'Vertigo': How my favorite Hitchcock film proves silence is a virtue

Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo

I have something of a love-hate relationship with old films. I love how they take their time to unfold without a lot of flashy editing but with incredibly well-written dialogue.

I hate how they are often neutered by Hollywood censorship and more often that not plagued with offensive characterizations of women and people of color.

Yet Alfred Hitchcock has always hit the sweet spot for me. While his films were almost never explicit (with the shocking exception of 1972's dynamite and disturbing Frenzy), he always managed to sneak some really sinister and surreal ideas in his films.

My all-time favorite without question has always been Vertigo (1958), I think I saw it for the first time in college and immediately was struck with its lush beauty and themes of obsession and duality. As I grew older I've come to realize that these topics may be my favorite in film.

Although it was not a hit when it originally debuted, Vertigo now routinely ranks among the greatest films of all time and with good reason.

Re-watching it tonight on a gorgeously-transferred blu-ray print I am struck by the usual sensations: Bernard Herrmann's incredible score, Kim Novak's sexy and mysterious heroine and Jimmy Stewart's broken and, at times, disturbing hero.

I was also struck by its silences. The movie boldy risks alienating audiences (especially modern ones) with languid scenes of Stewart's private eye character following Novak's "haunted" housewife. The plot is so twisty and bizarre I'd rather not divulge it but I will say that just like nearly all of Hitchcock's masterpieces it's really not about the plot at all, the film is rich in deeper themes.

I wouldn't recommend it for the uninitiated. Psycho, North By Northwest or even Strangers on a Train are all far more accessible to someone who's unfamiliar with Hitchcock's style of filmmaking.

But for me Vertigo brings unique pleasures every time I see it. It may be the best looking and best shot film of its era.

And it has some very subversive things to say about how men often want to turn women into fantasy objects and how we as film-watchers crave a certain dream-like gratification as well.

When I was a mediocre film student back at Bard College, I tried to get at that with a term paper I wrote on the character of Midge (played by the charming Barbara Bel Geddes). I got stuck on her character because she stood out when I first viewed the film, she seemed to only function to provide exposition for the Stewart character but she was too quirky and assertive to be easily dismissed.

Vertigo

I came to realize that she is a representation of the real world. She has a job, she's grounded with reasonable opinions and attitudes.

She provides a counterpoint to the ethereal Novak character and because she offers Stewart character reality he runs from her because for him (and most conventional men of that time and today) that scares him - he's programmed to think that he'll feel trapped and bored.

He opts instead for a woman he can mold, control and "save", because that keeps him on his toes.

And isn't that why we go to movies anyway, to escape. To be voyeurs or to at least, for a couple hours, transport ourselves to another world or put ourselves in someone else's shoes. Sometimes it's to leave our fears by the wayside if just for a while.

Vertigo is about the literal fear of heights but also the anxiety of confronting life head on. If you've never seen this classic before or are viewing it for the first time, pay close attention to those scenes between Stewart and Bel Geddes. What an awkward dance they do, every line and gesture is very specific and purposeful ("You don't even know I'm here, do you? But I'm here," she tells him) all in the midst of a wildly entertaining mystery.

Sometimes they're right when they say they don't make them like they used to.