A stunning film, although would've been better without...

I agree!

Much as I also wish the supernatural quality of the film's first half could've been retained somehow, it'd be a pretty difficult watch if Judy & Elster were innocent: there'd be no sympathy for Scotty at all! Though obviously not it's main purpose, the murder plot is required to take the edge off Scotty acting upon his feelings for the wife of another man (in this scenario an old friend and caring, concerned husband).

Already there's frequent threads/posts that mention difficulties in liking Scotty (even with Jimmy Stewart in the role?!). I don't think all the dreamy etherealism in the world could help me tolerate (let alone enjoy) watching him selfishly shape Judy if it was completely undeserved. Plus, if Judy was a new character the movie's shift in focus towards her would be kinda bizarre (although there would be more of a parallel between her feelings for the 'possessed' Scotty and his feelings for Madeline).

It'd certainly be POWERFUL viewing: the ending would feel like the beginning of a vicious circle... will he try and sculpt other innocent lookalikes?

I agree, I was so intrigued by the supernatural element and then it fell flat.

A few reviews that I read recently give some explanations for it. Hitchcock wanted to divert the focus to Scottie's obsession, and also to make Judy a sympathetic character. I just watched it again and it does have that effect. If they had waited until the last scene for the reveal, you wouldn't have cared about her or believed a word she said. Instead, you see that she is broken and really does love him, but it's too late. She stays with him trying desperately to get him to love her the way he loved "Madeleine" - and the scene in the hotel when the transformation is complete, and she steps out like an apparition, you see that too. He finally looks at her the way he did before and she is sated, he loves her again. Notice in the following scene (just before she puts on the necklace) they are the happy couple. Ultimately all Judy wanted was to be loved, she got ditched by Elster, and she couldn't have Scottie. And the last part of the film is her desperately trying to get him to love her for her, and she pathetically goes along with him transforming her back into this ficticious woman just to get it. In the end, Scottie realizes the woman he loved actually NEVER existed - Madeleine wasn't real, and Judy wasn't really anyone.

I also saw an interesting interpretation of the standard Hitchcock "Mcguffin" or red herring. They suggested that in Vertigo, the Mcguffin is actually the plot itself. Because at the end of it all, the movie really isn't about a guy murdering his wife and setting up his friend as the witness. The story is actually about obsession and longing and what lengths these people are willing to go through for it.

Judy's not an actress. And the whole point is that it's real, not supernatural. It's a real obsession. The "plot" is a McGuffin, something Hitchcock talks about extensively. But the plot does allow those great lines--"you were a very apt pupil, a very apt pupil", "you shouldn't have been so sentimental"--I love that scene.

I thought it was going to turn out that he had planted seeds of madness in his wife's mind so she would kill herself. Still wouldn't describe it as stunning.

I liked it. I thought Hitch was playing with the format, as he did in Psycho, offing the heroine early on. It was all the more shocking for its positioning, and forced us into a huge gear change to address the rest of the movie.



No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.