American cinema often presents viewers with red herrings and macguffins to create a mysterious impression, especially during the 1950s. Alfred Hitchcock in particular is known for this strategy to the point that if someone asked him about macguffins his brain would immediately go to the works of Alfred Hitchcock. The 1958 psychological thriller, Vertigo, directed by Hitchcock uses macguffins and perspectives to manipulate the narrative of the film which then creates the narrative. The purpose of the film analysis essay "Vertigo" is to examine what techniques and perspectives Hitchcock uses in this film to create the film's narrative. The cinema professor, Edward Branigan, provides a book in which he explains the concepts that "it is necessary to learn to analyze narration". These include how events are presented, knowledge disparities, and knowledge hierarchies. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Within “Vertigo,” Hitchcock uses many techniques to create a disparity of knowledge and present the characters in a certain way to the viewer. In the first part of Hitchcock's masterpiece, the protagonist Scottie is sent on a mission to follow the wife of his friend Gavin Elster because he believes she is "possessed" by his great-grandmother Carlotta Valdes. This mission takes Scottie to a museum where he observes Madeline (Elster's wife) almost seeming to idolize a painting of Carlotta. The staging of Madeline features her hauntingly as she is seen wearing the same hairstyle as Carlotta once, as well as having the same flowers and posture as Carlotta in the painting. This is presented to the viewer through Scottie's eyes as the camera is positioned to give a point of view of Scottie looking at Madeline, therefore immediately aligning the viewers with Scottie giving us the interpretation that we will discover the answers to the riddle that Hitchcock has planted in the film as Scottie discovers them. Due to the alignment with Scottie, viewers are somewhat hypnotized to subconsciously feed into the idea that Scottie feeds into, a key example of this is the idea that Madeline might actually be possessed as the close-ups on Scottie's face they reveal to the viewer that he is warming up to the idea that Carlotta is into her and that she isn't just having a deterioration in mental stability. Branigan states that “the film's manipulation of visual access to knowledge will rely on only a few variables related to the position of the camera.” The placement of the camera within this scene prevents the viewer from solving some of the puzzles as the camera is left with conventional over-the-shoulder shots, POV shots and close-ups of Scottie, almost as if the viewer is spying with him creating the mystery conventional of psychological thrillers. This prevents the viewer from seeing Madeline's point of view making the knowledge received unreliable and limited as the viewer knows as much as Scottie. Disparities in knowledge are also created through the physical obstacle of the pillar that Scottie originally hid behind as this creates a restricted vision, however, Scottie's growing obsession with Madeline creates another obstacle for the viewer as what the viewer can see it will be a distorted perspective. . In Todorov's narrative theory this would be the disequilibrium phase. “Suspense is a paradigmatic example of the way in which a viewer's emotional responses to narrative can be manipulated”; a common theme across Hitchcock's wide variety of films.As previously stated, Hitchcock uses macguffins to create both mystery and suspense in order to provoke an emotional response from the viewer which is presented in the scene where the viewer discovers that Judy is the same person as Madeline and in fact acted for Elster the whole time Scottie followed her. Suspense is created as this is the first time the viewer is without Scottie and is therefore no longer aligned with him. Dramatic irony is created through this situation as the viewer is now positioned with Judy where they receive insight into her perspective and the truth in which they have been blinded by the entire film due to aligning with Scottie and his obsession. This scene is also the first in which the viewer receives a direct address rather than a hidden one, as Judy's voiceover allows us into her thoughts and reveals the truth behind the events that unfolded throughout the film. Within the book Branigan also explores other theorists and their explanations of narrative within films. One such theorist is Ben Brewer who "claimed that changes of point of view in a narrative make hierarchies of relative knowledge possible for characters and spectators". In all the scenes leading up to Judy's letter there was both suspense and mystery for the viewer as they knew the same amount about Scottie but less about Judy Madeline, however, this is the first scene where there is a real surprise to the viewer as the viewer is now higher in the knowledge hierarchy as he knows both perspectives and knows the truth before Scottie, creating a disparity in knowledge between the viewer and Scottie. The viewer's hierarchy of knowledge confirms Colin McCabe's “hierarchy of discourses” theory and “aims to place the viewer in a position of superior knowledge.” The cinematography, mise en scene and music