Vertigo: The Modern Woman vs. the Classical Woman

Introduction:

In 2012, the British Film Institute named Vertigo the greatest film ever made, finally topping Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" which had held its title for nearly 50 years. This prompted me to revisit the film and the discoveries I made about what makes this film stand apart were amazing to me.

Kim Novak played duel roles, "Madeleine" & "Judy"

The Vertigo We All Know:

See if this sounds like the classic Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece "Vertigo" that you know...

Scottie is a man who has failed to reach the heights that his work demands. He wanders through life now, a ghost of a man. As does Madeleine, since she longs for a time past, obsessed with the trappings of a different life and yet sickened by the results of such a life, dominated by the men who abuse them. They are both, born out of time. A tragic existence, doomed to failure, misery and death.

That's the "Vertigo" that I saw recently, but not the one I saw fifteen years ago as a young man...

What is Vertigo REALLY About?

Vertigo is a film obsessed with death, past lives, and a promise of idyllic romance that can never be. It is Hitchcock's Romeo & Juliet. His tragedy of tragedies. But instead of the "Capulets and Montagues", the plot seems to make this about "the Modern Woman vs. the Modern Man". Two lives, so disenfranchised by their current state that they roam aimlessly around San Francisco, not even knowing why. But, let's go a step further... 

To me, the subtext makes the true story "the Modern Woman vs the Classical Woman". After all, the real mystery to solve is Madeleine and Judy. Who is who? And why is their presence in the movie so disorienting and yet powerfully symbolic? Let me explain. To do this we must explore the effects of the emotional undercurrent of the film "Vertigo" and the iconic symbols that underpin it. But first- some history.

Some History:

The late fifties. This was the time of the beginning of modern man and of modern woman. The beginning of the feminist movement and the youth movement. We were on the precipice culturally of all things past and all things modern. WWII and Korea had changed us all in America. Not to mention the "Red Scare"- making us question everything, and what it was all for? The Beatniks and their counter-culture movement made us question everything about American life. 

The American home and culture were in full swing now, at it's prime. What were our true roles in the American home as men and women? Were we equal? Could a woman be free of man's dominion? Wasn't the failure of modern man something to face and possibly to try and repair? And what of the modern woman?

Creating the Modern Woman:

The story of Carlotta Veracruz explains to us this tale of a long lost woman in the film. So, Vertigo tells us, Carlotta was a girl in the mid-eighteen hundreds who was taken in by a rich man, who gave her a child, took the child and soon after, discarded her. "Men could do that in those days..." the storyteller in the film tells us. She roamed, seemingly... half mad, around the small town south of San Francisco, vacantly asking where her child was, similarly to how Madeleine roamed around, seemingly possessed with the past-life of her matriarchal ancestor. She even throws herself into the San Francisco Bay emulating her great great grand mother's untimely end (the story doesn't tell us how far removed).

Madeleine sees herself in Carlotta.

"But, What About The Switcheroo Near The End?"

But, the question is, is this the result of pain from Madeleine or from the existential role of women at this time? Some people may simply chock it up to a simple switcheroo. That the plot and the actions of the characters are quite conveniently "disregarded" due to the murder plot, revealed after Scottie meets Judy. 

But, I am not convinced by this simple "right off" of the major part of the dramatic action of the first half of the story. I am compelled to believe there is more to this first half of the story than a fraud perpetrated on Scottie alone, but that it is perpetrated on the Modern Man, as well as the unsuspecting "Woman of old", who have fallen into the trap and end up left behind, betrayed and murdered. This story and its universality are in question and it resonates with me on this level.

Seeing the fractured personalities.

The Symbology:

So, let me define the symbols: 

1) Madeleine is a rich lady who represents the "Classical Woman"- the woman that Hitchcock is constantly idealizing in his movies. Graceful, mysterious, powerful. 

2) Scottie is the modern man who has realized his failure and is broken. He cannot reach the heights that his work and that normal life demand of him. 

3) Heights are a symbol as well. It symbolizes the great expectation and demands on the modern man to be great. This perfection can only eventually lead to failure and the disenfranchisement that so many felt at this time in history. 

