VERTIGO- "INCEPTION" of its own era.

Vertigo is the masterwork of a great director at the very peak of his talent. If I could come up with any more superlatives then I would shower them upon this film because it’s one of the most beautiful, moving, provocative and emotionally insightful works that the cinema has ever produced. Needless to say, it flopped on release and then vanished from sight for the best part of twenty five years, leading some to claim that its reputation was based more upon its unavailability than any superior intrinsic quality. That this is not the case has become clear since its re-release in 1983 and is even more obvious now that the film has been painstakingly restored to its original visual splendour by Robert Harris and James Katz. When he made it, Alfred Hitchcock was 59 years old and everything he had learned about cinema in his 38 years in the business is poured into Vertigo with a painful emotional intensity and visual passion that is unlike anything else he ever directed. Fans may argue about their favourite Hitchcock. Indeed, I often think that the Hitchcock movie I like best is either Notorious or North By Northwest. But the one I keep coming back to, in the certain knowledge that I will find something new while experiencing the same thrill of cinematic discovery that I felt on first seeing it, is Vertigo.