Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) is a very mysterious movie about a retired detective with acrophobia who is given a final job to track down an old friend’s wife, Madeline, whom he believes to be possessed by her dead ancestor Carlotta Valdez. Most of the movie involves Scottie, the detective, following around Madeline before he ends up saving her and falling in love. Eventually, Madeline ends up throwing herself off a church to her demise, and Scottie spirals into a trauma-induced obsession with the woman he loved. Turns out, she is alive but she was an actor named Judy. Scottie finds Judy and tries re-incarnating Madeline through her. The vertigo that Scottie experiences due to his fear of heights is also a symbol for his love obsession with this woman that was more a deception than a real person. Judy, Madeline, and Carlotta are all characters who are blended together into the same person in a lot of ways and the music in the film highlights that with a confusing, spiraling, and leitmotif-based score.
The very first music that is heard in the film is also one of the major themes, and that is what I will call the “Vertigo theme” or the spiraling theme. Visually, the spiral motif makes several appearances. Right away in the film, there are abstract light-trail graphics that spiral into the screen as it is showing the opening credits. Spirals are emphasized in the flowers and in Madeline’s hair bun, portraying her supposed obsession with the elusive Carlotta Valdez. At 1:16:00 of the movie, the staircase that John is climbing is shot from a bird’s eye view where Hitchcock implements the famous dolly zoom or Vertigo zoom, which also represents a spiral. This spiral is directly correlated with the vertigo he is experiencing from the heights. Finally, there are many spirals during the surrealist scene during Scottie’s dream where he is suffering from the guilt and trauma of seeing the person who was his contract and his lover die. The musical theme is most often heard with a flute and a harp arpeggiating an augmented chord in quarter note triplets, ascending and descending. Both parts are playing augmented chords in the same rhythm but they are playing different chords in contrary motion. The contrasting up and down pattern and the polytonality creates confusion for the listener, as if they are experiencing the vertigo that Scottie might feel from his acrophobia. Furthermore, the way that augmented triads have tones of equal intervals lends itself to a cyclical pattern when they are arpeggiated as they are in this theme, creating a sense of spirals. The “spiraling” is a narrative theme as well. John spends the first half of the movie or so constantly following Madeline around the city, the same places again and again. With Judy, he is suffering from obsession for the woman who died in his mind and is constantly circled back with trying to reinvent her through Judy. John begins to fall apart, and the charming version of his character that the audience saw in the beginning of the film beings to fade.
Kim Novak perhaps has the most challenging role in the movie, having to play the part of two or debatably three characters at once: Judy, Madeline, and the restless image of Carlotta Valdez. Because there are different characters with just one person, having unique leitmotifs to identify (or obscure) the different characters is very effective. When she is first introduced at the restaurant, the score presents Madeline’s theme. It is song-like, sentimental, and full of sighing gestures with suspensions in the melody that suggest Scottie’s longing right away. The theme is repeated at various points, such as when our detective follows her into the boutique. The next time the viewer sees Madeline, we don’t get Madeline’s theme but a new musical idea. Over a harp ostinato, curious chromatic chords are played as Madeline appears to be entranced by a portrait of Carlotta, whom the identify of is mostly unknown to the viewer at this point in the movie. All we know is that Madeline seems to be “possessed,” either literally or figuratively, by this figure known as Carlotta Valdez who has her own theme. A theme for the character that doesn’t really exist takes the role of casting the uncanny spell that she is somehow being summoned into reality. Furthermore, the unending ostinato that underlines it is reflective of John’s repetitive quest at following Madeline around. At about 53 minutes into the film, the themes are somewhat combined with an ostinato played by the strings under what could be a variation of Madeline’s theme as Scottie is following Madeline back to his place. This occurs after Scottie has learned more about the mysterious past of Carlotta Valdez, and this part of the score may be used to represent the blurring between the two people in Scottie’s head and his growing doubt that her strange behavior is mere coincidence.
Later in the film, Scottie loses Madeline and begins seeing Judy. When he first lays eyes on her (after Madeline’s death), she is introduced with part of Madeline’s theme to tell the viewer what Scottie is thinking about. However, after we learn who she is and her backstory through the internal monologue in the letter, at about 1:42:00 there is a new theme which is Judy’s theme. This is the true Judy, separated from the role of Madeline or the draw of Carlotta. As John is trying to alter her appearance to look like the Madeline he fell in love with we hear pieces of Madeline’s theme, until finally at 1:55:00 the fully transformed Madeline enters the frame and the theme plays in full, with complete orchestration. The score here is changing the character Judy into Madeline, but then it takes it a step further at confusing the character once her and John kiss. As the camera rotates around the couple, the score has a sudden transition to Judy’s theme as Scottie has a puzzled look on his face, continuing to blur the lines between the characters and express John’s internal dilemma with the competing identities.
Vertigo is not an easy film, but it is very interesting to analyze. As it turns out, Bernard Herrmann’s score is a gold mine for a film or music student to study the ways in which leitmotifs can not only be used as a way to highlight characters but also as way to intentionally confuse identities. Confusion, deception, and obsession are the best words to describe this film- from the narrative, to the characters, to the visuals, and of course, to the score.
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