Hitchcock in the moral climate of the 1950's could not reveal that the movie was really about impotence - the tower represents a phallic symbol, thus his need to conquer it. The scene when the other woman said "Mommy's here" and his complete failure to become aroused by her or any other woman until he meets Kim Novak's character is classic. Vertigo was a metaphor for impotence.

He said, 'metaphorically indulged in a form of necrophilia'. Metaphorically! Not literally. Big difference. It's not 'perverted' to long after someone who is gone. Every human being will at some point do this - when their loved one passes away. In Scotty's case here, his opportunity to actually 'create' the woman he loved (and lost) presents itself, obsessed with this possibility he 'indulges' in the fantasy. And this is 'perverted'? With all the crap being put out in movies and on TV and no one batting an eyelash over that garbage that we see everyday and everywhere, it amazes me that folks have a problem with Hitchcock, calling him a 'pervert'. Good grief what an upside down world it has become.

after all these years , it still gets you , hitchcock was a genius .

This is a pain to watch if you speak both english and french.

It's incredibly interesting, The contrast as well as connection between the director's inner vision vs. what we actually see taking place on the movie screen.

Think of it this way. Scottie is trying to raise the dead. Only when Judy has "become" the dead Madeleine can he respond emotional/sexually to her. This is an expression, metaphorically and psychologically, of necrophilia, yet in an oddly, disturbingly beneficial way. Judy, who plunged Scottie into his vertiginous plummet into depression when Madeleine fell to her doom, now raises him from it by resurrecting her deceased alter ego. And you're right about Hitchcock. An extraordinary visionary.

Thanks for posting this. I love Hitchkock's witty humor, even more so after seeing this clip. Vertigo is a great movie.

Hitchcock was a master artist. This is the challenge of art: to lift not only the mundane, the ordinary, to great heights, but to transform what is hidden and unthinkable into something so beautiful and alluring that we can't turn away...In other words, the old guy really knew how to dress up his kinks!

I think this is one of the greatest scenes in cinema history. Still get chills to this day watching it.

"Note title sequence where James Stewart's name appears like a mustache, recalling screen villains of early cinema" - with Hitch there's always something new to discover. Love dissecting his films frame by frame!

Hitchcock didn't realize, when he made these remarks, that, years later, a Race of Disembodied Super Geniuses, inhabiting a Planet called "KZfaq", would contradict and correct his views on the meanings behind his own film! Life in the 21st Century... so amazing!!!!

i love Hitch, he's one of my favorites. but when he talks about sexual things, i dunno, it just seems really creepy.

It's kind of strange. I thought this whole time that the movie was mainly about the effects of trauma and reliving traumatic experiences ( hence the title of the movie). I thought the ending was perfect for this film because I thought it meant that even if we find answers, we still only be left with incompleteness and uncertainty. But I guess this could work too ( I did find it incredibly creepy that James Stewart is recreating a dead lover )

I am a huge fan of "Vertigo," and my mind was blown away when I watched this. How in the hell could I have missed that? WOW! Hitchcock really was a master filmmaker!

I don't see the necrophelia angle, but a man trying to reagain the idealized woman that never really existed. Well, it's in the eye of the beholder. One of my favorite movies. Hitch was, of course, a friggin genius.

Hitchcock's pace of talking matches his scenes' perfectly

Becomes doubly creepy when you realize Hitch's behavior with both Vera Miles and Tippi Hedren, he wanted to make them into another Grace Kelly.

