#9 - Vertigo

I'm still not entirely sure I understand this movie. This usually means that a movie is great, if I don't get it. One of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpieces, this 1958 psychological thriller may have invented its genre, but definitely made it infinitely more popular.

The main storyline of the movie is the relationship between Scottie Ferguson (played by an aging, but still brilliant, James Stewart) and a woman he is supposed to be spying on, a friend's wife. The reason for his detective work is his friend's suspicion that his wife may have been inhabited by a dead woman's spirit (Oh, Hitchcock).

The movie follows their relationship, which ends up becoming romantic. And then it gets really weird, a little over halfway through the movie. What looks like a tragic suicide ends up being a truly awful conspiracy to confound Ferguson and get rid of a nagging wife.

The movie was more experimental than I thought it would be -- more cutting-edge. There is a dream sequence pretty deep into the movie. For there to be a dream sequence, this lengthy and this high on the weirdness scale, has got to be unique for a mainstream movie made in the 1950s. Just watch it.

I've seen a couple of Hitchcock's movie before, but I've never really grasped how masterful his work was, until now. The shots he uses can be modern and inventive, or subtle and classic. Although he dealt almost exclusively with the horror/thriller genres, I think he has one of the widest directorial ranges of any director, ever.

When the movie first came out, it was met with mixed reviews. People thought the movie was too long with a plot that was labyrinthine, bogged down by too much detail. It was only in 1983, when the film was re-released, when it was accepted as the thrilling, cerebral movie it is.

A movie that deals with issues deeper than the human psyche, Hitchcock's (most ambitious?) offering is nothing short of cinematic genius. A gripping (though confusing) story, with a great performance by the sphinxlike Kim Novak, wrapped around with a strand of good old Hitchcockian intrigue all make for a most enjoyable ride, fully deserving of its lofty position on the list.