fall in to a downward spiral of obsession and will fall in to depression. The spirals are also very repetitive, and the addition of the repetitive music, adds to the theme of a mobius strip, which is basically a never ending cycle. this ties in to Freudian psychology, as if you want to cure yourself of a phobia, you must repeat the same task to conquer it in the end.