Relationship Between Scottie And Stephanie In Veertigo

Premeditated cameo appearances. These characteristics depict every Alfred Hitchcock film ever produced. Known for his unique style of psychologically disturbing thrillers, with a tendency to engage his audience in voyeurism, he quickly became a household name after the release of his first sound film in 1929. Hitchcock’s career only gained velocity from there; producing a myriad of successful films in his fifty year span of filmmaking. Arguably the most notable came in 1958, Vertigo; a film chock full of dynamic characters, impressive visual effects, and most importantly, overlooked motifs of self identity, external

The lighting used by Hitchcock also serves to portray Madeleine as a fantasy woman, using the lighting to highlight her face. As Madeleine passes by Scottie in the restaurant she is bathed in a soft light which makes her all the more noticeable against the backdrop of a dimly-lit restaurant. Furthermore, as she passes by him, she is shown in a full body shot in the center of the frame, which Hitchcock uses to create an overwhelming sense of romance. Here, Madeleine is the desired object clearly separated from her mundane surroundings. The viewer is aggressively confronted with Madeleine’s image and this allows us to be swept up in the romantic fantasy along with Scottie. The lighting used in this scene actively draws the viewer to her features and ensures that all attention is on her. The audience are enticed and seduced by her and this stretches to Scottie as well as we can see that he is drawn to her and has to make an effort to be covert.

Within comptemporary society, there are many ways to define gender. Gender includes all the characteristics that differentiate masculinity and femininity. The existence of masculinity create problems for every men because they are constantly pressured to behave in a certain way in order to look masculine. In the story “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett, masculinity is negatively depicted as problematic toward men. In this story, the author displays the negativity of masculinity through the conduct, manliness and reputation of the main character.

Feminist ideas are used throughout this story in both explicit and implicit ways to help describe the gender roles placed upon females in the 1950s. “That figure was a garish blond showgirl, a Hollywood ‘sexpot’ of no interest to intellectuals”. (Page 79) The author explicitly includes the

Alfred Hitchcock uses dramatic and verbal irony to explain women’s powerful intuition compared to men’s analytical skills. Gender differences are presented in a dramatic manner. Further, the short film explains the differences in gender character’s present in the society (Leitch, 18). For instance, men appear to have an arrogant feeling of superiority against women. This is highly evident in the society we live in because there are high levels of gender inequality. Moreover, women in the story act in solidarity-resisting men’s act of superiority. This brings the theme of feminism creatively in the film.

Among the common peculiarities of film noir, the distinct division between the male characters and the different representations of women reinforce notions of masculinity and gender roles. Furthermore, in the 1940’s film noir was Hollywood’s way to illustrate a world in where pessimism and suspicion dictated people’s lives. Mostly presented as detectives or a lone wolf, the men are portrayed as cold-hearted, disconnected, and cynical to show their hopelessness and disillusionment of the society they lived in. Along this depiction, multiple women are placed into different roles, to either play the seductress and/or a menace to the male protagonist. In the The Maltese Falcon film noir, the male protagonist is characterized as a typical male

Gender roles have been, and unfortunately still are, evident in our everyday lives for quite sometime. Women are often portrayed as sexual objects, or delicate individuals; a body with no brain or strength. These traits are easily found within many novels and movies- old and new. In Alfred Hitchcock’s films, Rear Window and Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock begins his films representing women with the same characteristics as stated above. They are very stylish, attractive and presented as second-class individuals to males. But after examining these two films, Hitchcock does something that many directors in his time would not have dared to do. By making the women the heroine and arguably the protagonist of the storyline, Hitchcock proves to

Nature of appearances is another theme in the film. The woman at the beginning was one of them but there are more throughout the movie. When Scottie is running up the staircase in the church, his facial expressions are shown, and it is the expression of fear. Also, when Judy becomes “Madeline” again, it is a big part in the movie. Her character is nothing but appearances. She is based on the legend of a dead woman and Scottie is trying to make Judy look exactly like Madeline because he sees her in Judy. Romantic delusion is another theme in the film Vertigo. Scottie was so in love with Madeline, that when Judy comes along, and he sees something similar in her, he must make her exactly like Madeline. Also, when Judy is at the top of the bell tower in the church, she sees a shadow and she thinks it is the real Madeline returning to the scene of the crime and maybe trying to scare her or make her feel guilty.

