MY #1 FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME! ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S VERTIGO EXPLAINED (SPOILERS!) 

Love Hitchcock films and Vertigo is my favorite too! The colors and their symbolism is masterful ❤

I totally agree with you. "Vertigo" is also one of my all-time favorite movies!

This is also my no. 1 favorite movie of all time. What makes me love this film? I can't give you my exact reason. It's like there is something special to this movie that attracted me and influence me to be a filmmaker even though I have no skills on that. Every scene is great. It's a handsdown, truly a masterpiece, greatest gift of cinema.

What wasn’t explained in the movie was how did ‘Madeline’ enter that hotel without being seen by the receptionist who still held the key to the room Scotty saw her at the window in, and how she then got out without anyone seeing her? On another note, did you notice Midge, (played by Barbara Bell Geddes) utter the line about her ‘oil wells in Texas’? This foreshadowed her Character Ms Ellie in the 1980’s tv series Dallas. Spooky.

When I saw it back then when I was young I was impressed by the beauty and acting of Kim Novak, now after re watching it Im more impressed by the whole movie. Though Kim Novak did a really perfect job. Hitchcock was a genius.

You have great taste. For me the best kind of movies are the ones so complex that you can revisit them over and over and be just as surprised, and *VERTIGO* is top tier in that regard. Jimmy Stewart's dream / mental breakdown is one of my favourite sequences in all of cinema.

tcm ben mankiewicz host constantly puts down VERTIGO...whenever he shows a Hitchcock film...he says "better than VERTIGO"...he resents VERTIGO because Sight and Sound magazine of 2012 said it's the greatest film ever.

You're a smart guy and I liked your review. However, there is no computer generated imagery in the movie. CGI didn't exist until the 80s. The computers in the 1950s were the size of car and could barely add one and one, let alone generate imagery. The opening Saul Bass titles were done with standard animation techniques of the day.

The movie wasn't a flop. It made money but not as much as the other previous Hitchcock films. There's a difference.

A sticking point of the film is the problem of why Gavin Elster concocted this very elaborate plot to kill his wife. Why was it necessary to have a witness to Madeline’s “mental illness” and suicide rather than simply stage an accident? After some thought, it occurred to me that Gavin may have suspected that his wife had recently changed her will, and he would need to establish that his wife was not in a sound state of mind so that the court could invalidate it.

It is weird that vertigo is not my favorite from Hitchcock because i watch and study it so much. But still fantastic film but rear Window is my all time best film ever.

My second favourite Hitchcock movie behind Psycho and the one that made me fall in love with Jimmy Stewart as an actor. I love it for so many reasons but the main one is that I suffer from acrophobia (an all-encompassing fear of heights) and vertigo in much the same way Scottie does in the film. It took me a few showings to understand the ending but now I finally am starting to understand

Vertigo is one of my favorite movies too. Good video. Thanks!

Couldn't keep my eyes off Kim Novack. There's something about that woman..

One of the best movies ever made

this is the number one best movie in my whole life

The way you kept calling Jimmy Stewart’s character by his real-life name was really cute, subscribed

Thank you

Message of the movie: Obsession can kill.

my favorite is rear window and want to watch more hitchcock...

I finally watched this movie a couple days ago. What a masterpiece! I was obsessing with the what colors meant. I couldn't point my finger on it and you helped me realize the color green is greed. I still wonder what did the boats and ships meant when Scottie meets his so called friend.

Amazing video thanks dude

This is my favourite movie also!

There's so much more here that people haven't mined. For example: what would happen if you had Vertigo and you chose to put a woman on a high pedestal? Did you know that Midge is the key to the film? Someday, I'm going to do a video...if I can ever stop watching the film long enough.

thank you so much now i know what to write for my essay

When Scottie takes Judy back to the tower to attempt a different outcome for himself and “Madeleine”, the inevitable pull of fate takes over. The death must recur. Here’s a question I don’t see discussed much. Does Judy deserve her punishment, because she was an accessory to Mrs. Elster’s murder?

Thanks for explaining this movie! I first watched it not that long ago and it was kinda hard to understand.

The nun be like : Idk wtf I'm doing here.

Just saw the movie again and i was looking for an answer for the ending. Like you are saying in your video, the reason the movie was not doing so well back then was because of the ending. Well…. My favorite movies are always with bad ending tbh. 😂 vertigo, she falls down. My favorite movie all time is scarface. That ended not so good also. Anyway,… one of the best movies ever made is no doubt Vertigo! By the one and only mr Hichcock! And a very good actor, big fan of james steward! Hats off 🎩

It's a mistake to believe anything is real after the opening rooftop scene. Scotty dreamed the whole thing up in the moment before falling to his death at the beginning of the movie. Madeleine is a dream vision of his mother.