The SHOCKING hidden meaning of Vertigo is this: 'vertigo' is a metaphor for sexual impotence. Scotty's malady is that he can't get "up" The James Stewart character is presented as completely romantically unattached. He has never married, doesn't seem to have (or have ever had) a serious girlfriend even though he's THE most eligible bachelor EVER: he's rich (drives a fancy car, reveals that he doesn't do policework for the money, just for [I guess] the fun of it) he's got a sexy job (he's a cop, and not just a sit-behind-the-desk cop, but a chase-badguys-across-rooftops cop), and he's attractive (he IS after all Jimmy Stewart). And yet somehow, in all his life thus far, he's NEVER had a romantic entanglement?? Hmmmmm! (He was once engaged to Midge, but their relationship is presented as essentially bloodless (pun intended) - - - even the breaking off of their engagement doesn't seem to have caused any emotional rupture in their friendship, even tho' SHE'S clearly still interested). Then Scotty gets a whiff of Kim Novak, and suddenly he's Interested (well, who WOULDN'T be?). I could go on and on about the symbolism in the movie supporting this thesis, but I'll limit my examples to 2: a) at the end, Scotty finally conquers his demons and DOES get "up" (the staircase of the mission) (ironically, a bit late), & b) Scotty appears in an archway in the final shot. The archway is supposed to symbolize the womb from which he emerges now that he is "reborn" (having conquered his malady); but it is ALSO photographed in such a way as to be a phallic symbol (and NOTHING in Hitchcock mise-en-scene is happenstance or left to chance: everything is meticulously storyboarded, and if an archway looks like a phallus, it's because The Master was tryin' to tell us something (subliminally)). The protagonist is reborn sexually. Boo-yah!! If Hitchcock's exegesis doesn't clarify Vertigo that way, it's either because The Master doesn't want to reveal all of his mysteries, or because (like a lot of great artists) he doesn't fully get his own work (translation: doesn't fully 'get' himself). Class: discuss!!

The best movie ever made!♥️🇮🇹🇬🇧

Hitchcock's comments are really creepy

James Stewart's character was killed in the fall. Midge took over his life as she was obsessed with him. It is Midge, changed into Scotty, who is kissing Madeline/Judy.

His original intentions were much more simple than what this masterpiece actually conveyed, and he was always looking for the prime simplicity in meanings and intentions with all his films. That doesn't mean that they were not rich in other meanings and interpretations, especially Vertigo which is probably the richest of them all. No wonder it's one of the most heavily analysed films ever. One of the things I love about it is that every time I see it, it creates a different set of thoughts.

The ending from my point of view is that, both characters were able to overcome their weakness, the male character as in any detective story was able to chose honor over love (unconsciously), he also was able to beat his vertigo, while the woman was able to pay for her sin to committing for a murder, the nun is just a symbol (a moral symbol).

whew! ... my mind is blown.

That smile 2:01 such a mastermind for horror and thrillers

The "impotence interpretation" is interesting and may be right. The only thing I noticed was a verbal blooper in the first 10 minutes. When Kim Novak's screen husband talks to Jimmy Stewart and says that he wants Stewart to follow his wife, he says: "Yesterday, she put more than 30 miles on the speedometer;" instead of saying "odometer". Similarly, in "The Caine Mutiny" I noticed in the court scene near the end of the movie, Jose Ferrer addresses Captain Queeg as "Mr. Queeg." Ironically, this takes place immediately after Ferrer was told by the judges to show Captain Queeg the "utmost respect as a naval officer".

I so agree with you. Hitch's comments were very base.

Perfection.

2:01 hahaha Truffaut's laugh

i think it is very interesting that her true nature of being the same woman is revealed while she is actually being disguised by him like her former role she played for Elster. The Mask (including the final clue, the amulet) reveals her true identity.

I don't know that this was either a secret or shocking. That's what the movie is about, quite hard to miss really, unless you weren't paying attention.

Its not necrophilia, its not accepting the loss of death. Rather a form of love beyond the grave, but also in this respect a special one, one which tries to turn back time, which often appears metaphorical in the film in the form of a spiral - this is emphazised in Markers "Sans Solei", and i think that is what makes this film so special: the conjunction of time and erotic love.

what does alfred said at 0:38?

LOL, I must say that this was not exactly my vision, but that's fine too...

