SYNOPSIS

When the restored version of Vertigo debuted in theaters, it reignited interest in and appreciation for what is generally considered to be Hitchcock's most personal work. It also underlined Hitchcock's technical mastery in the use of color and camera effects (the famous zoom-in-doily-out shot used to simulate vertigo) and the importance of Herrmann's jittery score. Stewart plays another character (as in Rear Window) who, because he is psychically or physically separated from his real life, creates an imaginary, anxiety-provoking substitution. Stewart leaves the San Francisco police force after his vertigo leads to a partner's death. He takes a job tailing the wife (Novak) of a school friend who has been behaving strangely. When he saves her from a suicidal plunge, his fascination turns to longing, a longing that comes to a bitter end when she seemingly succeeds in dying, again due to Stewart's vertigo, in a leap from a bell tower. After gathering his shattered mind in an institution, Stewart spots a woman with an uncanny likeness to his lost love. His obsession drives him to re-create her in the exact image of his suicidal lover, forcing a confrontation with the truth of her identity. Critics have long discussed the relevance of the Stewart character's manipulating of the Novak character and the director's own obsession with creating the ideal cool-blonde heroine. Among the most fascinating and suspenseful of classic movies. The special edition video release has been restored and remastered from the original negative. Based on the novel D'Entre Les Morts by Boileau and Narcejac, the authors of the story for French director Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).