Me too. It makes me want to hug Hitchcock, because he was such an artist. I loved her hair twisted into a the image of the winding stairs...I loved the his moment of realization...I could see it over and over. Saw it last night, and the night before. The one thing that I see differently, is that I see this movie as a triumph. He is able to stand at the top of the tower, his palms open, without any vertigo, because he has seen beyond the illusion, he persevered to the end until he was absolutely certain that it was all a big ruse created calculatingly by someone who has a love of power, and he was used and manipulated. The green dresses - I was thinking that last night too!! omg...greed/money...the source of the vertigo (in The Wizard of Oz the curtain is green )...the black dress is like the Jesuit robe, with it's tie...symbolizing one of the groups that is wrapped up in the bind of greed. For 'Hitch' he must have seen this in Hollywood...that the actors will do anything no matter how evil, for attention and power and money...SO relevant today. But it's relevant to all time. After the movie is over what do we want to keep seeing? How drunk he was with his obsession over her bbecause part of us wants to be in that state. We've always got one foot into the lie and one foot into the overcoming of it and seeing the raw truth which is the truth that there is evil (the ultimate distortion of love) ...again, this is THEEEE movie for this time. Those of us who think we are 'awake' I think, for our generation, we're still going to be struggling with the dicotomy...until we no longer are in a competitive world. Everything in this movie is symbolic, even the name 'Madeleine'. That she died is really not tragic in terms of the overall meaning of the movie, because she symbolizes the illusion.

It's the best movie of all time!

Oh I forgot to add - it is very very very boring. Love Hitchcock. A very very very boring is still better than any movie made in the last couple of decades. Glad he made it.

La mort est présente dans chaque scène du film

They shouldt of put the part in when she writes the letter..Hitchcock should of let the audience know for the first time that she was madeline when scotty saw the neclace...

I didn’t really understand the plot twist, so was the ‘fake’ madeleine judy aswell? and the body that was thrown off the tower looked like it was already dead. Was the husband paying the ‘fake’ madeleine to disguise as the real one? Aside from all the questions I did really enjoy this film

Hitchcock is a good director but people talk about his work like he wrote the films which he did not. The writers for many of his films need much more credit imo.

The only thing that (for me) makes Vertigo a personal no. 2 ever filmed - is the twist, and not the twist itself which i utterly adore by the way, it's the timing of it. If that had been revealed in the very last scene - would of turned out beyond perfect. Think about it - the main female character is gone, the male lead still in love with her finds "her" again, does everything in his power to turn her into "her" The "second" female lead has to be a 100% crazy to let anyone do all of that to her, the male lead obsessed by what happened to him not once but twice (and the second time when he was over the top in love - which made it ten times worse) finally has what he was after from the very first scene where he saw her in that green dress and a 100% after he saved her from almost drowning - and then "he looses it" - just take a close look at his face after he kisses him without knowing what You've known from the middle of the feature. The drive to the tower and the entire tower climbing to the top creates pure thriller in the upcoming moments - and you as a viewer haven't got a clue why what you're seeing is happening when he finally has what he's been after, and then, AND THEN ... You find out - what he figured out when he took a look at her in the mirror after the transformation and saw ... "HER" and then the rest plays out exactly as it did - and ends tragically as it did If Hitch did that and the movie it self could never get more than a 10 i personally would of given it an 11 without a seconds thought. Vertigo is not just a pure Hitchcock masterpiece - it's one of the greatest things cinema itself has ever gone through and seriously doubt any thriller will ever come close to it

This is up there for me. It was Psycho for awhile. All movies tend to have some sag in them around 2/3rds the way through. It is somewhat necessary or essential that there be that “drop” before the final scenes take place...but to me it’s about how the sag is handled. To me Psycho sags when Sam and Lila go to see the Sheriff and his wife. I find that to work out since Psycho is a relatively short film. Vertigo arguably handles the later part of a movie sag better even than Psycho. The contrast in the two “Acts” you mentioned almost eliminates the sag factor while still maintaining tension and changes of pace/tempo. I struggle with a lot of more recent movies because they are so long and often lose there way around the two-thirds mark...to the point where I feel the the movie has completely stopped.

I agree ----ahead of its time. It flopped at the box office because of the downer ending. 10 years later in the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, a downer ending would have been expected (as in Chinatown for example) but in 1950s----no. American culture at that time was in no mood for a tragedy. Also, let us not forget the Hermann film score added a lot to this film.

My favorite Hitchcock movie & definitely in my top 10 of all time. Maybe even 5. As far as Hitchcock movie my #2 is Notorious & #3 psycho

Vertigo #1, Rear Window #2. Rear Window is the safe choice, Vertigo more polarizing. Vertigo does have a flaw imo: the character Judy writing the letter and narrating her confession was done way too early and explicitly. It would have been much better to not do an explicit reveal of Judy and let the realization unfold later through natural denouement.