Emotional man

I always thought it could have been intriguing if it turned out the real Madeline was insane and Elster wasn't able to bring himself to kill her...And Judy had died in the tower scene.

This is very welcome, but we need one version for English speakers and another for French. Or else subtitles. As people notice below, two languages prattling at once is a pain in the unmentionables. Try instead the newly released DVD "Hitchcock-Truffaut." Someone claims below that Hitchcock was a "pervert." He wasn't: merely a man who dared to peel the scabs from his own fears. But even if he had been: so many geniuses are outsiders, and therefore at least questionable. We come to them because of what they show us about the human condition, not because we want to marry them or have them as our next door neighbours.

I get this feeling that Hitchcock had a physiological infatuation and he put it I all Jo's movies, but he was fascinated by the dark side of the human psyche, like he was exploring how to silently and skillfully control people through a screen, through what their eyes see and what their mind therefore decides. Yet their startlingly proven to be wrong and it's like you lose yourself along with the character that finally has found something they believed belonged to the grave. Disturbing.

give it to her Jmmy

A mark of a great director - have to be a great psychologist!

Resisting being changed back

"a form of necrophilia" oh shit

But in his mind she was dead.

Same kind of back ground as Marne,,,,,,,

damn...

Midge doesn't take over Scottie after he was killed in a fall. How could they be in the room at the same time?

So that's what was going on in Jimmy Stewart's pants! Now I get the movie!

Elster and Judy are one person.

Meditation

The real Madeline Elster--the prequel.

It looks like. Brilliant! hurried hook What's happening, guys.

He’s joking, but with some truth. Necrophilia is one of the themes. The man is being fed to...

Is he serious?! XD

Mrs Elster killed Judy and became Midge

I'd beg to say the green light symbolism is far more complex than simple death. I'd say it's more akin to martyrdom. Would anyone care to make a video to Corey Daye's "Green light" using Vertigo footage ???

Skit...or so I assume LOL.

that is not hitchcock

Alright, Hitchcock has now ruined this scene for me forever.

How interesting that Hitch describes the woman as being 'unmasked' in this scene, and as having 'stripped'. Typical male gaze distortion. What I see is a woman being totally 'covered up'. Her entire identity is being buried under the demands of this man's creepy fantasies. Sadly, far too many women spend their lives like this, desperately living up to men's fantasies of them.

Create a woman in the image of a dead woman

@ pwthcim...go away troll. Your comments are nonsensical. @Teresa Gib...just ignore the person above. By the way, I've also read where Hitchcock states in the next scene after the swirling kiss in the bedroom when Judy comes out of the bathroom in the black dress that Judy/Madeline and Scotty have just made love...that is the way it was encoded in the movie for the 1958 time period of it's release. Goes along with what Hitchcock said in this You Tube video.

you're nuts!

of fransızca konuşup durdukları için anlayamıyorum yani. jöjöjöjö diyip durmasana ordan.

I don't think that meaning was all that hidden, mate. :P

Oh no I am not! That is the truth about what happened. When Midge found out that Judy loved the real Scotty, Midge threw Judy off the tower

SPOLIERS Someone surmise this film for me again, rich guy hires PI to spy on his wife, he throws another women off the roof, pretending to be his wife, PI finds her incognito and reveals the truth?? Who was the first victim thrown off? What happened the rich guy?

thank you for ruining my childhood memories...this is bad stuff...real bad stuff...Im waiting for the next...Birds..maybe theres some shitty thing going on as well..

LA TRADUCTRICDE EST VRAIMENT MINABLE (THE FEMALE TRANSLATOR IS REALLY BAD !)

The french translator is absolutely awful. Her translations mean nothing

"Vertigo" is long, slow, and flaccid. some great shots of SF. a simple murder plot inflated by hypnotic music and "Vista View". endless phony driving scenes. secret meaning = misogyny. the obsession of filmmakers, dress designers, hair stylists to create an ideal woman. the only good woman is a dead woman. vomit.