The Enchantment
From the moment Scottie sees her, he is entranced. Even across the distance of the dining room from the bar at Ernie’s, Madeline stands out with her blonde hair and the emerald green of her gown against the lavish red wall covering of the restaurant. Hitchcock’s use of color glares at us from the red walls as Scottie’s obsession begins. The green of her gown will echo through the rest of the film and is the color that Scottie will associate with Madeline. The immediate attraction is discernible in the restaurant scene as Madeline and Elster are leaving: Scottie gets his first fleeting glance as she pauses, then turns to look back at Elster. She personifies beauty and elegance, and against his own better judgement, he takes on the job.
James Stewart & Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
The next shot is of Scottie in his car, and then cut to her coming out of her building and getting into her car from Scottie’s point of view. Hitchcock’s choice of the green car provokes thoughts of her in the restaurant the night before. As she drives off, Scottie follows. He becomes her shadow as she quickly becomes his obsession. The longer he tails her, the harder it it will be for him to think clearly. Surely, a trained detective would have been suspicious? He had initially scoffed at Elster’s tale about possession. It is true that he’s just had the trauma of the death of a fellow officer and the guilt that goes along with it, but still? Doing a 180 after a mere glimpse at the woman? We realize that it is the woman in question that turns his head and eventually, sets it spinning.
James Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
The measured pace that began in Madge’s studio, continues as Scottie follows her through San Francisco’s scenic streets of twists and turns that echo the dizzy spiral of his vertigo. The last turn is down an alley behind a flower shop. After she goes in, he follows. Once inside he stands in the shadows, watching while she waits to pick up a pink and white nosegay. Perplexed, he watches. He then goes back to his car and waits, but not before getting a good look at her in her elegant grey suit. When she comes out, he continues to follow.
Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
This time she stops in front of Mission Dolores, and after going through a chapel to follow her, Scottie steps out into a cemetery garden. The Mission Dolores foreshadows Scottie’s later realization of where Madeline is being led. He follows on foot, as she goes to stand before a grave. Seeing her first from a distance, he slowly moves closer until he is almost too close. She moves away and then stops, and he sees her in a clear profile before she leaves the graveyard.
James Stewart & Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
Going to look at the grave stone, we see it from Scottie’s point of view. It is as though she has been led to her own death, and he has followed. It is the completion of the foreshadowing.
Once again he tails her, this time to the Palace of the Legions of Honor and inside the
Kim Novak in Vertigo (1959)
museum, Scottie finds her sitting before the painting of Carlotta Valdes who holds the identical nosegay to the one Madeleine holds in the painting. Her hair style is also similar to Madeleine’s. Scottie asks the museum guard what the name of the painting is and of course is told that it is, The Portrait of Carlotta.
The next stop is where things take another turn in the spiral. It is the McKittrick Hotel and as Scottie gets out of the car and walks toward the building, we see Madeline from Scottie’s point of view already up in the window of one of the rooms. How did she get up there so fast? It seems impossible. When he opens the door, we see the lobby from Scottie’s point of view that it is empty; there is no one behind the reception desk. His glance then follows the stairs to the landing and we hear a voice, “Yes?” When he looks back down there is a woman behind the reception desk.
Kim Novak, Ellen Corby & Jame Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
When we first see the lobby from Scottie’s point of view the rubber plant is there, but the woman is not. Upon questioning, she tells him that Miss Valdes hasn’t been in today confirming that she has been at the counter all morning, oiling her rubber plant. His reaction does not conceal his disbelief. Scottie asks her to go up and check the room. Although she thinks it is silly, she does as he asks.
Ellen Corby & James Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
As she goes up the stairs, Scottie looks perplexed. She calls down to him that he should come up. As he looks up the stairs at her peering down from the landing; the vertigo is suggested, although he has no trouble on the stairs. He thinks he is being led up to Madeline, but when he gets there, she is not in the room. Still, Scottie can’t accept it as he looks out the window and says, “Her car is gone!”
Ellen Corby & Jame Stewart in Vertigo (1959)
This scene strikes me with the same impact that the opening scene does with Scottie hanging from the questionable rain gutter. Even if he had grabbed the officer’s hand, there was nothing to anchor the man and they both would have plunged to their deaths. In Donald Spoto’s exceptional, Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures, he says of the scene at the McKittrick Hotel, “...we are as confused as Scottie. Any logical explanation offered in retrospect–that the two women were in collusion, or that Madeleine escaped through a rear door–is in no way supported by the text or the atmosphere at this point. Scottie wonders whether Madeleine is in fact a spirit or a figment of his imagination.” I would add that Scottie has become an unreliable witness. As we see through his eyes, his confusion becomes our own. We also grope to understand, hoping for an explanation that never comes.
At this point, Scottie has completely left reality behind and is prepared to accept any eventuality without question. We accept it as well. We too, have been enchanted by this chimerical beauty.
NEXT: THE HOOK