within this scene reiterate the suspense created for the viewer due to the green motif that follows Judy throughout the film, first it was her green car and now her clothes. The green motif is "associated with Scottie's dizziness and dizzying fear of falling" which then progresses into "dizzying fear of falling hastily and delusionally in love", already suggesting to the viewer that Scottie's perspective should not be trusted and revealing the manipulation of movies for everything. The cinematography consists of close-ups of Judy's face showing her deep in thought while the viewer listens to her voice-over; the fact that Judy decided to stay and see Scottie once again creates an imbalance as Judy's weakness and vulnerability to Scottie is ultimately the reason for her death as she is unable to let go of the past just as Scottie is not able to let go of the idealized version of Madeline. As Judy opens the closet, the camera is positioned in an over the shoulder shot that allows the gray dress Judy wore as Madeline to be seen and removes the closet obstacle confirming the viewer's suspicions before the voice out field and confirming classic cinematic conventions for psychological thrillers. Hitchcock's bomb-in-a-briefcase theory explains how suspense, mystery, or surprise is created for the audience through what the viewer knows versus what the characters know, in this case the viewers know Judy's secret and Scottie does not. “Hitchcock recognized that these effects can be intensified depending on what we know about a character and our emotional involvement with him or her,” thus intensifying the surprise for the viewer as he or she is unfamiliar with learning information that Scottie is not knows. Non-diegetic music intensifies the scene thanks to thesuspenseful tone of deep trombone sound, a typical type of thriller music favored by Hitchcock in his films. The revelation highlights the macguffin of Carlotta Valdes and her insignificance throughout the film while at first the viewer was led to believe that Carlotta was a much more important part of the narrative than her. Ultimately the viewer realigns with Scottie in the scene where the truth is finally revealed to Scottie through a prop that Judy held back from when she played Madeline, the prop was Carlotta's necklace. At this point the power passes from Judy to Scottie as Scottie has now realized the truth about Judy but does not know it, the hierarchy of knowledge now changes again as both the viewer and Scottie know information that Judy does not, proceeding with the dramatic irony except this time it's Judy who doesn't know the whole story. The shift in power is inferred from the high, dirty over the shoulder angle looking down on Judy, showing viewers that Scottie now holds the power again, creating themes of male versus female and power versus weakness as Judy could have retained power if he had. don't let her weakness for Scottie overwhelm her. Female characters being weaker than male characters was a very common occurrence in 1950s American cinema and can still be seen in some films to this day. Before Scottie discovers the truth, he manipulates Judy into looking like Madeline with lines such as "please, Judy, do it for me" and "I told them to pin it down", reiterating the manipulation and power of male characters during the 1950s. The green motif appears once again as the green light shines in the apartment and Judy comes out of the bathroom looking ghostly as the Madeline theme song plays for the first time since we last saw Judy dressed as Madeline. The light making Judy ghost-like suggests that Scottie is holding on to the ghosts of his past and cannot move forward just as Judy cannot move on from Scottie, therefore making both perspectives unreliable as both are stuck on past events and blinded from obsession. The camera placement remains mostly next to Scottie and consists of POV shots, over-the-shoulder shots of Judy and close-ups and the only time it changes is when Scottie has a flashback to Carlotta's painting and the necklace that wasn't been revealed to the viewer before. this scene as the camera placement in the museum scene where Judy was looking at the painting did not allow the viewer to see Madeline wearing the necklace. The viewer gains knowledge through the props and camera positions within this scene. Wittgenstein's theory states that to create a narrative within a film requires both procedural and declarative knowledge, i.e. how and what. From the revealing scene both the viewer and Scottie know how and what events happened to bring us to this point and the truth is now clear to both of them. Judgmental attitudes are also given as Scottie is plotting and manipulating as he now knows the truth, while Judy is compassionate as she is blinded by her love for Scottie. Bordwell has 5 axes which consist of range, self-awareness, communicative, and judgmental attitudes. At this point in the film the viewer is now less limited than before as they know what they believe to be the complete story, self-awareness is more direct, Hitchcock now directs in a way where the film shares more information providing the viewer with a greater degree of knowledge and leaves it up to the viewer to decide what emotional response they will have to whether they will feel anymore.