Vertigo: Not Fear but Obsession

Vertigo: Not Fear But Obsession

When I was watching the film, actually, I didn’t feel very scared. What I really felt is full of confusion, suspense and obsession. After I watched the film, I felt breathless and dizziness. Therefore, I agree that the central feeling in the film is not fear, but obsession. At the beginning, Gavin Elster met his friend Scottie and asked him to follow his wife. Gavin suggested that maybe his wife being obsessed by the ghost of her grandmother. There were many scenes that Scottie followed Madeleine. The sense of Scottie tailing Madeleine by car through the streets of San Francisco, the car seems to be floating above the pavement. Gradually, with the growth of Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine, Scottie began to suspect that Gavin might have been right. At the same time, he fell in love with Madeleine deeply. Scottie is no longer a logical, detached observer, because he has fallen into a plot and lost himself. The story goes on, Madeleine unexpectedly commits suicide. Scottie’s acrophobia prevented him from saving her; she died by leaping off of a tall bell tower. Scottie, after spending half a year in a mental hospital, wanders aimlessly about San Francisco visiting all the places he had seen Madeleine. Then he discovers a woman named Judy who resembles Madeleine. Scottie got mad that he tried to transform Judy in clothes, hairstyle, and speech into his image of Madeleine. Through all this, we find that Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine is becoming madness. He doesn’t decide that he must relive the traumatic incident which causes his breakdown until he discovers a piece of Madeleine’s jewelry in Judy’s dress. Therefore, he takes Judy to the bell tower. Finally, he cures from his vertigo, but Judy died. Personally, I think the central feeling of the film is obsession instead of fear. Scottie’s obsession is one of the threads of the film. Gavin takes advantage of Scottie’s obsession to murder Madeleine. Besides, I think Judy died because of his obsession.