Mulvey: 1975: “Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema”:

• the way movies unfold is caused by the men who make them
• sexual difference in classical Hollywood cinema:
  • gender-specific roles: bound to voyeurism:
    • male star: aggressive, controls events: looks
    • female star: passive, objectified: looked at
  • von Sternberg:
    • Dietrich’s body turned into fetishistic object:
    • direct delectation of male spectator (both in film & outside of it)
  • Hitchcock: takes it further:
    • spectator involved w/hero’s predicament:
      • looking at women thru eyes of hero &
      • thru subjective presentation of hero
• VERTIGO: hero part of patriarchal order (policeman):
  • power to look at woman part of “right “ of male in patriarchal society
  • narrative woven around what Scottie sees (or not):
    • thru his POV (his voyeurism):
  • we watch perfect image of female beauty: not real person
  • film focuses on split:
    • male = active-looking
    • female = passive-looked at

Wood: 1965: before Mulvey:

• acknowledged more pivotal role for women in VERTIGO:
• 1. compares Madeleine w/Midge
  • mysterious illusion vs. cards-on-the-table reality
• 2. Scottie’s dream: he achieves identity w/Madeleine:
  • sinks into her grave, falls on roof, wants to die in her place
  • his attraction to Madeleine: identification:
    • his desire for annihilation
• 3. Madeleine: not just an acted role for Judy: but a persona:
  • pretense: Carlotta takes possession of Madeleine:
  • reality: Madeleine takes possession of Judy
• 4. mystery divulged half-way thru film: difference this makes:
  • because we know about Madeleine:
    • we watch Scottie (as well as watch with him):
    • studying the process of uncovering the obsession
  • we are more aware of Judy’s feelings
• 5. doubling or symmetry: things repeated in film:
  • 2 trips to San Juan Bautista
  • 2 shots of Judy at Scottie's:
    • as Madeleine & as Madeleine after Scottie’s transformation
  • symmetrical presentation:
    • used to comment on what Scottie’s doing to her

Wood: 1983: after Mulvey: “Fear of Spying”:

• Hitchcock: charges of misogyny
• yet sense of disruption of this agenda by female characters
• revelation of mystery half-way thru film:
  • calls into question talk re: “power” & “freedom”
  • exposes romantic love as fantasy & fraud
  • places emphasis on Judy: not as work of art but as human being
  • Scottie’s consciousness central to film but:
    • because we know more than he does: our relationship to him changes
  • film depicts reconstruction of woman as fantasy/work of art
  • ruthless analysis of basis of male desire: exposes its mechanisms:
    • (re)construction of woman called into question

Keane: 1986: “A Closer Look at Scopophilia: Mulvey, Hitchcock and Vertigo":

• final sequence: driving to San Juan Bautista: not in 1st trip: Judy’s POV of Scottie in profile:
  • Scottie presented as villain: Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT
  • Hitchcock declares sympathy for Judy, exposes Scottie’s madness
• Judy’s final POV: shrouded figure represents to her:
  • 1. the being of Scottie’s vision: herself as spectre
  • 2. a projection of her inner being: part denied by Scottie’s vision
    • their kiss: her alternatives:
  • 1. become a ghost: Carlotta? Madeleine? Judy herself? --- or ---
  • 2. accept conditions of Scottie’s love: violate her own desires
    • her leap from tower: denies both alternatives
• Hitchcock presents a version of his directorial powers thru surrogate w/i film:
  • Scottie “casts” Judy as Madeleine: just as Hitchcock “cast” Novak
• Novak figure occupies center of film: VERTIGO offers lesson to viewers:
  • Novak: represents film & Hitchcock
  • Stewart: represents viewers incapable of acknowledging film or maker
• VERTIGO addresses claim that women can suffer unacknowledgement in film
  • VERTIGO really opposes Mulvey’s interpretation:
    • Scottie’s inability to acknowledge Judy is condemned
• Mulvey blind to woman’s role in VERTIGO & to Hitchcock’s allegiance to her:
  • Mulvey’s relation to VERTIGO = Scottie’s relation to Judy

Modleski: 1988: The Women Who Knew Too Much:

• male spectator: as much deconstructed as constructed by Hitchcock’s films:
  • Hitchcock’s films reveal fascination w/femininity
  • throws masculine identity into question & crisis:opens space for female spectator
• VERTIGO: identification w/Scottie severely disturbed, even before Judy’s flashback:
  • 1. film’s preoccupation w/female clothing
    • Scottie’s vertigo associated w/femininity
    • suggestion that femininity largely male construct
      • femininity a matter of external trappings:
        • woman playing a role: w/o essence
    • woman as social construct: man must know & possess her
      • if she doesn’t exist, then neither does he
    • man faced w/prospect of his own nothingness: fear of death
    • the abyss: her open grave: iconography thruout film: arch-shaped forms
  • 2. mirror shot:flower shop: on return to A shot:
    • Scottie & Madeleine both in same shot: looker & looked at:
    • Scottie tries to control her but he’s repeatedly thrown into mirroring relationship
  • 3. duMaurier plot: woman obsessed w/ancestor she must live out same tragic fate
  • 4. Scottie’s dream: he identifies w/Madeleine
    • after dream: he becomes like “Mad Carlotta”: looking for lost child
    • after dream: Scottie wanders streets looking for Madeleine:
      • faulty POV shots discredit him, make us wary
    • faulty vision: ties him more closely w/feminine position
      • Hitchcock women: impaired vision: NOTORIOUS / MARNIE /PSYCHO
  • 5. Scottie’s pain: comes from realization that Madeleine “created” by another man:
    • Elster: “trained” & “rehearsed” Judy before he did
    • when Scottie thinks he controls woman: “freedom” & “power”
      • finds he’s caught in repetition: unfreedom & death
    • like woman: Scottie manipulated by Elster: like a woman: like:
      • victims of men: Judy, Madeleine, Carlotta
  • thruout film: we identify w/ Scottie: identifies w/Madeleine: identifies w/Carlotta:
    • woman thus becomes ultimate point of identification: for all spectators
  • we condemn woman’s duplicity: but at same time: we must also acknowledge:
    • way she is used, cast aside, tortured, killed off
    • as man desperately tries to sustain sense of himself