Vertigo -Widescreen Edition- [VHS]

Classic Film With Great San Francisco Views
When you think of San Francisco films, several come to mind. The Dirty Harry series (1970s), Bullitt (1968), The Birds (1963)(although that's really more Marin County north of San Francisco), and of course, San Francisco (1936.) However few films show San Francisco quite like Vertigo (1958.) Alfred Hitchcock loved San Francisco and it shows in the locations that he selected for the film. Much of this is pointed out in the commentaries and features associated with the Universal Legacy Series version of Vertigo. This really is a nice package for Hitchcock fans, or for anyone who enjoys classic films. Great care was exercised in the restoration of the film making the DVD's quality first rate. The film has aged well and is still as engrossing as ever. A side note: I live here in San Francisco and recently grabbed my camera to seek out some of the locations shown in the film. Although inevitable changes have occurred over time, many of the locations are still there making it possible for you to stand in the footsteps of Hitch, James Steward and Kim Novak. A second side note: If you are interested in Hitchcock's San Francisco locations, there is an excellent book entitled Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco that walks you through this for Vertigo, The Birds, and several other Hitchcock films. It, like Vertigo, is highly entertaining, highly informative and highly recommended.

Hitchcock's Haunting Masterwork
VERTIGO has always been my favorite Hitchcock movie. This is a brooding tale of obsession, murder, the real vs. the unreal, deception, a love story...all set to beautiful camera technique and gorgeous on-site photography of San Francisco. The score by Bernard Herrmann (which is, in my opinion, his best one of all the scores he did for Hitch) perfectly matches the vertiginous themes in the film with its whirling high and low cresendos, and the tender love scenes where the music seems to build to an inexorable climax like the waves crashing against the shoreline. There's a beautiful shot (my favorite in the film) when Scottie rescues Madeleine from the bay and you see the Golden Gate Bridge extending in the distance... The themes of obsession, love, death are handled so well by the direction and music that the film stays in your mind long after viewing it. It's the type of movie where you see things you never saw before on the first viewing. Part suspense and part mystery, it is, in my opinion, Hitch's best and richest of all his film. It's also one of my favorite movies as well. When are they going to release it on Blu-Ray?

Upgraded DVD edition of a cinema classic, but: where's the Blu-Ray edition of this film?
So much has been written about "Vertigo" itself that a buyer of the "Legacy Series" DVD of the film is probably most interested in whether or not this is a better or worse DVD of the film than has been available before. The "Legacy Series" edition of "Vertigo" is a significant upgrade from prior DVD issues of the film. Nevertheless, it is unclear if this edition is a higher resolution re-telecine of the restored film elements produced during the film's restoration several years ago, and released on prior DVD versions, or if it is merely a reprocessed and tweaked version of the same telecine source from that time. Color is better, luminance is much improved, perhaps increased too much for those fond of the film's more subdued look in past editions. It all looks much better. All of which leads one to ask: where's the Blu-Ray edition of this film? Unfortunately, strong as this DVD edition is, it still suffers from excessive edge sharpening, the shortcomings of the MPEG2 codec used for DVD video, and a light sizzle around finely detailed objects. Even played back on an OPPO BDP-83, which some might argue has the best DVD up scaling technology currently available for home users, the image still stumbles badly on edge sharpening and codec issues. A great upgraded DVD edition, but: where's the Blu-Ray edition of this film?

One of the great ones!
"Vertigo" is now acknowledged to be one of the great ones, although this was not popular opinion at the time. No matter. James Stewart and Kim Novak are both brilliant in this moody, twisty, and ultimately gripping thriller. I will refrain from commenting much about the plot except to say that this film is unusually vulnerable to spoilers, and I do not want to spoil this fine film for anyone who, like me, comes to it later in life. James Stewart is a retired police detective who is asked to follow his friend's wife who is, to say the least, acting strangely. The chemistry takes off, and more would be telling, except to say that very few viewers will see where this one is going. Kim Novak's performance goes well beyond her sometimes "sex kitten" roles, showing the depth and versatility of this fine actress. To add surprise, the film also features the young Barbara Bel Geddes in a supporting role as Stewart's old (now extinguished) flame. The San Francisco and Northern California locales, shot on actual location (mostly not sets), are wonderful. This is one of those films where the setting combined with the musical score sets up the film for an almost unbearable nostalgia. If you watch the DVD, try to find a large TV screen upon which to enjoy this wonderful film. A must for all movie lovers. RJB.

Hitchcock's most ambitious, most personal, and most poetic film
Fellini once said that all people live in a world of private fantasy-- but most people don't know it. Film-- perhaps more so than any other medium-- offers artists a chance to show viewers a world very much like their own-- but which originates from somebody else's head. Point of view, therefore, is somewhere very close to the ground zero of cinematic art. And nobody understood this better than Alfred Hitchcock. And nowhere (with perhaps only the exception of "Psycho") did he explore this idea more effectively than in "Vertigo." The very concept of the film explores the nature of "knowing" but not understanding the world we observe around us. James Stewart, as Scotty, is a rational man. He believes he can break down the world using logic, and make sense of it. This belief leads him to insanity and tragedy. In the first half of the film, Hitchcock lures us into his POV-- and we are happy to oblige, at first seduced by Scotty's logic, his normalcy. But slowly he changes-- and so do we. We drift into a dream state inspired by mystery and desire. A state from which we do not wish to be removed. But we are: twice, in fact. The result is an emotionally devastating experience that is at once a disturbing portrait of love and an even more disturbing allegory of what it means to be alive, trapped in a world exactly as described by Schopenhauer as "Will and Idea" that will never conform to any person's obsession-- no matter how grand. The human condition, in "Vertigo," takes the perfect shape of a masterful work of art. Certainly one of the greatest of all films.