Vertigo | Widewalls

Vertigo is Alfred Hitchcock’s best critically recognized film, so it is not strange it was a subject of various analyses over the years. On the other hand, it is the most complex feature in visual terms.

It is fascinating how the use of color and light as purely visual, plastic constituent units is handled, as well as certain formal elements like transformations and repetitions. It has to be underlined that this film is actually among the first ones to use computer graphics; the use of the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, which perfectly visualizes main character’s acrophobia. Since then, this effect is referred to as the Vertigo effect and it encapsulated best Hitchcock’s imagination in the creation of enthralling, fascinating artistry.

Interestingly so, the effects were produced by John Ferren, as well as the notorious Carlotta portrait looked at by Kim Novak in a museum.

Featured image: Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo, 1958. Image via serenevelocity.files.wordpress.com