Vertigo
The film Vertigo, directed by Alfred Hitchcock was my first viewing of a psychological thriller made before the nineties. I can only imagine that Hitchcock was a great director to lead the way for directors in the genre of thrillers. The many different story lines made the film a very intriguing until the very end.
In a film review by Roger Ebert, he notes that one of the aspects of the film that makes it great is the way Hitchcock manipulates the story so that the viewer identifies and fears for both main characters. While manipulating the story Hitchcock also leads the audience to hold many layers of emotions for each character. I noticed that by the end of the film my feelings for each character were changing rather quickly.
Ebert’s comments made me realize that Hitchcock’s manipulation of the story manipulated my reaction to the story. I sympathized for Scottie for the majority of the film, from the very first scene when he watched his co-worker fall off of a rooftop up until he started trying to transform Judy to Madeline. At that point I really started to dislike him. I was surprised my reaction, usually when viewing a film I choose the character to identify with and stick with it. I then “switched sides” and felt for Judy, who was trying to make things work with Scotty, I then sympathized for Scottie again during the very last scene after Judy had fallen out of the tower to her death.
Links:
http://www.filmsite.org/vert.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/