Same

I can't say I like the storyline of Vertigo, but it is interesting to watch and I find myself drawn to watching it whenever I see it's on. My favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie of all time is Rear Window, (also with Jimmy Stewart). Rear Window has everything; it's a love story, a comedy, and murder mystery. ❤

What's interesting about vertigo is originally it was considered not a good movie. Hitchcock blamed Jimmy Stewart being to old for it's lack of success but over time it began to be regarded as his masterpiece & best moviem Psycho on the other hand has always been known as great. On the first AFI top 100 list both movies made the list. Psycho at 18 & Vertigo was the lowest of the Hitchcock movies at 61. Rear window was 42 & north by northwest was 40. However in the 10 year anniversary edition Vertigo jumped all the way up to #9 being a top 10 movie which I agree with. Psycho jumped up to #14 & the other 2 movies went down. Rear window at #48 & North by Northwest at #55. Which I actually agree with

there is no indication that the cop who fell off the building was his "partner" - and it wouldn't make sense since that was a uniformed cop and Scotty wasn't - they were just two cops together by chance chasing a suspect - calling them partners suggests a professional relationship that probably wasn't there again - you seemed to interpret something more than was shown - Scotty didn't seem to struggle in the least to be with Midge - they were close enuf before to become engaged - but it's failure didn't hurt their friendly relation - tho Midge is obviously still attracted to him - and that will be confirmed later on Vertigo is said to broke even at the box office - tho it actually made a little more than its costs - it was a flop in only in terms of expectation

Was that his partner at the beginning? Not what i thought

How do we know the wearing of the necklace was by mistake

Can something be done about TCM Ben Mankiewicz host....he puts down the great classic masterpiece VERTIGO all the time ????

Vertigo is one of my Hitchcock's top 5, among "Dial M for murder", "Family plot"

You didn't explain the death of the original Madeline at the tower, and if her death was faked, then why

No need for explanation. Picture hitchcock seeing youtubers trying to explain HIS stuff. He mentioned a little bit of it in the Truffaut interview that's the most will get from any "real "explanation. It's mainly rewatchablilty that will give personal explanations

Even worse trying to explain a lynch films. Like he said himself it's there to be experienced like a dream not an autopsy

can somebody explain to me the final? wtf happened there? the only part of the movie I just didn't understand

I just saw this tonight and I did not like it. Scottie seems aloof and disingenuous with Midge. In fact everyone was disingenuous in this movie to some extent and I really didn’t care or relate to anyone in this film. Scottie forcing Judy to dress like Madeline was creepy and kinda abusive. I felt like all these characters are all unhealthy in some form. I much prefer Marnie or The Birds. This movie was not for me.

I give the film 3/10 stars - don't waste your time. The pros are that Jimmy Stewart's acting was decent, and the cinematography was pretty good aided by the rich tones of Technicolor. The plot was lacking, there was little action/dialog, and the ending was pointless.

I mean it just seems silly for a dude to plan this elaborate hoax just to murder his wife and yet leave the girl who helped him still in the same city and of course he just happens to bump into her. Idk. Don’t get me wrong I loved it and it’s incredible and really set the high bar for thrillers to come. But yeah when he found her again I was a little bummed because it seemed too convenient. But again at the time I’m sure it was a really big twist and surprise.

First rate!

Nice job..

What happens to Scotty after the final scene when he endangers, then kills the woman he loves? Does he commit suicide?

الراهبة اللعينة دمرت ابن بورماه

I fancy myself a movie buff,so I recently started acclimating myself with the “classics” Vertigo,rear window,psycho,etc. I watched Vertigo last night and found it brutally boring and criminally overrated! Reading the comments I know I’m in the minority! BTW you remind me of the actor Frank Whaley ( Brett from Pulp Fiction)

I get why people like it, I like it to, it’s flawless for what it is… but there are just so much better, interesting and complex movies out there… don’t get why people celebrate it that much…

The movie had nothing to do with vertigo tho..should of been named acrophobia..

Vertigo is boring

I don't understand why people like this movie. I just watched it for the first time and I hate it. All the main characters are despicable people and the movie is full of implausible, unbelievable situations. People fall in love after mere hours of acquaintance. Scottie is madly in love and grieving, but doesn't recognize his beloved mere days later. It's all just absurd and demented.

Sorry to say, but it's one of the absolute worst movies I've ever seen in my life, pretty much in every regard (acting, directing, screenplay, plot, etc). One unforgivably bad element is the fact that the love between the two main characters, upon which the story completely hinges, is so poorly contrived. They have zero chemistry, and very little meaningful interaction (little interaction at all, in fact), yet we're supposed to believe they're in love?! I'd understand if it were just Scottie as he's a twisted man, but her too? Completely negates any sense of coherence in the plot, and makes Hitchcock out to be utterly inept at scripting human interaction. Then there's the twist which is completely unfeasible. How on earth did the man get his wife up the tower with no-one noticing? How long was he just holding her there with no bondage without her letting out a single scream?

wait so who jumped off the tower? because wasn’t his real wife thrown off by him, even tho we see her willingly jump with no one else around

This movie was a massive piece of crap! Loved his other movies though...

So Madeline's husband killed her and dragged her dead body around until it was time to toss her off the roof of the mission. Now how could he manage to get a fully dressed corpse up a dozen stairs and not be noticed? Or what Midge who treats Scotty like a little kid even saying "You're a big boy now". The color in this film is very fake looking, like they colored in a b/w film. But what got to me what Jimmy Stewart's terrible acting and the incredibly out of nowhere ending. This film was pulled from the public for many years and I only first saw it on TV when it was re-released. It's just boring and terrible.