The Master of Suspense; Vertigo

Vertigo, is one of Hitchcock’s classics, yet not quite one of my favorites, I am quite partial to birds. Nature attacking humans, it tends to be my thing! Hitchcock is the master of suspense, not just because he knows how to work a story, but for the complex camera work, the way he utilized angles, pans, zooms and tracks to make the viewer a part of the suspense, to really feel what the character is going through, you feel their panic, their fear. He also utilizes music, the way he uses music especially in Vertigo is absolutely masterful.

The music, which was composed by Bernard Herrmann, is used by Hitchcock brilliantly to portray emotion, to show the suspense, to shock the audience to draw us into the scenes.

He uses music to emphasize the suspense of the scenes, for example when John is running to catch Madeline in Mission San Juan Bautista. The music begins to crescendo when Madeline begins to run toward the tower, when John enters the music quiets completely. When he starts running up the stairs the music picks up and crescendos even more. This builds up the intensity of the scene to incredible heights, the music plus the amazing camera work, makes this scene the masterpiece it is.

Other times the music juxtaposes with the scene, building up the suspense without an actual climax. For example, when John begins to follow Madeline, he follows her in his car with the music beginning to build suspense. Once he turns into an empty alley, the music intensifies even more; we follow John as he opens the door, the music is at its peak, and once he peeks inside, the music becomes pleasant and soft and lovely, showing Madeline surrounded by flowers. So he created suspense just to pull the audience in, just brilliant work all together.

Even I personally find Vertigo to be too heavy, its distressing and just uncomfortable at times, it doesn’t change that Hitchcock made some brilliant choices when he made this movie, and it deserves to me a masterpiece.