Analyse de Vertigo de Hitchcock

Analyse film Vertigo de Hitchcock

analyse : scène du musée où Scottie observe Madeleine devant le portrait de Carlotta

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24:49 when he enters in the room - 26:29 when he leaves the room

Termes Courants (Anglais) - AFAR

Summary :

Who is Alfred Hitchcock ?

What’s “Vertigo” about ?

Analysis :

1/ bla bla

2/ bla bla

3/ bla bla

To conclude

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Intro :

We choose to analyse the museum scene in the film : vertigo. I'm going to talk about Alfred Hitchcock who was born in 1899 in England and died in 1980. He is known as the master of suspense. He created tension and fear not with words, but with images.

Hitchcock’s style is special: he uses precise camera shots, slow movements, light, and colors to show feelings. He often focuses on what characters see or feel, especially the power of the gaze, obsession, and manipulation.

Résumé film

In Vertigo, he tells the story of John “Scootie” Fergueson , played by James Stewart, a former police officer from San Francisco who had to quit his job because he suffers from vertigo, fear of heights. A friend, Gavin Elster, asks him to follow his wife, Madeleine, played by Kim Novak, because she is acting strangely. She seems to be “possessed” by a dead ancestor, Carlotta Valdes. Scottie follows her and becomes fascinated by her. Gradually, he falls in love, but with a mysterious, almost unreal Madeleine. Later, Madeleine dies under Scottie’s eyes. Scottie then falls into depression and obsession. One day, he meets Judy, a woman who looks a lot like Madeleine. He becomes obsessed with transforming her to look exactly like Madeleine: same hairstyle, same dress, same makeup. It is then revealed that Madeleine never really existed. Judy was playing the role of Madeleine to trap Scottie, it was part of Gavin Elster’s plan to kill his real wife and cover up the crime.

The screenplay, by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, is inspired by the novel : «D’entre les Morts» image written by Boileau-Narcejac (Pierre Louis Boileau and Thomas Narcejac) in 1954. The budget allocated for the movie : 2 479 000 $

→ Abstract

Notes sur la scène analysée :

We see Madeleine sitting in one gallery of the Legion of Honor Museum , completely still. Then a shot shows Scottie, watching her closely. The camera switches between her and Scottie as he walks toward her. Madeleine is then shown from behind, looking at a painting of a woman who seems to resemble her: Carlotta Valdes. The camera cuts to the bouquet Madeleine is holding, then to the bouquet in the painting, with a zoom highlighting their similarity. Next comes a zoom on Madeleine’s bun, and then a zoom on the bun of the woman in the painting. Finally, we see the painting again, and Scottie looks at Madeleine one last time, fascinated, before leaving.

Analysis

1/ The place / physical and psychological presence

A museum is a space defined by silence, distance, and contemplation, a place where everything seems frozen in time. The artworks on the walls don’t react; they are there only to be observed. In this environment, Madeleine starts to seem like an art object, passive, distant, and framed by the gaze of those who look at her, especially Scottie. The museum is also a place dedicated to the past, to memory, and often to the dead, so it creates an atmosphere in which Madeleine appears less like a living woman and more like a figure suspended between life and death. This also connects her with Carlotta: just like the woman in the painting, Madeleine seems ghostly, unreachable, an almost supernatural presence, someone we can look at but never really reach.

The choice of museum raises questions : → Why is there no one in the museum ? Where are they really ? Why is the portrait of Carlotta there with such different paintings ?

This is also where some deeper themes of the film quietly appear. The idea of acrophobia and even a kind of symbolic necrophilia begins here: Scottie is fascinated by a woman who behaves like a dead figure, someone he cannot reach. Psychologically, he starts falling in love with an ideal, a projection, not with a real, present person. By following her from a distance, he creates a version of Madeleine that exists more in his imagination than in reality.

Even if it’s subtle in this scene, the museum moment already suggests that Scottie’s obsession is tied to his own fears, contradictions, and that strange attraction to someone who seems “elsewhere,” almost lifeless.

Spitting image = portrait caché

2/ The gaze

The scene clearly illustrates the idea of the male gaze. Scottie never tries to interact with Madeleine; his gaze is one-sided and imposing. This highlights Scottie’s dominance and his power to project

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