Vertigo

Vertigo

From minute 13 - 25, At around minute 20, we see that Scottie follows Madeleine into an alley that leads to the florists shop. In this week’s reading, the author mentions the significance of such scene. Some key characteristics of the sequence already mentioned by the author include: we followed Scottie through a dark back room, and then through a subjective shot Madeleine is framed among flowers and under the warm soft lights, with the love themed soundtrack; as she turns back, we see Scottie in the door opening, while Madeleines in a mirror image. The author emphasizes on Madeleine’s association with death based on the mise-en-scene, and also discussed the mirroring relationship between Madeleine and Scottie. In addition to the camera work, I wanted to talk about the space a little bit more. Firstly, I want to point out the significance of entering the florist shop through the back door. This is the first location that marks the beginning of Scottie’s stalking of Madeleine, so this sequence could be seen as the establishing shot of Scottie’s impression on Madeleine. Hitchcock intentionally planned for the characters to enter from the back alley, but the real filming location Podesta Baldocchi's did not have a back entrance. So the filming of the back alley was actually done in a nearby one and then carefully edited together. One could say that entering from the back alley puts a lot more suspense and mystery into this simple action of stalking. And the long dark back room can almost be seen as Scottie being lost in his lacking of identity and trying to find Madeleine in order to find himself. The dark tunnel-like room is almost like the Belly of the Whale if we associate it with Hero’s Journey. The darkness in the “tunnel” is then put into sharp visual contrast with the soft lighting and colorful flowers in the florist shop. Other than what Modleski defined as the funeral atmosphere, we also see the color green appears for the second time, after Madeleine’s dress earlier in the restaurant, and the color green would reoccur again later as the symbol of desire. During the shooting, art director Henry Bumstead recommended shooting the flower shop scenes on location (although normally Hitchcock prefers to shoot in the studio), partly due to the visual appeal of floor tiles. The green theme is shown in the forms of floor tiles, the flower gift boxes, and most importantly, the green light that around the mirror. One thing to emphasize is that the green light around the mirror frames Madeleine, representing Scottie’s ideal projection onto Madeleine. And as the author already talks about the double relationship between the two, we could also see the contrast between Madeleine who is framed in the green light and Scottie lurking in the dark tunnel. Madeleine being framing by the color green is mirrored with the later scene at minute 114, where she enters the bathroom door that is filled with green light. Then to a degree we could say that the color green symbolizes a formal threshold of desire between Scottie and Madeline. !DraggedImage.72dae519ccb249c796a04e2477aa3a59.png

I really like your comment about Madeleine’s clothings! In addition, I wanted to point out that the confrontation in the forest is also where for the first time Madeleine’s symptoms of being possessed are openly questioned by Scottie. As Modleski explains in the article, the conversation was more like a forced confrontation that turns Madeleine’s inner gaze away from the “mother” and to acknowledge his power over her. However, in the back and forth conversation, none of the Madeleine’s answers matches with the “objective” truth that Scottie thought he had. And we, as the audience, are also uncertain about if Madeleine has been possessed in the scene. I think the confusion we feel is similar to Scottie’s, and thus our subjectivity is once again wedded to his. Furthermore, the almost disappearing Madeleine is an example of “the realistic invisible”, where Scottie in his subjective gaze (represented by the panning camera in Tomas’ writing) could not see because she is in his blind space. I also kinda interpret Scottie’s question of “Where are you” as a version of Lacan’s “Che vuoi”, asking Madeleine what does she want from him, what is bugging her (in essence what is bugging him). This question is essentially about his own broken identity, that he is asking himself that: “what am I? What am I for you (Madeleine), and for the big Other”