The dizzying heights that Scottie faced on the job, breaking him.

4) Judy represents the New Woman. The femme fatale who is a fraud, a trickster. And yet naive and foolish. She is "the Modern Woman", who is working together with... 

5) The "Old Man." Judy conspires with him to end his wife, the Old Woman or the "Classical Woman", who cannot live with herself, knowing what has occurred in the past. Why does he do this? Freedom? Is he tired of her obsessions with the injustice of the past? We are never told this, except we do know he is a man who seems very comfortable with the heights Scottie realizes he cannot reach. He may be the one who creates or perpetuates these expectations that "heights" represent in the film.

And...

6) Midge is a second incarnation of the "New Woman" which now has a duel personality. The New Woman cannot contain both parts of the Old Woman, so she has fractured into two. The sexually liberated Judy & the rational Midge, who represents the part of the New Woman who never grows up. She has the trappings of womanhood and the desires, but she has forfeited her sexual knowledge for a rational one, as she completely fails to attract her man of choice, Scottie, and perpetuates the fraud of true womanhood as personified in the pairing of "Midge as the Old Woman".

The second example of the fraud revealed.

The Plot Thickens:

So the "New" must get rid of the "Old". This "out with the old- in with the new" from a social and cultural perspective, may seem simply as nature taking it's course. But, it is not that simple in THIS story. Instead, it is taking place as a fraudulent act. 

This is represented by the New Woman, Judy. For what some might mistake as girlish charm in Judy becomes a foolish and absent-minded naivete. She believes her duty is to please and placate the new man in the interest of maintaining the facade. Instead of claiming her equality, she becomes beguiled by Scottie's seemingly innocent desire for her, and in doing so falls into the same sort of trap she laid for Scottie. 

The Old Man, the Man of the World.

My Interpretation:

This is the revealing of the lie of the woman's sexual power over man. As she believes she is using him, she is really being used. I have, as a man, always known that the woman's sexual power over man was always a lie, just as man's sexual power over women is not a real thing. It is like a class struggle, in this case, a war of the sexes perpetuated by those who would use this struggle, this war, to an advantage for those political powers that propagate it.

Vertigo is a Criticism of the Sexual Revolution? 

And therein lies the crux. Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" is an analysis and criticism of the modern ideas of Women's Liberation. The idea that the New Woman can eliminate the Old through fraud, that the New Man can transcend the Old when he realizes that he cannot fulfill the great expectations and chains placed on him. 

Is she the New Woman, or The Old?

But, are we truly given alternatives to these sexual archetypes in the film? Not exactly. But we are given something equivalent. Scottie, after all, "can" reach the heights of the bell tower. But only when he knows the truth about the New Woman. The Classical Woman doesn't actually show herself in this film, for what is shown is only a representation of it. Does this mean, Hitchcock believed the Old Woman was extinct? Possibly. But it does reveal that the New Woman is a fraud. 

That is, regrettably, something Hitchcock does not reveal to us... maybe this is to his credit. But, he does not reveal how a woman might become the Classical Woman he reveres... because he CANNOT know how the Classical Woman becomes the idyllic creature she is. But, we do know he might believe that she, possibly, cannot exist ever again. Like the unicorns of old and like the romantic tragedies like, Romeo and Juliet. They are two souls trapped by fate. Doomed to live an impossible life in their minds, but never in body.

Realizing the fraud and murder that she perpetuated, Judy crumbles. 

The Conclusion (A Challenge):

I don't know about you, but this is not the Vertigo I was taught about. This is not the Vertigo that I saw when I first saw the film about fifteen years ago. But, it is what results after repeat viewings of great films years later with the benefit of life experience to aid in interpretation. 

And, it is a challenge to you viewers out there who watch movies as strictly entertainment- somewhat absently. Believing what others tell you about films and not thinking about them yourself may allow you to watch the commercially popular films- and to enjoy them as entertainment. But, you will see a whole new world of film open to you if you are open to it. If done with knowledge and experience as your guide it will open you to an even richer understanding of what makes films like these great.