Vertigo Staircase Scene
And it works his vertigo is cured but at a high price judy is sacrificed and scottie has become a lot like elster the wife killer.
Vertigo staircase scene. Scottie is forced into early retirement. A lack of props makes us more focused on the action in the scene. Now he is scared and he is feeling his vertigo. Vertigo is a 1958 american film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by alfred hitchcock the story was based on the 1954 novel d entre les morts from among the dead by boileau narcejac the screenplay was written by alec coppel and samuel a.
Cut to medium shot of john still running up the steps. Saul bass insisted that the spirals which represent 19th century equations should be accurate and not drawn freehand which requited both a pendulum and a rotating table specifically an animation stand. Alfred hitchcock s classic film vertigo uses a spiral staircase to set off detective john ferguson s fear of heights and the plot for the rest of the movie. By using a shot that focuses straight down the center of a spiral staircase hitchcock creates a feeling of unrest and the loss of balance.
John hits another wall with the vertigo. Cut to long shot zooming out and in of the center of the staircase. The shot down the spiral staircase of the train station during the final chase scene references vertigo s famous track zoom shot down the spiral staircase of the church tower. Vertigo 1958 in the middle of the staircase he looks down an gets dizzy vertigo again.
The dolly zoom technique gets used again in a scene where detective ferguson is chasing madeleine kim novak on old wood staircase. So climbing the bell tower stairs at the end is scottie s attempt to re enact his trauma from the beginning. Only one prop is used throughout the film opening and that is the gun on the policeman that was fired multiple times make the scene like an action sequence and to show the. For vertigo there is a strong spiral element in the opening sequence spirals that correspond to the staircase that triggers scottie s vertigo.
The film stars james stewart as former police detective john scottie ferguson.