Because women now demanded equal or greater satisfaction than the male, they were beginning to control his sexuality (Kolker, 84). Scottie is the perfect example of the 'weak' male of the 1950's. In the film Scottie and his friend Midge go to a local bookshop to try to find out more about the history of Carlotta. They find out that Carlotta had a child with her lover, and once she had it the man took the baby and tossed her aside. The shopkeeper comments that, "men could do that in those days, they had the power." Obviously he is commenting on the lack of male dominance and power of the day, and men are not what they used to be. In the final scene of the film Scottie finally beats his vertigo, and makes it to the top of the bell tower. The audience thinks that the male will succeed and he has made it to the top. However, once he makes it up there his world has once again fallen apart when Judy tumbles out the window, literally illustrating that women are men's downfall. The power that he processed in Judy is lost again and he is left with nothing. In an interview with Alfred Hitchcock's daughter, Pat Hitchcock from the documentary Obsessed with Vertigo, she says that, "I think Jimmy (Scottie) personified, for my father, every man. So that when they would see the picture they could put

Hitchcock’s romantic style is evident in the comparison of the characters in Hitchcock’s films Vertigo and Psycho. McCombe reference John Calabrese who described Romanticism in Vertigo as the “dark, sinister aspect of the character that distinguish the romantic hero.” McCombe points out that those aspects and qualities are evident in Norman Bate (Psycho) and Scottie Ferguson (Vertigo). McCombe tells how romanticism entails the suspension of disbelief. The Birds plays on this element of fantasy by having the birds deviate from their normal behavior to attacking humans. Similarly, Coleridge uses the element of fantasy in the real world in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Next, McCombe discusses how the

Stephen King employs colorful visual imagery, personification, and vulgar, dominating diction to display Jack’s failure to maintain aspects of his masculinity such as expectations to provide a sense of safety and a proper shelter for his family as well as the desire to remain the head of his household during the resurgence of the wasps. King utilizes vivid color and visual imagery to highlight Jack’s deficiency in terms of masculinity. King states, “[Wendy] took a coloring book off [Danny’s] worktable and slammed it down on the wasp. It left a viscous brown smear” (191). The smear left by the wasp is depicted as brown, a very opaque color with a dirty and polluted connotation.

Midge also contradicts the male gaze because she is placed in a position of power over Scottie, as he goes to her to deal with his vulnerabilities regarding acrophobia in the beginning of the film. Midge’s position of power over Scottie is further affirmed as she refers to herself as “mother” multiple times in the film. An example is seen when Scottie mentions seeming lost in the mental hospital and Midge replies “You’re not lost, Mother's here.” Scottie’s acceptance of this represents a castration affect not typical to the male gaze, as well as the extremely atypical acceptance of a female in power in a film by a lead male.

Judy is fetishised into Madeleine as the lost object and, in the process, she is made the object of inevitable disappointment. Scotty can never be satisfied with the substitutive object and Judy must become the object of his revulsion.

The issue of female persecution throughout many of Hitchcock’s films has been fiercely contested, none more so than the controversial issue of assault and the attempted rape of a woman. Views that Hitchcock represents the archetypal misogynist are supported, Modelski suggesting that his films invite “his audience to indulge their most sadistic fantasies against the female” (18). Through both the manipulation of sound and the use of language, none more so than in Blackmail and Frenzy, the idea of rape and violence does effectively silence and subdue not only the women in the films, but the also the women watching them (18).

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre displays cases of physical and social restriction, along with instances of avant-garde emotional freedom in terms of Jane Eyre’s freedom of choice in leaving Mr Rochester and rejecting St John River’s proposal.