Vertigo (SparkNotes Film Guide)

By SparkNotes

Vertigo (SparkNotes Film Guide)
Making the reading experience fun!

SparkNotes Film Guides are one-stop guides to great works of film–masterpieces that are the foundations of filmmaking and film studies. Inside each guide you’ll find thorough, insightful overviews of films from a variety of genres, styles, and time periods. Each film guide contains:

Information about the director and the context in which the film was made
Thoughtful analysis of major characters
Details about themes, motifs, and symbols
Explanations of the most important lines of dialogue
In-depth discussions about what makes a film so remarkable
SparkNotes Film Guides are an invaluable resource for students or anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the great films they know and love.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: SparkNotes
• Release date: Aug 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781411473904

Book preview

Cover of SparkNotes Guide to Vertigo by SparkNotes Editors

Vertigo

© 2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing

This Spark Publishing edition 2014 by SparkNotes LLC, an Affiliate of Barnes & Noble

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4114-7390-4

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Contents

Context

Plot Overview

Character List

Analysis of Major Characters

Themes, Motifs, & Symbols

Scottie as Everyman

Greek and Roman Mythology

Page-to-Screen Adaptation

Score/Soundtrack

Important Quotations Explained

Key Facts

Review & Resources

Context

Alfred Hitchcock was born to middle-class parents in London, England, fittingly on Friday the thirteenth of August

1899

. When he was twenty-one, he took a job at Paramount Studios in London as a writer and illustrator of silent-movie title cards, which led to work as an art director and finally to a position as a director. He acquired the honorary title Master of Suspense while working on a radio adaptation of his film The Lodger for RKO in

1940

. Hitchcock married his assistant, film editor Alma Reville, with whom he collaborated on all his work. The couple, along with their daughter Patricia, moved to the United States in

1939

, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Rebecca, Hitchcock’s first American-made film, won the

1940

Academy Award for Best Picture. In

1947

, seeking artistic independence, Hitchcock broke with noted Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, with whom he had worked for almost eight years, and formed his own company, Transatlantic Pictures. The company went bankrupt after producing two films that used the expensive and difficult ten-minute take technique, in which the entire script was shot in a series of ten-minute, uninterrupted takes. The point was to create films that appeared to have no editing, but the process was hard on actors and producers alike. Hitchcock then worked a brief stint at Warner Brothers, followed by a run at Paramount, which produced Vertigo. His last film for Paramount was Psycho, in

1960

. He then moved to Universal, where he remained for the rest of his career. Hitchcock also made a foray into American television with his series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which ran from

1955

to

1962

before being reformatted as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which ran for another three years. Hitchcock died at home in California on April

29

,

1980