Exam question

"How has your study of critical debates (In this case the doppelganger and repetition) enhanced your understanding of the film?"

From the moment we first see Madeleine in the restaurant scene we know Scottie sees Madeleine as the perfect woman. He sees the ideal woman as a cure for his castration experienced earlier in the film and this comes through in the shots used in this scene. We see a shot of Scottie at the bar looking over his shoulder at first and then the camera begins to pan round to where we see a crowded room but at the back we see a woman stand out in a bright green dress and vibrant blonde hair. As the camera tracks in we realise that this is Scotties eyes we are looking through, and as it tracks in we are not able to take our eyes off her, only because Scottie cannot take his eyes off her, We are following Scotties Gaze. My understanding of the film is only enhanced by this as I begin to understand the motive for his actions, how obsessed with her he is and why he wants to control her.

As Madeleine represents the ideal woman, to posses her will satisfy Scotties masculine desire (To control, posses and be active) that has been removed from him, while Judy represents the 'apparition or double of a living person. A second chance that scottie can use to cure his vertigo by turning Judy into Madeleine's double. We see this most prevalent in the shopping scene where Scottie begins to pick what Judy wears and even when she will not go along with it, Scottie steps in and all of a sudden she backs down as if she has no choice, a masculine quality coming back to Scottie. Once again this enhances my understanding as we see that his motive is that he wants to retrive his masculine qualities

Even just before this scene we begin to see repetition in shots. When Scottie first sees Judy we get the same side of the head shot that we seen when Scottie first seen Madeleine, this repetition in shots signifies Scottie's repression, as Freud identifies the 'tendency of a person who has suffered a traumatic to re-live the negative event over and over again in action, in memory, or in dreams'. Another example of this is when Scottie looks up into the window of the hotel to see Judy, this is near identical to the one we see when Scottie follows Madeleine to the hotel earlier in the film. This also enhances my understanding as i begin to understand that the only way he can cure his vertigo is by revisiting the trauma and removing the repression.